The famous Turkish Fortress Yedikule

Today we will speak about the famous Turkish fortress of Yedikule or Semibashennom castle built by the Ottomans in 1458, shortly after the capture of the city. Mehmed the Conqueror ordered to build a fortress on the site of the famous Golden Gate of Constantinople. The four towers of the fortress wall Theodosiev Turks built a three more powerful.







Originally the fortress was kept the treasury of the Sultan, there were a variety of buildings, including barracks of the Janissaries. Yedikule later used as a prison. In 1895, the castle became a museum.



View Yedikule fortress from the outside, from the city. You can enter by buying a ticket, and walk inside.



You can climb the walls and towers, with wonderful views of the Marmara Sea and the city.





The city walls is quite powerful, broad, going on them as on the road.



This stone staircase, on which you can climb up on the wall. Banister, as you can see, there is no, and if you climb on it was still somehow possible, no longer wanted to go down. Thankfully, three or four such ladders, one was with a handrail.



When Yedikule was a prison, where the sultan held political opponents, including the ambassadors who fought with him of how, for example, PA Tolstoy. Some of them feel quite at ease in the fortress, indulged in literary work and were in constant correspondence with his government.



At the same time it was executed in Yedikule many disgraced viziers, the last emperor of Trebizond and the Wallachian ruler Constantin Brancoveanu.





Everything is destroyed over time, even the bricks. The solution that holds stones and bricks crumble even if his fingers to scratch.



It is composed of sea sand with here seashells.



In a narrow spiral staircase you can climb even higher to the top of the tower.



View the interior of the tower at the top. You see there is a metal structure along the wall? To get here, I had to go and this seemingly flimsy track - not for the faint of heart, I tell you.





















It mentioned earlier the Golden Gate. Exactly what remains of their former greatness. In ancient times, it was the biggest gates of Constantinople, the parade, which was carried out through the entrance to the city during various ceremonies. In fact - this is a triumphal arch



Golden Gate from the outside. They were built by the Roman emperor Theodosius the Great in the 4th century marble. At the top it was then installed a huge statue of Nike, the winged goddess of victory.



Today, the Golden Gate are in terrible condition, completely desolate



View of the Golden Gate from inside the fortress.













Source: fototelegraf.ru