We spent most of the day walking the remains of the Byzantine land wall around the old city. This is, of course, the Wall to end all walls, the wall by which all other huge walls are measured (well, except for the one in China), the wall that only got a hole knocked in it when the Ottomans built some of the most ridiculously large cannons ever specifically for the purpose. Needless to say I was pretty excited. We began at Yedikule, a pretty classy-looking star fort at the eastern edge of the land walls, and walked the length of the wall to the Golden Horn.
The space in between the walls is being used to grow crops! How hilarious! It's a pacifist's dream come true. I'd assumed this was some post-siege warfare development, and I already had some clever "the Turks have beaten their swords into plowshares" line prepared for the blog, but Dr. Shields informed me that this space actually would have been used for crops in olden times as well. Like, during sieges and all. So... huh. That's weird.
The Turkish government is working on a HUGE restoration project trying to rebuild the walls to their original glory. Since the walls run a good six kilometers along the landward side, and since they've been falling apart for a few hundred years, it's going to take some doing.
Here's what they look like now.
The Turkish government is working on a HUGE restoration project trying to rebuild the walls to their original glory. Since the walls run a good six kilometers along the landward side, and since they've been falling apart for a few hundred years, it's going to take some doing.
Here's what they look like now.
It's a work in progress.
And here's what they're working towards.
Periodically along the restored sections they'll have cut-away sections like the above, presumably to illustrate the thickness of the walls to the roving band of academic tourists (though how many of those are there, really? How many tourists make it off Divan Yolu?). All in all it's a hugely impressive undertaking.
It's hard to imagine the amount of money being put into the project. It's even harder to imagine what material benefits Turkey's getting out of it. Dr. Shields explained that it's largely to build legitimacy with the West, which is big into archaeological preservation and such. Now obviously Turkey has to engage in the big projects that make it part of The Developed World. But walking the walls it was hard to accept that rebuilding them needs to be the biggest priority for Turkey. On one side of the street you have this ginourmous restoration project underway, while on the other side of the street you have
It's hard to imagine the amount of money being put into the project. It's even harder to imagine what material benefits Turkey's getting out of it. Dr. Shields explained that it's largely to build legitimacy with the West, which is big into archaeological preservation and such. Now obviously Turkey has to engage in the big projects that make it part of The Developed World. But walking the walls it was hard to accept that rebuilding them needs to be the biggest priority for Turkey. On one side of the street you have this ginourmous restoration project underway, while on the other side of the street you have
It seems to me like maybe dealing with neighborhoods that look like that, and the people who live in them, is more pressing than rebuilding the walls. How much money is being spent on the walls? How much could that money do for all of the extremely poor districts along those walls?
As much fun as strutting with the Europeans and reminding the world of your past glories is, I feel like it'd be a more impressive (and definitely more prudent) to move Istanbul forward rather than back. The walls look beautiful, but it's kind of hard to be truly impressed when they're sitting in a giant slum.
As much fun as strutting with the Europeans and reminding the world of your past glories is, I feel like it'd be a more impressive (and definitely more prudent) to move Istanbul forward rather than back. The walls look beautiful, but it's kind of hard to be truly impressed when they're sitting in a giant slum.
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