ISTANBUL THROUGH MY EYES – II (PALACES)

ISTANBUL THROUGH MY EYES – II (PALACES)

Whenever I walk through palaces, I get this strong sense of Déjà vu. Was I a princess in the past – or maybe someone more exciting to be - a concubine? Whichever way, palaces are the perfect places to transport you to another world, another life altogether. Mostly a beautiful and charming one if you shut your mind out to some of the practices and goings on in there at the time.

There are a number of palaces in Istanbul, however, the two most famous which have lived to tell a story are the Topkapi Palace and the Dolmabahce Palace, both breathtakingly beautiful in their completely different architectural styles.

TOPKAPI
The Topkapı Palace (Topkapı Sarayı) is built on a spit of land at the confluence of the Bosphorus, the olden Horn and the Marmara Sea. It was the official and primary residence in the city of the Ottoman Sultans between the mid 15th and mid 19th centuries. The palace was a setting for state occasions and royal entertainments.
The palace is a complex made up of four main courtyards and many smaller buildings. At the height of its existence as a royal residence, the palace was home to as many as 4,000 people. The complex has been expanded over the centuries, with many renovations such as after the 1509 earthquake and 1665 fire.
In opulent surroundings the sultans and their court lived and governed. A magnificent wooded garden fills the outer, or first, court. The palace kitchens are now galleries exhibiting the imperial collection of crystal, silver and Chinese porcelain. One court holds the Hall of Audience, the Library of Ahmet III, an exhibition of imperial costumes worn by the sultans and their families, the famous jewels of the treasury and even throne of Chengiz Khan gilded and studded with precious stones. It was made in India. In the center of this innermost sanctuary, the Pavilion of the Holy Mantle enshrines the relics of the Prophet Mohammed brought to Istanbul when the Ottomans assumed the caliphate of Islam. On display too are the Staff of Moses and the Arm and Skull of John the Baptist encased in silver. The former Imperial Treasury houses the armoury collection today
Topkapı Palace gradually lost its importance at the end of the 17th century, as the Sultans decided to move the court to the newly built Dolmabahce the end of the Ottoman Empire in 1921, Topkapı Palace was transformed by government decree on into a museum of the imperial era.
DOLMABAHCE PALACE

The Dolmabahçe Palace (Dolmabahçe Sarayı) is located at the European side of the Bosphorus. It was built in the mid-19th century by Sultan Abdul Mecit I, the first in a European Style in Istanbul. The facade stretches for 600 meters along the shore. It served as the main administrative center of the Ottoman Empire. The vast reception salon, with 56 columns, and a huge crystal chandelier weighing four and a half tons and lit by 750 lights never fails to astonish visitors. Dolmabahçe has the largest collection of Bohemian and Baccarat crystal chandeliers in the world, and one of the great staircases has banisters of Baccarat crystal. The Sultans moved here, since the old Topkapi lacked the modern luxuries that the Dolmabahçe could provide. It is divided into three parts – for the men, ceremonial halls and the harem. Only a small part of this palace is open to public viewing. It is extremely well maintained and most of the furnishings and carpets are original. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Turkish Republic, died in Dolmabahce on the 10th November, 1938 at 9.05 a.m. Time has stood still on the Clock Tower at the entrance to the palace still then and every year on 10th November at 9.05 a.m. the nation remembers the Ataturk with a minute’s silence.

ABOUT THE HAREMS AT BOTH PALACES
The Imperial Harem, a realm of enchantment

Walking through the Harem apartments, the silence tells you about the many secrets of spellbound loves and powerful sultans as here there was a life of a separate kind altogether. In Arabic, the letters h–r–m, in that order, convey the idea of “privacy.” Hence, the words haram (forbidden), harim (about women) and harem (private) are related in meaning.
In the Imperial Harem, the private quarters of the Ottoman sultans could be entered only by the members of the imperial family and their servants and by their physician. The occupants were the female slaves, including the sultan’s favorites and his mother, and the sultan himself as the only male. The verse from the Koran inscribed over the main gate to the private quarters of the sultan and the higher-ranking female slaves serves to remind anyone crossing the threshold that “Thou shalt not enter any house except thine own without first obtaining permission and, upon entering; thou shalt extend salutations to the occupants of the household.”
The Imperial Harem in Topkapı Palace provides excellent examples of the Ottoman architectural style at different periods. The Harem, which is carefully partitioned from the other main divisions of the palace, is made up of four principal units. The first unit, at the entrance, was occupied by the Black Eunuch officers from Abyssinia. The next section was entered by the main gate and which led to the apartments of the first wife and her slaves, the sultan’s mother, the sultan, and the princes.

Harim
The system of training of the female slaves in the Imperial Harem was complemented by that in the Old Palace. The administrative system of the Imperial Harem paralleled that of the male slave servitors. All the members of the genuinely hierarchical establishment were serving for sultan. The Enderun members, castrated Black eunuchs, the concubines and everyone else were in the palace to serve for sultan.
Slave girls were admitted into the palace training school between the ages of 5–16, where they received a fine education, became literate in Ottoman Turkish. The young ladies, mostly given to Sultans as a present in far-away wartimes, were at first hand educated for etiquette manners. Their training included specializing in one of the handicrafts. They were taught etiquette first.
The value of a female servitor in the Harem, where life was organized on a hierarchical system, was determined by her ability to bear a male heir. Her rank was subsequently elevated on giving birth to a male child and assigned a private room. Other promotions corresponded to her becoming the mother of a prince and the first wife of the sultan, which made her second only to the sultan’s mother in power.

The sultan’s mother was the most powerful female in the Harem. The largest room in the Harem was assigned to the sultan’s mother, who could receive reports on the affairs of state from the sultan every morning and listen to the deliberations of the Imperial Court.