Sumela Monastery and Trabzon

Places of Interest - Turkey

Sumela-Monastery-Wall-Stone-Rock-Hanging-Christian-Turkey-Trabzon

introduction

Trabzon (which comes from the word trapeze = table, land above the water) is the largest port on the Black Sea of East Anatolia. The city does a lot of business with the old Russian states of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. There is also a lot of Russian spoken here and you see the Cyrillic inscriptions everywhere. In addition to the trade, a few years ago many prostitutes from these states came to Turkey; the Turks called them Natasja's.

Currently, the prosperity in this region has grown so much that they have mostly all returned. The city was considered very important by Alexander the Great, the Romans and the merchants of the Silk Road. Protected by high peaks on one side and the water otherside the region was long a kingdom and capable of forging alliances with for example the Seljuks, the Mongols and other sovereign enemies. This stopped when they when the Ottomans took over in the year 1461. When they were defeated during WWI, the Greeks wanted to establish an independent state here, but Atuturk was against this and besieged the city and "swapped" the many Greeks with Turks from Greece.

Tolerance for diversity of ethnicity and religion is an important part of local culture. The city has a very large variety of people and arrivals and a fifth of the inhabitants are students. Because of this strange mixture in Turkey, the city has developed its own culture and the city is different from other Turkish cities. Yet Trabzon is known as a conservative and (secular) nationalist city. It has its own kitchen and is currently making strong progress in terms of growth.

highlights

Downtown Trabzon and Hagia Sophia:

Although the city is not very high on the touristmap of Turkey, the city houses many Byzantine and Ottoman buildings, including several (former) churches, the most important of which is the 13th-century Hagia Sophia. The church is clearly influenced by Georgian and Seljuk styles but the beautiful wall drawings and floor mosaics are more reminiscent of the old Constantinople.

After 1461 the church was turned into a mosque and later used as an ammunition depot and hospital by the Russians when the conquered the region. In 1960 it was restored and decorated as a museum (3 Lira entrance) - in recent years there are voices from the government to use it again as a mosque that causes a lot of bad blood in the city (and beyond).

The historic center of Trabzon (the districts of Orta Hisar and Yukari Hisar) still have many old wooden and old stone houses, but also the “lower” streets between the Bazaar district and the central square (Meydan) have retained part of their historic character. For this purpose cars have been abandoned for a large part of the citycenter, where a shopping area has now arisen. Trabzon was one of the first cities in Turkey that did this. In the Bazaar district one finds one of the most beautiful Ottoman mosques in the city, the Çarşı Cami.

In addition to religious buildings and large residences, there are also some hamams in the city. On a hill above the city is the park Boztepe, with terraces and panoramic views over the city. Among Turkish tourists, the Atatürk Köşkü (kiosk) is popular, where the Turkish leader stayed in 1937. This late-19th-century cottage is also on this hill. Recently, the construction of a park has made the large fortress walls of the old city visible again to the public. On the south side of this park, the Byzantine Imaret Aqueduct also runs across the valley and is a interesting sight.

>> Sumela monastery: see museums (under).

Other attractions:

Trabzon museum and the Ataturk Villa.

Sumela-Monastery-Wall-Stone-Rock-Hanging-Christian-Turkey-Trabzon-Fresco-Biblical

history

Trabzon was founded as the city Trapezus in the 8th century BC. by Greek settlers. Two centuries later the city came into the hands of the Persians in the year 334 BC. After that it was conquered by Alexander the Great. In the year 63 BC. the Romans conquered the city. Under Roman rule, the city gained importance because the trade route from the Black Sea to Persia was improved.

The city also received a new port, at that time the largest constructed port on the Black Sea. However, due to the decline of the Roman Empire and the local authority, trade routes were under continuous threat from robbers and looters. It was not until the 8th century that the city itself began to grow again when international trade on the Silk Road started again. Trabzon developed as the end point of the northwest branch, from Tabriz in Iran. After the Fourth Crusade Constantinople the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Imperial family moved to the Greek language Trabzon. They founded the Imperial Trebizond that would be ruled by the Comnenen until 1461. With this, the city became in fact the third and last, although very modest, incarnation of Rome. Several buildings were made to honor this name. In addition to Islamic Çepni Turks, other Turkish peoples came to the Empire in the late Middle Ages, such as Jews and Shamanic Kumans and Khazars. Many of them converted to Orthodox Christianity and mixed with the local Greek population.

In the time of the Latin Empire Trebizonde tried to be the only true representative of the Byzantine imperial dignity, but in the end they were stopped by the emperor of Nicaea Theodorus Lascaris. Later the Turks took the city of “Sinop” and separated the Greek states from each other. Trebizond would then no longer play a role in the politics of the capital. The city, as an independent country, however, it kept his independance a few years longer than the rest of the Byzantine Empire, because it generally maintained good relations with the Turks; after all, several Turkish peoples lived in the empire for several hundred years.

Trabzon was also an important place for the Renaissance in the 14th and 15th centuries. During the 15th century, however, the Comnenes sought alternative alliances, and made a covenant with the Ak Koyunlu, the Turkish rulers of Iran, who were in conflict with the Ottomans. This in turn the Ottomans took this as a reason to conquer the Trebizond Empire and to kill the most important people or to have them work for them.

Under the rule of Sultan Mehmed II, more Turkish and other Muslim peoples slowly settled in Trabzon. Due to improved connections with the Caucasus and Iran, the city became an important hub in international trade, and more and more Western Europeans settled in the city too. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 was a heavy blow to the local economy, and tens of thousands of names at the end of the 19th century took a boat to the northern coastal cities of the Black Sea, such as Odessa and Sebastopol.

At the same time, tens of thousands of refugees arrived in the city from the North Caucasus, where they were chased away by the Tsar's army. The departure of part of the city's Christian population and the arrival of large numbers of Islamic refugees is worrying Greek and Armenian Christians. During the First World War the city is a scene of battles between the Russians and the Ottomans, as part of the Caucasian front. The Turkish army picks up Armenians who are suspected of conspiring with the Russians.

In 1915 the army laid a large part of the Armenian quarter in ruins, and many Armenian men were taken with a boat on the Black Sea and dumped overboard. In 1916, the Russians (together with Armenian troops) took to the city, after which they razed the Turkish and Greek-Islamic neighborhood to the ground as reprisal for the actions of the Turkish army. Due to the Russian Revolution, however, they were forced to withdraw from the entire Caucasus in 1917. After the war, a large part of the lawsuits concerning the Armenian Genocide were conducted in this city. After the Greek-Turkish war it was decided to the Population Exchange between Turkey and Greece which meant that about more than one hundred thousand Christian Pontic Greeks from the region of Trabzon had to be moved.

The Greek-speaking Islamic population, however, remained in the area and their language, the Romeyka, has retained the most of ancient Greek from all spoken Greek languages. In the years 60/70 of the 20th century, the city and the region as a whole had an idle period. Many residents left for Europe or one of the cities in western Turkey. With the development of the economy since the 1980s and the arrival of the coastal highway, the city has once again become popular.

tips & advice (2008)

The big bus station of Trabzon is about 3 km outside the city and just too far to walk with your heavy backpack. There are many small minibuses (dolmus) between the station and the center - pay no more than 1.25 Lira per trip per person.

Trabzon - Erzurum: there are several buses a day to Erzurum. The journey costs about 40 Lira and the drivingtime is about 6 hours.

Name: Sumela monastery

Price: 8 Lira

Time: 09:00 - 18:00

Content:

The coastal region is separated from the interior of Anatolia by high and low-access mountains and the border with Georgia in the northeast. During the time that the Roman Empire collapsed and many robbers and bandits roamed in this region, many monasteries were built in impassable places, including this Sumela monastery.

Founded during Byzantine times, this monastery was abandoned in 1923 when the Turkish Republic was founded in the hope that it would once again serve in a Greek colony. It hangs and stands against a long, steep rock in a beautiful setting of woods and rocks. The main chapel that is cut from the rock is decorated with beautiful frescoes inside and out.

TIP:

You can best go with a tour that means that it will take you with a number of other people (read: tourists) from Trabzon. You can climb the rock yourself (the driver stays in the valley) in about 30 to 45 minutes. After a few hours you will be picked up again and taken to the center of Trabzon. Costs 20 Lira (Ulusoy)

There are especially delicious chickens for sale in Maydan square to roast in ovens outside the restaurant. The city is also known for its hazelnuts and fish - so if you have the chance, you'll get a slice of it.

Name: Hostel Huzur

Address: Guzelhisar Cad

Price: 17.5 lira (single including shower and toilet)

Content:

Yes, what shall I say about it - it is centrally located - the man is friendly only sometimes a bit strange - the man sleeps in his little reception room downstairs while the rooms are upstairs. The room has a private toilet and shower which is wonderfully hot (in the hallway is also a shower and toilet but I do not recommend those), no breakfast but is fine in size.

There is a window and that is also necessary because there was always a little musty smell regardless of the time I opened the window. And there is a heating (also not an unnecessary luxury) because it can be chilly in Trabzon.

Trabzon is, as said, not high on the "top" tourist lists of people but that said the monastery outside the city Sumela really is a must for people who love religion, but also mystical and special monasteries in very intriguing places. In addition, the city still has something to offer - besides all "sights", the city is not really a Turkish city - given its past, the city has a mix of all kinds of people in its district which gives it a special experience.

If you get the chance to visit this region I would definitely recommend this.