chapter-8-the-city

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HELLAvatrip 2022 – εις την Πόλιν – Chapter 8 – The City

This is the second day of our sightseeing in the city of Constantinople.

There are plenty of cities that are considered “the city” by the people living in their respected regions. For example, for ages “the city” in the area of Pomerelia has been the city of Gdańsk/Danzig. These “the” cities were and still are the most dominant economic powerhouses for the area, the headquarters for various political and social institutions, including the courts and the regional authorities, as well as cultural means of the regions. Furthermore, they are quite often the regions of their own, or located on the crossroads for different ones, which gives them their own, special identity – the obvious examples are Hamburg and again, my city of Gdańsk/Danzig.

Istanbul is, in this context, everything. The current name of the city is, after all, derived from the Greek phrase “στην Πόλι” (stim poli) that means “in the city”. In Greek Constantinople was often referred to as just “the city”. It is both a city and a province, or to be more precise, or to be more precise, the city is as large as the province. It is by far the most important part of the Turkish region of Marmara, of Eastern Thrace etc. The city is not defined by the larger region, but quite the opposite – it redefines the region as a small region by itself.

But anyway, please enjoy the photos of the city. You can also visit the Transport in Istanbul album.

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Sublime Porte, Ottoman Porte, High Porte, Bāb-ı Ālī, Babıali, many names, but it is the same place. Actually, it was plenty of places, but this one is the later Sublime Porte. It was however a synecdoche for the central government of the Ottoman Empire, like we call the British Government “Westminster”. The name has its origins in the old practice in which the ruler announced his official decisions and judgements at the gate of his palace. When Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent sealed an alliance with King Francis I of France in 1536, the French diplomats walked through the monumental gate then known as Bab-ı Ali, which was transalted to Sublime Porte by these Frenchmen. In the 18th century, a new great Italian-styled office building was built here, where the Grand Vizier (something similar to the Prime Minister in the Ottoman Empire) and plenty of ministers were put. This became the new Sublime Porte. Today, the buildings house the Istanbul Governor's Office.

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