ONCE UPON A TIME: KUMKAPI

Turkish Press
Sept 26 2005

Fishing, a Bohemian life style and taverns were things which went
together in the ports of the past. In Istanbul the pungent smell
of wine and sound of music rose on the air of the fishing districts
between Samatya on the Marmara Sea and Poyrazkoy on the Bosphorus.

Kumkapi has been home to a fishing community and taverns for many
centuries. During Byzantine times it was known as Kontascalion (Small
Quay), and had a busy harbour and a shipyard. After the harbour silted
up the beach was a convenient source of sand, and the city gate near
here became known as Kum kapi or Sand Gate.

Following the conquest in 1453 the area was mainly settled by
non-Muslim Karamanlis, and by the seventeenth century was famous
for its taverns according to the Turkish writer and traveller
Evliya celebi. His contemporary and author of a history of Istanbul,
Ereemya Celebi Komurciyan, records the district’s Greek and Armenian
churches and fires which destroyed it. In his Topography of Istanbul,
Hovhannnesyan describes the grand houses of Kumkapi, a royal palace
here, katir Han (an urban kervansaray) and bazaar.

Little remains from the pre-19th century buildings of Kumkapi due
to fires, but it remains a district famous for its taverns and fish
restaurants.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress