Rumeli Hisarı

Rumelihisarı was built for a single purpose, and it achieved it. In 1452 the young Ottoman sultan Mehmed II was preparing to take Constantinople, and his father's earlier attempt had shown that a Byzantine fleet on the Bosphorus could make a siege fail. So he chose the narrowest point of the strait, about 660 metres wide, on the European shore directly across from the older Anatolian fortress, Anadoluhisarı, and ordered a fortress there. Construction began on 15 April 1452. The two fortresses together closed the Bosphorus to shipping, cutting the city off from help from the Black Sea, and in 1453 Constantinople fell. The Turks called the new castle Boğazkesen, "the strait-cutter"; since boğaz also means throat, the name had a grim second sense.

Three viziers each supervised one of the three great towers, which still carry their names: Çandarlı Halil Pasha's twelve-sided tower by the water, Zağanos Pasha's to the south, and Sarıca Pasha's to the north, a cylinder 28 metres high with walls 7 metres thick. Curtain walls with thirteen smaller towers climb the steep hillside between them, enclosing about 31,000 square metres. A garrison of 400 Janissaries was stationed inside, and cannon in the waterside tower enforced a toll on passing ships; a Venetian vessel that ignored the signal to stop was sunk by a single shot.

After the conquest the fortress became a customs post and, in the 17th century, a prison for foreign captives and envoys of states at war with the Empire. It was repaired after the great earthquake of 1509 and after a fire in 1746, and in the 19th century a residential neighbourhood grew up inside its walls. In 1953 the residents were moved out and the fortress was restored between 1955 and 1958; since 1960 it has been a museum, used in summer as an open-air venue for concerts and festivals. Only the minaret shaft remains of the original mosque. From the upper walls there are fine views down the Bosphorus.

Getting there

The fortress is in the Rumelihisarı neighbourhood of Sarıyer district, on the European shore of the Bosphorus, just south of the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge. Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen Airport (SAW), on the Asian side, is about 30 km away, and Istanbul Airport (IST) about 34 km.