Malum eski İstanbul'u çepeçevre saran surları bilmeyen yoktur. Hiç yakından görmeyenler bile en azından yoldan geçerken görmüşlerdir. Hele surlara yakın yaşayanların pek çoğu çocukluklarından kalan, surların üzerinde, çevresinde geçirdikleri anıları biriktirmişlerdir. Surlar genel olarak Marmara Surları, Haliç Surları ve Kara Surları şeklinde üç bölümde incelenmektedir. Kara surları da Tekfur Sarayı'ndan Haliç'e kadar olan kısım ayrı bir dönemden kaldığı yahut ön surları olmadığından ötürü olsa gerek, Blakherna surları olarak ayrı incelendiği de oluyor.
Zeytinburnu sahil tarafında Marmara Denizi kıyısından başlayan Kara Surları dahilindeki esas surlar 4,80 m. genişlikte, yaklaşık 11-14 m. yüksekliğinde ve 50 ile 75 m. aralıklarda burçlarla donanmıştır. Bugün, Zeytinburnu sahilinde bulunan Mermer Kule'nin hemen orada, yolun kıyısında ilk burç bulunmakta, buradan başlayıp Tekfur Sarayı'na kadar toplam 96 adet burç var olup bunlar haritada da işaretlenmiştir. Tekfur Sarayı'ndan sonraki kara surları Blakherna bölgesine girmekte olup 20 burç vardır ve bunlar haritada ayrı renkte tanımlanmıştır. Yine bu surlar üzerinde bulunan kapılar da farklı renkte işaretlenmiştir.
Esas surların yaklaşık 13.5 m. önünde yine benzerlik gösteren bir de ön surlar vardır. Esas surların 2 burcu ortasına gelecek şekilde ön surlarda bir burç bulunmaktadır. Ön surların önünde 14 metrelik bir alan ve bunun önünde 17.5 metrelik hendekler bulunmaktadır.
41. Burç önünde bugün bostan olarak kullanılan hendekler
Surlar üzerindeki burçların bir kısmı sağlam olarak gelmiş yahut sonradan restore edilmiş, bir kısmı sadece bir duvarlı, bir kısmı ise sadece temeli bulunur halde gelmiştir. Burçlar bulunduğu konumun topografik yapısı, surun dönüşleri dikkate alınarak dörtgen yahut çokgen olarak inşaa edilmiştir.
16-17-18-19-20. burçlar
Sur üzerinde yer alan kapılar, dönemin ana yollarının şehir dışına çıkış yolları ile bağlantılıdır. Kapıların her iki yanından burç bulunmaktadır.
Ayvansaray Surları
Sur kapıları aynı zamanda bulunduğu semtlere adını vermiştir. Bunlardan Top Kapısı ve Edirne Kapısı araç trafiğine kapalı sadece yayalar geçebilir, Sulu Kule Kapısı son gördüğümde civarın inşaat alanına dönmesinden ötürü yaya trafiğine de kapalı, Mevlevihane, Belgrat, Silivri kapıları ile Yedikule kapısı araç trafiğine açıktır. Altın Kapı ise Yedikule Hisarı'na bağlantılı olduğundan zaten geçiş yoktur. Haliç'e yakın olan Eğri Kapı araç trafiğine açıktır. Ayrıca sur duvarları üzerinde kapatılan kimi kapıların izlerini görebilmekteyiz.
Blakhernai Surları
Yakın zamanlarda doldurulan hendeklerde; esas surlar ile ön surlar arasında kalan bölgede özellikle Yedikule ve Mevlevihane Kapısı hattındaki kısımın kimi bölgeleri bostan olarak kullanılmakta, İstanbul halkının yediği yeşilliklerin üretimi devam etmektedir.
Yedikule Surlari ve Hendek
Ayrıca Fevzipaşa, Vatan ve Millet caddelerine yapılan bağlantılar nedeniyle bu bölümdeki surlar zamanında yıkılmıştır.
1. Burç ve 1. Askeri Kapı'nın hemen yanından sahil yolu geçiyor.
Surların kimi bölgelerinde üzerine çıkıp gezme imkânı bulunmakla birlikte dikkatli olmakta fayda var. Ayrıca bazı bölgelerde "balici" olarak tabir edilenlerin mesken edindiği yerler bulunmaktadır. Surların iç tarafı kimi yerlerde sur dibine yapılmış evler ve oluşturulmuş mahalleler nedeniyle de gezilememektedir.
Silivri Kapısı, Silivrikapı (Pege Kapısı, Gate of Spring) Fotoğrafları:
1894 sonrası Silivri Kapısı
Mevlevihane Kapısı, Mevlanakapı (Rhesium Kapısı, Gate of Region) Fotoğrafları:
19. yy sonunda Mevlevihane Kapısı
Mevlanakapı ya da Mevlevihane Kapısı
Mevlana Kapısı
Belgrat Kapısı, Belgratkapı (Ksilokerkos Kapısı, Gate of Belgrade) Fotoğrafları:
Yedikule Kapısı (Tabak Kapısı, Gate of Yedikule) Fotoğrafları:
Altın Kapı (Yaldızlı Kapı, Porta Aurea, Golden Gate) Fotoğrafları:
Nicholas V. Artamonoff, Haziran 1935
Nicholas V. Artamonoff, Haziran 1935
Top Kapısı, Topkapı (Romanus Kapısı, Cannon Gate) Fotoğrafları:
Top kapısı
Edirne Kapısı, Edirnekapı (Adrianopolis Kapısı, Adrianople Gate) Fotoğrafları:
2nd November 1972 was the D day. We started off on that date. The life was never going to be the same anymore.
KARACHI RAILWAY STATION
We boarded the Quetta bound train from Karachi city railway station. I was more than thrilled. The biggest adventure had started becoming reality. We were six persons. The whole family. My elder father was as usual the non-participant , displeased, somewhat annoyed part of the group. My mother was more than usual busy in taking care of the children, and of everything else. My younger brother and sister were not too mature to understand properly as to what was going on. I was flying too high in excitement. I was too busy in dreaming about Istanbul. My father perhaps had mobilised all his energies towards his ultimate goal. His ultimate goal was to reach Istanbul.
When i look back and try to understand my feelings of that time, i find out that i am still the same as i was on that particular day.
I am still aloof of my surroundings. I still have got my own dreams, which are too different from what other people feel and think. Whole my life i worked for my somewhat quer but thrilling goals. Still i am the same.
I am very different from others, like my father. We never ran after money, but thrill and adventure remained our goals . As i said earlier, my father was a different sort of person, i too.
I remember the friend of my father, SYED SHAFIQUE UDDIN, came to meet us , with his children, at the Kotri railway station. He had brought eatables.
We reached Quetta, the next day. The brother of one of friends of my father, who used to work in Railways, received us at the Quetta Railway station. He arranged for our night stay in the nearby railway guest house. It was a beautiful small house. I liked that. I remember practising my hits on the wall. Yes i was carrying 4 hockey sticks and some hockey balls with me.
QUETTA RAILWAY STATION
We boarded the Zahedan bound train, the next morning. It was cold. I always liked travelling by train. Aloof of the problems that my parents were thinking about, i was enjoying the adventure fully. There were just a few, perhaps 6 bogies in the train. However the compartments were in quite bad shapes. It seemed that maintance of the compartments were not given due attention by the railways. However my father later on told us that it was not due to inefficiency of the railways, the smugglers used to hide banned substances in the openings of the walls, seats , roof and floors of the compartments.
Equipped as always, with the Railway Time table, my father was following the track. We were passing through small stations one by one.
Just before the Iranian border, the train was inching with very slow speed. At that moment i witnessed something which i never saw another time in my life. The smugglers in the train were swiftly slipping down huge packets, bags and other things packed in blankets. People down the side of the train were quickly getting hold of these items. My father told me that they would be carrying these packets into Iran, on foot. That was how the banned goods used to smuggle into Iran. I was stunned.
It did not take much time that the train entered Iran. It was just getting dark, as the train stopped immediately after crossing fenced area of the border. There was pin drop silence in the compartment. Everybody was waiting in silence. Suddenly Iranian border guards and railway people appeared on the scene. First they asked all grown up males to get out of the compartment. They were lined up. Interestingly my father was the first in the line. My father repeatedly narrated this incident, whole his life. This is why i am mentioning it here.
According to my father, he was the first standing in the line, perhaps because no one else of the passengers was willing to head the line. Then two iranian officials came to him and said something in persian, which he could not understand at all.Then one of them gave a capsule to my father to swallow. My father was perhaps so much under pressure, that he dropped the capsule. The iranian officials at that time, were distributing the capsule to the other persons in the line. According to my father, none of the iranian officials were looking at him, so he took the capsule from the ground, but one of the iranian official noticed him, and shouted. They took my father out of the line. According to my father he became somewhat confused and afraid, about what was going to happen next. Luckily, they just gave him another capsule to swallow. He returned back to the compartment, like other passengers.
We were not allowed to get out of the compartment. The iranian officials were checking the passports of the passengers. One of them was checking and was reading aloud the contents of the passports, and the other one was writing all these in his register. I really enjoyed the way they were reading aloud. I could catch just a few words in persian, as i had studied persian also in the school. But the pronunciation of the iranians was too different, so it was almost impossible to understand what they were speaking.
They told us to bring out all our baggeages out of the compartments. We took them out, from where we were asked to carry them to an another goods compartment. All baggages were sealed in that compartment. We were told that these baggages would go directly to the custom department in Zahidan, from where we would like take them the other day.
The train continued its journey.
There was just four or five more persons in the compartment. The train was going to reach the Zahidan station late at night. So, with the consultation of fellow passengers my father decided to stay in the train at night at Zahidan, and then would go out to the city the next morning. I climbed up on the bench and slept. The train continued moving ahead towards Zahidan. Outside it was totally dark.
My mother jolted me all of a sudden. I opened my eyes, everyone was getting out of the train. The train had stopped. My father told me that the railway offiicials had not allowed us to stay in the train anymore. It was Zahedan railway station, and we were supposed to leave the train immediately.
With my mind still sleeping. I joined others to get out of the train. We went out of the railway station. There was a taxi there, which according to me was alraedy full. But there was no other taxi, so we had had to fit ourselves in that cab. We all were literally packed by the taxi driver in the cab, and it moved. I did not know where we were heading for.
The taxi stopped in front of a simple building. There was a small board hanging by side of the main door. It was PAKISTANI MUSAFIR KHANA (Guest /Rest house for Pakistanis). A person on that door was collecting the passports, and taking all of us in.
There was no building in the building. There were small rooms, with no furniture, except thick carpets. It was quite hot inside. We were given a candle to light the room. Although somewhat hungry, but we preferred to sleep. We were too tired.
For the first time in my life i had left the country, where i was born and grown up. It was a new experience in my life. A thrill that i do still feel inside me. It was the first step, after that MY LIFE WAS NOT GOING TO BE THE SAME ANYMORE . First step was taken, the rest was to follow. For me a new chapter of my life had opened. Pakistan was left behind. Turkey was going to be the ultimately goal. A goal not to earn a better living, but just to be different from the rest. Mentally, i had freed myself from being a Pakistani. I was going to live in Turkey, going to be a Turk. A direct result of a very very different and unique mentality, which i shared with my father.
The next morning, after eating something that we could find in the shop nearby, we went to the custom house, by taxi. In fact we were not alone to go there. Most of the persons in the Pakistani guest house were going there, so it was not difficult for us.
At the custom house they opened all our bags and baggages, that we had put in a separate compartment of the train. We did not face any difficulty in getting our bags cleared off from the customs. We returned back to our guest house .
Now the next step was to decide. Where to go next. My father decided to go northward to Mashad by bus.
The next morning we all 6 persons, boarded a bus heading north for Mashad. It was too cold, particularly for us. We travelled the whole day and the whole night. An unforgetable event happened in the very early hours of the morning when the bus about to enter Mashad. We were all asleep. when we came to know that the bus was not moving ahead. Enquiry revealed that the traffic police had challaned the bus, and had imposed the fine. The bus driver had left the bus in protest, and the passengers were all stranded there. The driver returned back after sometime, but asked all the passengers to contribute money among ourselves to pay the fine. The passengers did not see any other way out but to contribute and pay the fine. Later on the bus entered the Mashad city. It was just dawn.
We found a cheap hotel, and settled in. It was terribly cold. The open water in the small fountain and pond in middle of the hotel, was all ice. My father decided not to stay anymore there. He went to the railway station and booked seats for Tehran. from where we were supposed to pick a train that would be going directly to Istanbul.
,
We boarded the Tehran bound train in the evening, which was supposed to reach Tehran the next morning.
It was a nice train, with separate compartments. There were six luxury seats in every compartment, three on one side and the other three facing them. We put our bags and baggages under the seats and in between the seats. We managed to lie down, somewhat uncomfortably , by adjusting our baggages in between the facing seats. We spent the whole night lying down in that uncomfortable way. After all it was a part of adventure.
But we were shocked the next morning, when we came out of our compartment and looked into other ones. The seats were infact meant to be hooked down to make a bed. My father laughed and saddened thinking about how and why he could not understand that. But it was past, nothing could be done about that.
We reached Tehran at about 8 or may be 9 am. We came out of the train. My father went to the booking office, to book our seats for the Istanbul bound train. We did know before hand that it was once a week train. We were shocked when the booking officer at the Tehran Railway Station told us that the Istanbul bound train had just left Tehran a couple of minutes back.
There was no other way out for us, but to stay in Tehran for one week, to get the next train, next sunday.
We stayed in a cheap hotel in Tehran for a week. The weather was cold. However, we got sufficient time to see Tehran. I remember watching a film, THAT MAN FROM RIO, in Tehran.
The Indo-Pak war of 1971 was in full swing. The life had become too dull, due to night curfews and blackouts. India had hit the Karachi port, and the burning oil depos at the Kemari port were keeping the whole city lit throughout the night. Repeatedly i had witnessed the air chase between the indian and Pakistani airforce jets. Life was passing through a different phase.
I was 16 years old.
We used to live in our Nazimabad house. It was half built. Rather left unfinished. However , we lived in the same house from 1971 till 1985.
At that time there were no window glasses in our house, so my late father had tied up some wooden pieces with the idea of that it might serve as a barrier for the incoming stray bullet from some Indian jet (a remote possibility). But that was his thinking, just like so many other off the beat sort of ideas that he always came up with all through his life.
Well, one such evening, we were all sitting on one single bed, and the Indian and Pakistani jets were chasing each others on the sky. All of a sudden, my father asked us a question. "What will happen if a stray bullet hits us here?", he asked. He himself replied that one or more of us would be killed. We were listening to him quietly, awaiting for the ultimate subject matter to come forth. He continued by explaining that the considered the world (earth) as a wonderful gift from Allah to the human beings. "So i think it is not proper that we spend our whole lives at one single city or country", the ultimate new idea was just taking the initial shape.
He explained that being a human being it is his right to go and live anywhere in the world. "Because the whole world is ours", he said. We listened to him quietly. ( I wonder if he had been impressed by the song IMAGINE of John Lennon?)
So, according to my father, we should not remain stuck to the place of our birth. We must go out and see the world, and settle down wherever we want to.
WOW, it was a wonderful idea, according to me. However, not for all others in the family. In fact nobody had taken it seriously. My mother in fact was too used to different way of thinking of my father. She had witnessed too many in her life. My elder brother, was always having an anti stand against my father's views. My younger brother and sister were too young, to understand anything. Bur for me, it was something very thrilling. My father was too serious, and i was too anxious.
My father did not waste time, to open the Atlas. We both started looking at the pages of the Atlas. In a short period of time, the pages of Atlas ended. We had finished strolling the world, on paper. What next?
Touring the whole world, sounds nice, but in reality it requires huge financial resources, which we never had. It also needed Visas and other formalities to be taken care of. Honestly my father too knew that he was not in a position to go head on with such problems. But he had made up his mind to think seriously on his theory.
Where to go? and How to go? That was the question. Finance was never a problem, because we never had sufficient funds. No money, in fact had made us NOT TO THINK about money. That was one good way out. (I told you my father was a different sort of person.......very different.....unique)
So he dropped thinking about solving the problem of finance.
In those days there were RCD (REGIONAL COOPERATION FOR DEVELOPMENT) , a treaty between Pakistan, Iran and Turkey. The treaty had allowed the citizens of these countries to visit each other's country without visa. That had given moral boost to my father. The initial problem of visa formalities thus stood solved a bit in that way.
My father had made up his mind to go. He had found out the way on the map. He was sure that he could go without any problem upto Turkey. After that? He never thought of.
Then , extending his mental jimnastic of this topic, he started out thinking about the next phase. WHERE TO SETTLE? That was the next step of this theory. It was not an important question to be answered.
Oh yes, let i mention here, that as i had mentioned earlier, it was I who was also interested in these plans, so frequently he used to discuss these with me. But not just me, all through his life, he always discussed everything aloud at home, so everyone used to know what he was thinking. One interested in his plans used to discuss, the non-interested ones used to ignore. However, everyone in the house did know what my father was working on.
According to his plan, once out of Pakistan, he was free to go through Iran and Turkey, without much trouble. The trouble viz, visa formalities etc etc would be faced once past turkey. But he had had to solve the question of getting settled at some place in the world, once out of Pakistan.
Oh, let i further clarify here, that my father never wanted to go alone, he wanted to go alongwith the whole family.....6 persons in total. So indeed it was not something so easy to be dealt with.
Well, where to settle ultimately? That was the next question.
As i have mentioned earlier, my father was never after money. So he had never thought of going and settling in wealthy countries like USA or UK or to the middle eastern countries, where the expats used to earn a lot. He was a very simple person, who never went out for big money. All through his life he led a very simple life. So his plan was never destined for neither a better living nor for big money.
Perhaps he was after some adventure. Some very big adventure. And i was all too eager to be part of this extremely thrilling adventure.
It took almost 6 months to work on preparations for this big big adventure.
As i have mentioned earlier the ultimate question to be answered was "WHERE TO SETTLE IN THE END". My father did have a couple of basic principles in his mind.
1. We must live with muslims (muslim country)
2. But not in middle eastern countries. (he was never interested in living in these countries)
Based on the above ultimately he came up with three alternate places
1. Turkey
2. Spain
3. Morroco
In fact his choice of these places were the direct result of his deep study of islamic history. His interest had also given me a chance to have a look in the islamic history.
However, he did not take much time in giving his final decision in favour of Turkey . The place in mind was Istanbul. His logic was that Istanbul is located at such a strategic point, from where one can go to any other place and return back too. I agreed with him.
It did not take much time that all our efforts were fixed on Istanbul and Turkey. My father brought some detailed maps of Istanbul from the Turkish Consulate. He also bought a small handy book which showed sentences of routine usage and their translation in Turkish and Persian.
One day he went to a painting exhibition, at Arts Council, Karachi, where he met a Turkish musician, whose name was ERDAL SOYULU (or may be SOYLU), who used to work in a night club in karachi. My father discused his plans with him, so he gave the address of his house in Istanbul, to my father.
Days passed swiftly, and my father continued aheading with his plans.
I was a student of B.Com Part 1 then, i shifted my attention to my studies.
My father was too busy in arranging for finances for this big adventure. He had started selling furniture of the house. He had (perhaps) taken loan from his Provident Fund also.
First our passports were got prepared. As far as i can remember now, we were scheduled to leave Pakistan in August 1972. As a first step, my father sent some money to one of his friends (Dr. ANIS UR RUB) in Italy. Secondly, he found out that we were supposed to take visa from Iranian embassy. He applied for that.
The passed through the first shock before even starting the adventure physically. The Iranian embassy refused to give Visa to my father, since according to their belief a person with the same name had gone to Iran earlier too. In fact my father had never gone to Iran. But there was no way out for us. The Iranian embassy decided to send his passport for further enquiry , to Tehran. We had had to wait.
Now when i try to understand my personal feelings pf that time, i become too confused. During that period, i continued with my studies, even knowing that i might not be in a position to continue my studies. At the same time i was too eager to play my part in the adventure of leaving Pakistan with the family, with no guaranteed or foreplanned future in sight. I become too confused now, when i try to find out that how come under all these conditions , i ultimately appeared in the B.Com Part 1 examination and got First class Third position in the Karachi university)
While we were all waiting for the Iranian Visa, one day i fell while playing hockey, and broke my left arm.
The arm was plastered. It was the second shock.
One day my father came to know that the Iranian embassy wanted to have visa of the next country where we would be going after Iran. Turkey , our next country in the line , was not having visa restrictions for Pakistanis. But the Iranian embassy persisted to see the visa of a country beyond Turkey. So the only way out for us was to take visa for some other country also before applying for Iranian visa. Well, in the meantime the passport of my father was returned from Tehran, and was cleared of the earlier suspicions. There was some mistake in the record.
So my father took Italian visas.
The Iranian embassy gave us visas without any further problems.
By that time (if i remember correctly) september had arrived. My arm was still in plaster. My exams were not too far. I took the exams with my plastered arm. My exams ended in October 1972.
By that time everything of our house was sold. There were only two things that were left unsold. One was our old refrigerator and the other one was our half built home itself. In fact, i never ever discussed my father how did he finance all that adventure. Yet all that i saw was that everything of the house was sold out.
CONTINUED AT .... 1972 - FROM KARACHI TO ISTANBUL (2)
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