TURKEY TRAVEL GUIDE
The
First Capital of Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman province of Hüdavendigar
When the Seljuks commenced their conquest of Anatolia from 1071 onwards, they began settling their new lands with Turkish tribes from further east. When the Seljuk Empire weakened and began to fall apart in the thirteenth century, numerous small Turkish principalities sprang up, one of which was the Ottoman Beylik in northwest Anatolia. The Ottomans expanded rapidly as they conquered additional lands from the Byzantines.
Founder of the Ottoman Beylik was Osman Bey, who was born in the town of Sögüt in Bithynia in 1258. In 1299 he conquered Bilecik, Yenikent, Inegöl and Iznik, and this is the year regarded as the founding of the Ottoman Empire, which was to survive for over six hundred years. As Osman Gazi gained in strength, the Byzantine governor of Bursa Atranos sought assistance from the governors of Kestel and Kite. Their united army joined battle against the Ottomans at Koyunhisar in 1301. The Ottomans were victorious.
Osman Bey resolved to take Bursa, and began preparations to besiege the city in 1317. First he had to cut off its link to the sea, for which purpose he built a fort near Kaplica and appointed his nephew Ak Timur its commander. His slave Balabancik was given command of a second fort in the mountains behind Bursa., so cutting off access to the city on either side. The Turks then demolished the fort of Atranos Beyce and made their encampment at Pinarbasi. Leaving the command of the army to his son Orhan Bey, Osman Gazi returned to Yenikent.
The siege lasted eight years, and meanwhile Osman Gazi fell seriously ill and could no longer fight. He ordered his son Orhan Gazi to take Bursa, and Orhan began by taking Evrenos Fortress. The governor of the fortress fled into the rnöuntains. Orhan Gazi sent Mihal Bey to the governor of Bursa demanding his surrender. The governor sent a gift of precious clothes and forty thousand gold sovereigns as a gesture of submission, and after consiilting his father Orhan Gazi allowed the governor to leave the city with his family and entourage. They made their way to Gemlik on the coast and sailed for Istanbul. In 1326 ' the Turkish army entered Bursa.
This news reached Osman Gazi on his deathbed, and he died happy in the knowledge that his greatest goal had been achieved. The capture of Bursa marked a turning point for the Ottoman Empire. Orhan bin Osman, who had been born in 1281, the year that his grandfather Ertugrul Gazi died, was now the second Ottoman sultan. Orhan Gazi's elder brother one day advised him to do three things. The first was to strike coins in his name, the second was to wear clothing which would distinguish him from his subjects, and the third was to form an army of infantry soldiers to be paid out of the treasury. Previously coins had been struck in the name of the Seljuk sultans, but in 1328, following his brother's advice, Orhan Gazi became the first Ottoman sultan to mint his own coins. He also introduced white uniforms for his soldiers, in place of their former red and black apparel. In 1335 Bursa became the first Ottoman capital. Orhan Gazi ruled for nearly 35 years until his death in 1360. He was succeeded by his son Murad, who had been born in 1326. Sultan Murad Han bin Orhan bin Osman Gazi was the third Ottoman sultan, and became known by the cognomen Hüdavendigar.
In 1362Murad captured the city of Edirne (Adrianople). One night Murad Hüdavendigar dreamed that a white bearded man with a radiant face told him to build a palace in Edirne. A great palace was immediately built and in 1363 the Ottoman capital moved from Bursa to Edirne, although Bursa retained its spiritual and economic importance.
In 1399 Bayezid Yildirim (the Thunderbolt) founded a hospital in Bursa where the hot mineral springs of the city featured largely in the treatment of patients. When Timur's armies captured Bursa in 1402, they destroyed and burnt many of the medreses (colleges), mosques and other monuments of the city. In 1429 further disaster struck, this time in the form of plague which decimated the population. In 1482, when Cem Sultan was fighting for the throne against his brother Bayezid, he ruled in Bursa for just eighteen days, but in this brief time struck coins in his name. In the battle against the army of his brother Bayezid II, Cem's forces were defeated and he fled the city.
BUILDINGS OF BURSA
Bursa style
The Ottoman architecture of Bursa has a distinctive style with close parallels to that of the Byzantines. With the conquest of the Byzantine lands of the region many local masons, carvers and other artisans continued to work for the Ottomans. The Byzantine influence which they brought to the new buildings of the Ottoman principality distinguished them from those of the other Turkish principalities of Anatolia. Bursa style lived on after the conquest of Edirne and Istanbul in 1362 and 1453 respectively, showing itself in the architecture of the early monuments constructed in both these cities. The T plan which developed in the fourteenth century çan be seen in almost all the royal mosques of Bursa. The Bursa arch is another distinctive feature. This broad flattened arch does not have great carrying strength, and is rather decorative than functional in character.
Ulu Mosque
Bursa Ulu Mosque belongs to the early Islamic style of mosque building, with a multidomed roof supported by numerous piers and columns and a covered court. This mosque was built by the architect Ali Neccar for Yildirim Bayezid in 1399. It has two large minarets and twenty domes of more or less equal size resting on twelve square pillars, the central dome being glazed. Inside are 192 inscriptions written by celebrated calligraphers executed on the walls and on panels.
Yesil Mosque
The earliest example of Bursa style is the Yesil (Green) Mosque, which was built in 1419 by the architect Vezir Haci Ivaz Pasa for Çelebi Sultan Mehmed. The tiles which lend their name to the mosque are the work of Mecnun Mehmed. The marble carving on the façade, window frames, door, stone inscriptions and ceiling above the door is exquisite. The early mosques of Bursa and Iznik are characterised by plain lines emphasising spatial form, and a controlled use of decoration. GradualHy the Ottoman decorative arts acquired their own style, and new masters emerged. The first Ottoman nakkas -a decorator who painted and stencilled designs on plaster- was Ali bin Ilyas Ali, who did all the painted decoration for the Yesil Mosque.
Muradiye Mosque
Muradiye Mosque was constructed between 1426 and 1428 for Murad II and exhibits all the typical characteristics of Bursa style, including a reversed T plan. The domes and both minarets of this mosque collapsed in the earthquake of 1855 and were not rebuilt until 1902, when the mihrab (niche facing Mecca) and minber (pulpit) were renovated with the rococo decoration fashionable at the time.
Emir Sultan Mosque
Steps to the west side lead up to a gateway between two columns over which is a marble inscription consisting of a verse from the Koran. This leads into a large courtyard surrounded by a wooden colonnade, with a sadiruan -fountain for ablutions- in the centre. To the south stands the mosque, whose mihrab is revetted in Iznik tiles. North of the mosque stands the tomb of Emir Sultan. Around most of the rectangular window frames are carved mukarnas (stalactite work), and above these the pediments are decorated with rumî scrollwork motifs.
Vernacular architecture
Traditional houses built in the style which developed in Bursa over the centuries of Ottoman nile feature distinctive decoration. Most have fireplaces, unlike the houses of Istanbul. Above the main windows are smaller windows placed high in the walls with stucco tracery and coloured glazing. Walls, ceilings, and the doors of the fitted cupboards are all richly decorated. A considerable number of traditional houses survive in Bursa today, and although most date from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries they provide a remarkable picture of the vernacular architecture of the city.
PEOPLE OF THE CITY
Portraits
Bursa is one of Turkey's cities that has experienced a high influx of migrants over the centuries, and the communities of different people have each added their own colour to life in the city. In the sixteenth century a wave of Turks arrived here from Central Asia, for instance, doubling the city's population between 1530 and 1575.
Around the city were villages populated by Greeks who had been there since the middle ages, and during the reign of Mehmed II (1451-1481) Greek migrants from the Morea were settled in Bursa.
Armenians from Kütahya first arrived here during the reign of Orhan Bey in the fourteenth century. When the Armenian Patriarchate was founded in Istanbul by Mehmed II in 1461 the Bursa metropolitan, Ovakim, was elected patriarch. From the early nineteenth century onwards Armenians from eastern Turkey came to Bursa in large numbers, and most of them settled in the neighbourhood of Setbasi. Bursa's first newspaper, the semi-official Hüdavendigar published by the city governor Haci Izzet Pasa, introduced a section in Armenian from issue 82 onwards. Although there is said to have been a Jewish colony in
Bursa as early as 79 BC, Jews first attained a significant presence in the city after it became the Ottoman capital, when Sultan Orhan gave permission for the Jews to build a sinagogue and their own quarter. Trade, money-lending, tailoring and goldsmithing were the occupations in which most of the Jews were engaged. When the Russians occupied Rumelia (the Ottoman provinces of eastern Europe) and Caucasia during the 1877-1878 Ottoman Russian War, large numbers of Muslims from these regions migrated to Bursa. Thirty thousand people came from Ruse in Bulgaria alone. But the majority of the newcomers were Georgians and Tatars. Those from Caucasia settled in the district of Yildirim, those from Kazan in Mollaarap, and those from the Crimea in Alacahirka.
There had been Copts in Bursa since very early times, and on the spring festival of Hidirellez they would go to the area around the Lime Kilns in the foothills of Uludag and spend the day in celebrations, in the course of which they also elected their chief, known as the çeriba,si. They lived in the neighbourhoods of Kanberler and Demirkapi.
At the beginning of the twentieth century there were German, British, Austro-Hungarian, Spanish, Italian, French, Belgian, Greek and Iranian consulates in Bursa, and according to the population census cairied out at this time 9.84% of the population were Greeks, 6.66% Armenian, 18% various others, and the remaining 65.5% Muslim Turks. In 1903 the provincial assembly's members included Müftü Ali Riza Efendi, the Greek metropolitan, the Armenian Archbishop Natalyan Efendi, the Armenian Catholic representative Arsoni Efendi, Archbishop Artin Efendi, and Chief Rabbi Mose Hayim Efendi. Of the 19 qualified physicians working in the city five were Turkish, and of the 17 pharmacists four were Turkish.
The week of the hyacinth festival was one of Bursa's colourfiil annual events. The people would go out to piciiic in the hyacinth meadows which suirounded the city. Women and men went separately, women on three days of the week and men on the other four. One spring day in 1869 when the women of Bursa were singing and amusing theinselves in the hyacinth fields, two men joined them. The scandal was investigated by the judicial authoi-ities and the two men inteirogated. They said in their defence that they were strangers to the town and did not know that it was forbidden for men to go into the flower meadows that day. They were acquitted, but the incident was recorded in Bursa's couit records.
Bursa has a rich culinary tradition that has evolved over many centuries, but it is famous most of all for its kebab. The German general Helmut von Moltke, who visited Bursa in 1836, wrote in his memoirs about the delicious flavour and cheap price of this kebab: "We ate lunch in typical Turkish style, in a kebab house. After washing our hands we ate not around the table but seated upon it [this "table" would have been a large cloth spread on the floor]. I did not know where to put my legs. Then a wooden tray arrived, on which was the kebab, that is, small pieces of mutton cooked on skewers and wrapped in bread. This is a very delicious dish. After that came a plate of excellent salted olives, helva, which is a sweet dish much loved by the Turks, and a bowl of sherbet (raisins stewed in water with a lump of ice tossed in). For two hungry diners this meal cost altogether 120 para, or five shillings."
City of Exiles
By the nineteenth century Bursa, with its beautiful old buildings and luxuriant greenery, had long since left its days as a capital city behind. Instead it had become a city of exiles.
After long years of opposition to the Ottoman govei~iiment abroad, Mevlânazade Rifat came back to Istanbul and surrendered himself to the police. The martial law court sentenced him to exile in Bursa on the basis of a judgement reached in his absence at an earlier date. His exile was only repealed after Sultan Abdülhamid II was deposed on 27 April 1909. When Mehmed V Resad succeeded him as the thirty-fifth Ottoman sultan, the dissidents of the previous regime were pardoned and Mevlânazade Rifat returned to Istanbul.
Mehmed Tevfik Bey, who was governor of Bursa between 1906 and 1909, recalls some of the exiles in his memoirs. His kindness to three sisters of his acquaintance was one of the main reasons for his friendship with Fehime Sultan, one of the daughters of Sultan Murad V (1876). Mehmed Tevfik Bey explains that when the three sisters, one from the house- hold of Sultan Abdülhamid, the other from the household of Sultan Mehmed V, and their elder sister were exiled to Bursa, he invited them to stay at his house until they found a permanent home of their own.
The story of how Gazi Osman Pasa's second son Kemaleddin Bey was sent into exile is a tragic one. Kemaleddin Bey was married to Naime Sultan, one of the daughters of Abdülhamid II. Naime Sultan fell ill at one point, and Dr. Hakki Sinasi Pasa administered an injection of cacodilate. This gave rise to a rumour that Kemaleddin Bey was in love with Sultan Murad's eldest daughter Hatice Sultan, who lived in the palace next door, and had instructed the doctor to inject his wife with poison in order to marry Hatice. When this iumour reached the ears of Abdülhamid II he could not be persuaded that the injec- tion was indeed for medical reasons, and arranged a divorce for his daughter. Kemaleddin Bey was exiled to Bursa and Dr. Hakki Sinasi Pasa elsewhere. Kemaleddin Bey rented a house in Bursa, where he was kept under house arrest, guarded by one of the imperial aides Major-General Mustafa Pasa and several other officers from the sultan's riflemen. The illustrious prisoner was allowed no visitors, even the governor being unable to call with- out first obtaining the sultan's permission.
After the death of Sultan Murad V in 1904, one of his favourites together with a large number of women from her household were allocated pensions of 10 lira each and exiled to Bursa. It was commanded that a house be purchased for each, and that they be married off to those who applied for their hands. Since purchasing so many houses and settling each woman down would be a long process, two mansions were rented where they all lived together in the mean time.
Necmeddin Molla's elder brother Ali Ata was crossing the Bosphorus on a steam ferry one day wheri he lit his cigarette from that which the stranger seated beside him was smoking. The stranger turned out to be from the household of heir apparent Resad Efendi, and when this political gaff was reported to Sultan Abdülhamid II, Ali Ata joined the ranks of exiles in Bursa.
Fehim Pasa was another celebrated exile to Bursa at this time, and there were many others in and around the city. Bursa's provincial clerk and director of education were both exiles.
COMMERClAL LIFE
Bazaars
The külliye-mosque complex- built by Orhan Gazi after the conquest of Bursa included the city's first bedesten or exchange building, Emir Han, where textile merchants stored and sold their wares. When the bedesten moved to a new building constructed by Sultan Yildirim Bayezid (1389-1402), the other tradesmen moved into the old bedesten and other bazaars (çarsi or Pazar)grew up in the area around it. Haci Ivaz Pasa Çarsisi housed the felt makers, Sipahi Çarsisi the quilt makers, Gelincik Çarsisi the cotton carders and tailors, Atpazari the horse and livestock traders, Kapan Çarsisi the fruit traders, and Tahil Pazari the dried fruit and nut traders. The famous Bursa cutlers had their workshops around the Tahil Pazari.
In addition to these there was Uzunçarsi, Bitpazari (the flea market), Tahtakale, Tavukpazari (poultry market), Bakircilar Çarsisi (coppersmiths market), Pirinç Han (rice market), Tuz Han (salt market), Ipek Han (silk market), and Koza Han (cocoon market). As these indicate, trade and manufactuizng were vigorous and varied in Bursa.
Tradesmen
Bursa's tradesmen and artisans belonged to guilds which exerted strict control over trading practices. Only those trained in a trade and qualiFied as masters were permitted to open their own shops, and the copying of items made by master craftsmen was prohibited.
After completing a long period of apprenticeship, followed by years as a journeyman, the artisan was finally qualified as a master. The completion of each phase was marked by a ceremony. When an apprentice was'judged ready to become a journeyman, his master would inform the steward and other officials of his own guild. All the members of the guild would then be invited to a feast at one of the excursion places outside the town, where they wauld be entertained by wrestling matches and other amusements. Then, to the recital of prayers, the guild official known as the yigitbasi would ceremonially gird the apprentice in the pestemal (cloth wrap or apron) which marked his new status as journeyman.
Making the next step up to master craftsman did not only depend on long years of work and acquiring outstanding skill. Since a specific number of master craftsmen were permitted for each trade, the journeyman had to wait until one of the masters died or retired. Then the most senior journeyman of the guild would be ceremoniously granted the rank of master.
The first silk mill was opened in Bursa by Konstanz Bey in 1833, and a second by Boduryan Efendi in 1843. Gradually the traditional small craftsmen made way for industrial scale manufacturing.
Sericulture
Bursa's economic wealth rested to a considerable extent on agriculturevine growing, fruit growing, dairy products, and on the olive production of Gemlik and Mudanya. The large quantity of mulberry trees also made Bursa an ideal centre for silk production.
Producing the raw silk for the textile mills was a labour intensive process. Beginning with the production of the eggs, through to hatching the worms and the cocoon stage, all involved considerable risks. One of the worst disasters was pebrine, a disease affecting silkworms which broke out in France and spread to Bursa in the 1860s. As a result output plunged, and many producers went out of business and began to uproot the mulberry orchards. Then the news arrived that a cure for the disease had been discovered in France, and unaffected eggs were imported. Production went smoothly only for a while, before the disease broke out again.
As the need for technical knowledge in the silk production sector became evident, it was decided to open a school for this purpose. Known as the Silk School (Harir Dariilttalimi) it opened on 2 April 1888 in a house rented from Kazaz Ahmet Muhtar Efendi in the neighbourhood of Sehreküstü in Bursa. The first students graduated in 1889. Soon afterwards the school moved to a larger building in Setbasi, a house belonging to Burdurizade Osman Efendi. In 1894, when it moved into a building constructed near Maksem, the school was renamed the Institute of Sericulture. Torkumyan Efendi was appointed principal of the institute, and as well as training large numbers of silk technicians he introduced the Pasteur technique of egg production which gave a valuable boost to Bursa's silk industry.
Silk weaving
Bursa was the main textile manufacturing centre of the Ottoman Empire. In the early 1850s Bursa had fourteen textile mills equipped with steam driven machinery like their counterparts in Europe, and there were a further two in Mudanya. In Bursa there were around 150 to 200 looms weaving tulle, and pure and mixed silk fabrics.
The traditional looms used in Bursa were extremely simple, consisting of a rectangular wooden frame on which the weft threads were stretched, and two cylinders for rolling up the fabric as it came off the loom. Lead weights kept the threads balanced and in tension as the alternate threads were pulled forward by a foot pedal for the shuttle to cross between them. Apart from the weights every part of the looms was made of wood.
Bursa fabrics were celebrated far beyond the borders of the Ottoman Empire. They were exported as far afield as China, and filled the markets of Hungary, Poland, Italy and the Balkan countries. In the sixteenth century rich fabrics woven in Bursa from silk, wool and silver and gold thread were used for clothing worn by the Ottoman sultans and princes. Bursa fabrics included velvets, the velvet brocade known as çatma-which was also woven in Bilecik and Üsküdar, diba- a brocade incorporating gold thread, and a fine taffeta known as canfes. The weavers of Bursa had their own guild which inspected the bales of cloth before they could be sold, and stamped those which were up to standard. Those which did not pass inspection were confiscated. Each weaving shop specialised in one particular fabric type. Cotton yarn imported from abroad was subjected to similar close inspection before being put up for sale each Saturday in the market held in the courtyard of Ulu Mosque. Silk cocoons were sold at Koza Han. When foreign competition began in the eighteenth century the Bursa weavers were forced to produce fabrics more cheaply, and their quality gradually declined.
SCHOOLS
The Missionary School In October 1834 American Protestant missionaries began establishing schools in Turkey. They first opened a secondary school for boys in Pera in Istanbul, followed over the next five years by schools in Izmir, Bursa and Trabzon. Their curricula followed those of American schools, and they quickly won popularity. The American Girls School in Bursa had seventy pupils in four grades. In 1893 the lessons taught were Greek or Armenian and English, arithmetic and geography being taught in Greek or Armenian, and geometry, botany, physics, astronomy and history in English.
Isiklar Military High School
This school was established in 1845 on the orders of Sultan Abdülmecid on the site which is today Heykel Meydani square. It subsequently moved to a new building whose lower floor was of stone and upper floor of wood in the district of Isiklar. The new building was inaugurated by city governor Münir Pasa on 10 June 1892. A second building was added in 1894, and the number of pupils increased to five hundred. In 1911 a school hospital was added. During the Greek occupation following World War I the building was used as stables by the Greek forces. The school reopened on 11 December 1922. Isiklar Hill from which the district took its name, was originally known as Âsiklar or Lovers Hill, which in time was comipted to Isiklar or Lights Hill.
Hamidiye Technical School
This technical school first opened on 10 April 1869 in a mansion called Türkmenoglu Konagi in the neighbourhood of ~ilibos. Two years later it moved to a new building in Tophane. At first the pupils were oiily taught weaving, and they made fabric for gendarme uniforms. Subsequently shoemaking was added to the curriculum, and tools and teachers were sent from Istanbul. In the early twentieth century French and music lessons were added and a school band formed. In 1906 a shop was opened on Hükümet Caddesi to sell the shoes and fabrics made by the pupils. The school became the pride of the city, and local people raised funds for improvements. A lottery was held, and a livestock sale at Aticilar was organised, at which a percentage of each purchase was donated to the school. Again in 1906 Necip Efendi of Bursa and Mirat Efendi of Istanbul obtained a licence to sell European made cigarette papers under the name Hamidiye Technical School Cigarette Paper, on which the profits also went to the school.
Mülkiye Idadi School
In 1885 a boys' seeondary school known as Mülkiye Idadisi was founded, and in July 1888 its first five graduates matriculated. Three more grades were added to the original four in 1891, and between 1901 and 1904 a chemistry laboratory, dormitory, refectory, and recreation room were added. In 1909 it became known as the Mektebi Sultani.
Agricultural College
This agricultural college was opened in March 1891 by city governor Mahmut Celaleddin Pasa to give boys practical training in agricultural technology. Known as Hüdavendigar Model Farm Agricultural College; it was built on land belonging to Topal Mehmed Aga in the village of Hamitler. It accepted twenty pupils the first year, and for many years around fifteen boys graduated annually.
In 1904 Mülkiye Idadisi had 325 pupils, Hamidiye Technical School 150 and the Agricultural College 78. In 1905 a teacher training school known as the Hamidiye Medresesi Muallimini opened, and this was later renamed Darülmuallimin.
SPAS
From Rome to the Byzantines A letter written by Plinius, the first Roman governor of Bursa appointed by the Emperor Trajan early in the second century AD, tells us that there were no baths in Bursa prior to that time. During the reign of the Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I (527-565)when a major building programme was carried out in Bursa, baths were built at Pythia (today Çekirge) so that the public could take advantage of the hot springs there. More baths were added over the centuries and Bursa became one of the most important spas of the Byzantine period.
Spas under the Ottomans
The seventeenth century Turkish writer and traveller Evliya Çelebi declared, justly, that Bursa consisted of water. The two-domed baths at the spa built by Justinian were enlarged by Sultan Murad Hüdavendigar (1360-1389) who had another two domed section added. Over the centuries people came from far and wide to bathe in the hot mineral water here. They included members of the imperial family and household, notables and diplomats from Istanbul, foreign princes travelling in the region, and foreign scholars, writers and statesmen. Over the four years that Mehmet Tevfik Bey was governor of Bursa, for instance, he was host to the Duke of Holstein, brother-in-law of Wilhelm II of Germany, and his wife on 6 May 1906, to Prince Victor Napoleon of the Bonaparte family on 7 June 1908, and to Duke Carl Edward Saxe-Coburg and his wife on 4 July 1908.
Bursa hamams consist of an entrance hall, a tepidarium, and the washing hall itself known as the halvet. The Ottoman poet Arif wrote of these baths,
Those who enter remain
Bathing in the life giving water
Cures the ills of many
At Bursa's spa. In a letter to his father written during his sojourn
in Turkey in the 1830s, Helmut von Moltke wrote: "I have already
told you of the pleasures of the Turkish hamams. In Bursa the water
is not artificially heated, but is by nature so hot that at first
one cannot believe that one will live to survive immei~sion in the
large, clear pool without being scalded. There was a wonderful view
from the terrace of the hamam which we entered and it was so comfortable
that we were reluctant to leave."
TRANSPORT
The Marmara coast
In the nineteenth century Bursa was capital of the province of Hüdavendigar, which consisted of the districts of Balikesir, Karahisar-i Sahip and Kütahya, and the sub-provinces of Gemlik, Pazarköy, Mudanya, Yalova, Karamürsel, Tirilye, Bilecik, Lefke, Gölpazan, Sögüd, Mihaliç, Kirmasti, Inegöl, Yarhisar, Yenikent, Iznik and Pazarcik.
The province had three main ports on the Marmara coast: Gemlik, Yalova and Mudanya. Gemlik stood at the end of the gulf between the mainland and Bozbunin headland, which was the tail-end of the Samanli Mountains. This port had been famous for its shipyards for centuries. Geinlik Harbour was sheltered from the northwesterly wind and so provided shelter to ships caught in storms. The port of Yalova further to the noith had the disadvantage of poor road connections. The busiest port of the three, with convenient access to Bursa Plain, was Mudanya, with a hinterland filled with mulberry woods, olive groves and vineyards. According to Evliya Çelebi Mudanya was named after the daughter of Constantine the Great.
In the 1850s the journey by sea from Istanbul to Mudanya took eight hours in calm weather. When the northwest wind was blowing a gale, high waves off Bozburun forced small ships to shelter in the mouth of the gulf until morning, so they did not arrive at Mudanya until the following day.
Roads
Travellers arriving at Mudanya by ship took horses for the last part of the joumey to Bursa. Their way passed through orchards and vineyards, and for a long time the delightful view of the Marmara Sea was visible in the distance. Then as the traveller began the gradual descent from the hills the view of the sea disappeared, to be replaced by the sight of a city rising above a plain with many cypress trees. The city climbing the steep forested lower slopes of Mount Olympos had more than one hundred white minarets and domes. Nearing Bursa the traveller came to a bridge over the Nilüfer river, which wound its way between gigantic walnut trees with their dark leaves, pale green planes, verdant meadows and mulberry groves. Each step nearer to the city brought fresh scenic delights.
The Railway
In the second half of the nineteenth century the Ottoman government realised the crucial importance of constructing a railway across the country, and in 1871 an edict was promulgated for a main line from Istanbul to Baghdad. The Asian Ottoman Railway Company was founded, and a German engineer named Wilhelm von Pressel appointed its director. Pressel planned to begin the line at Haydarpasa at the southern mouth of the Bosphorus. An independent line between Bursa and its port Mudanya was also envisaged, and the tracks for this local line began from Mudanya and reached Bursa in 1874. The tracks alone cost 185,000 Ottoman lira (4,200,000 French francs) and there was no money left to complete the work. Not until 17 years later, in 1892, was the project completed and the line put into operation by the Ottoman Railway Company owned by Monsieur Nagelmakers who purchased operating rights.
It took just two hours for the train from Mudanya to reach Bursa's Acemler Station. Since the railway was run by a foreign company the timetable was designed according to Western time, which led to confusiori (Turkish time divided day and night into twelve equal hours, which varied according to the length of daylight). The railway company hung up a notice on 5 September 1892 warning passengers that the timetable was based on Western time, but eventually gave into popular demand and adjusted the timetable to Turkish time.
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