Secret dungeons of Istanbul and here Smolensk

When we went to Istanbul this year, we had the task of visiting the site of the former Odigon Monastery, probably the largest and most important convent of Istanbul-Constantinople in the Middle Ages.

This was prompted by the discovery during last year’s visit to the second tier of the Hagia Sophia Museum. mosaics depicting Emperor Constantine IX Monomachus, who handed to Smolensk with his daughter (as stated in most sources) Anna in Russia the icon of Odigitria, written according to legend by the evangelist Luke to the VIII century (it is logical to assume that one of the lists of the original image), which eventually became known as Smolensk.

It would be logical to visit the site of the monastery (about the VI century of construction), where the famous icon, which glorified first Constantinople, and later Smolensk, resided. The monastery received its name Odigon (guide, guide) from a nearby source that healed the blind. Interesting and preserved descriptions, which lead several authors, that the icon – was the main patroness of Istanbul – it was carried around the city during sieges. Every Tuesday she was taken to a large procession, during which people took turns wearing the image on their shoulders and introducing themselves to an altered state of consciousness by singing prayers. And this action is found in much later descriptions up to the 15th century, when the city was destroyed by the Ottomans, and its history began anew.

We did not come across book sources to search for the place of the monastery, but two LiveJournals with records of different years of the nun Kassia helped us. https:/mon-kassia.livejournal.com/1340349.html trianda https://trianda.livejournal.com/205705.htmlThey clearly described the location.

Everything turned out to be very close to the center of Istanbul, just a five-minute walk from Sultanahmet Square located on the site of the ancient Roman racecourse. Building with travel agency Kirkit Voyage on Amiral Tafdil sok, house 12 is hidden in the interweaving of streets quite hipster now area, built up with hotels and shops. In the IV to the XV century, the territory between the hippodrome and the marble sea was occupied by a huge Grand Palace, built by Emperor Constantine the Great and subsequent rulers, and seemed to be erased by the Ottomans from the face of the earth. By the way, all the children of the Byzantine emperors, born in the Porphyry Hall of the palace, were called porphyrogenic, purple. Moreover, this epithet was used in relation to the children of the Byzantine emperor of both sexes, born during his reign (unlike children born before his father came to the imperial throne). They had the first right to the throne.

The above links very picturesquely tell how you can walk into the building with a travel agency, lower into the basement and see preserved mosaics, preserved vaults, frescoes and even the source of the alleged monastery.

However, to our disappointment, the house was tightly closed, the travel agency moved to the next street (we missed the information that you can try to enter from the perpendicular street Mimar Mehmet aga, 41). We went to the new address of the travel agency indicated on the announcement, but there we could not tell anything about the ancient dungeons, however, offering to contact the nearby cafe Palatium, Kutlugün sok., 33-35. We asked if they had any ancient ruins. We were led into the yard and offered to go down the stairs to what at first looked like a cellar. When we went down to a depth of about five meters, the cellar turned out to be a suite of tall five-meter halls with vaulted ceilings. The tablet said that these are the remains of the Grand Palace of Constantinople, excavated and preserved by the owner of the cafe. Then, of course, I remembered that almost the entire area stands on the palace, some parts of which are even preserved and quite stand on the ground, but not all landowners ceremony with their basements. Here in almost absolute silence, followed by only a couple of English pensioners, in the dim light of the lamp, we suddenly descended from the XXI to about the fifth century. Opening our mouths, we wandered through the halls, feeling the powerful walls of the plinth, and amazed at how close and far away at the same time hidden from us a surprising and almost disappeared story. Just a few meters above our heads, crowds of people roamed (and in places in Istanbul you just can not walk), and there was almost no one here (although a small indistinct announcement at a cafe about what was filmed here about the dungeons of the History TV channel would hint) and you could easily feel a touch of history. Touching the history of Istanbul is not taken away, it is everywhere, but it is in places where you feel like a pioneer, it is felt much more clearly.
 
Back in Smolensk, we found Sergei Ivanov’s book In Search of Constantinople, quoted in the above-mentioned LiveJournal. The book emphasizes that the rooms under the cafe, apparently, are the eastern part of the palace, one of its corridors. And the premises under the former travel agency are probably a monastery.

Although the answer to this question is by no means simple: there are assumptions that both these and other dungeons belong rather to the palace, and the monastery was a little sidelined, as all hints in the same book “In Search of Constantinople”. But, in our case, we can say that our task we have visited the site of an ancient monastery, from the walls of which came the icon of Odigitria, which was transported to Russia and eventually became known as Smolensk.

However, if time and opportunity allow, we promise to return to Istanbul once again to address the issue of ownership of these dungeons together with, hopefully, local Turkish experts.

After all, we never washed ourselves with water from a holy spring.

In the collection of this text you will find not only photos from LiveJournal travelers of past years and our photos, but also a couple of interesting videos - a small amateur video story about these dungeons, as well as the transmission of the History channel, which descended at once into several dungeons of the ancient city, and this too.

Photo:mon-kassia.livejournal.com, trianda.livejournal.com, smolensk-guide.comMore photossmolensk-guide.com,