Published Story
Unexpected Usage of Sultanahmet Historical Structures
https://www.youtube.com/embed/LRcQXz2v05A Kaan Koç: Now the old stories, are interesting. In the past, of course, nobody had refrigerators, but we had them because we were a wealthy family. Frigidaire etc., we had a r...
Kaan Koç: Now the old stories, are interesting. In the past, of course, nobody had refrigerators, but we had them because we were a wealthy family. Frigidaire etc., we had a refrigerator even in 1940, but my eldest aunt told us about the situation even before these years, she would have been -more than- 100 years old if she was alive now. She was born in 1910 or 12, my father’s eldest sister.
At that time, over there, just opposite this house it was private property, a large high-walled mansion with orchards. The existence of the “Basilica Cistern” was unknown until this place was nationalized, to build the City Hall. But that didn’t happen, World War 2nd broke out. It's 1938-40's the Basilica Cistern appeared. The door number of this building is 6, but number 2 and number 4 were demolished already, (because they demolished and excavated some buildings at the beginning of that expropriation project), but ours were left intact, when the war begins, the funding for the project was stopped. Anyway, houses did not have refrigerators. The ground floors were always used as a ‘sofa’ (means in Turkish shared room/living room), and everyone has their well. Where does the well go? To the Basilica Cistern! The inside of the Basilica Cistern, of course, is cool, everyone uses “file”s (means a bag made of string net-had a common usage in the past before plastic bags) or baskets, to swing down watermelons, grapes, meat, everything was underground hanging. They pulled the food up in this well when needed, then swung it down again.
Anyway, my late grandfather used to tell us, there was a man called Mehmet Agha, who was the keeper of this mansion because the walls were already demolished in my time, there was a flimsy fence, and we would be able to see inside through the cracks. Now -imagine- everyone was hanging the nets down, Mehmet Agha knew every house, of course. Among the supplies, there was also Raki (a traditional anisette spirit), so he was helping himself when he goes down in the cistern, such as a glass of Rakı from someone’s bottle, a few grapes from another’s basket, a peach from the other ones’ bag. In sum, Mehmet Agha makes a living from there. Therefore, to wash the stone floors and house cleaning, all are taken from below and drawn from the Basilica Cistern.
Nurcan Yalman: So is the water level that high?
Kaan Koç: It was full of water, maybe three meters high, still, the water level sometimes gets even higher in winter. So it was used as a cistern in the past. I don't know how many meters high but the height of the cistern is about 12-13 meters I think. And it was where the water was taken from. Everyone was getting water to wash their flowers although there is not a proper garden here, and to wash clothes, and floors.
Nurcan Yalman: Maybe even today the water level rises up but maybe they are pumping it out.
Kaan Koç: This was one of the rare houses with coal gas and electricity. Here we had electricity and coal gas, it was a huge luxury at that time, so in the 30s having, gas, electricity, and water, was a huge luxury, but I guess there used to be water tanks. My father used to say, on Sundays, the water was boiled in big cauldrons, the water is heated downstairs and all the kids in the house were washed.
Having bath was a big problem even in my childhood. You could only take a bath twice a week, Wednesday, Sunday, remember how many days a week?
Nurcan Yalman: Yes I do remember as well, there used to be wood stoves to get hot water.
Kaan Koç: Yes there used to be wood stoves but even before that there were not those stoves but copper cauldrons. Eh, think about it there are grandparents, parents, kids, and crowded (extended) families, you should wait until it’s your turn. On top of these, there are dishes, and clothes to be washed, so, not an easy life. But all the houses have the same conditions. Of course, I haven’t experienced these but my grandpa and my dad told me about that. When my father’s mother died, he said that they washed her body downstairs, my father lost his mother very early, but he remembers, he was about 6 years old at that time.
It is very interesting when there is no heating, houses are heated by brazier (mangal). There was a funny saying about that; they used to say "eight feet for one brazier". Imagine! There is a brazier, and everyone in the house placed their feet on it. Because of that, all the carpets had burnt spots, because the sparks from the brazier were scattered all over the place. If you manage to find such an old house, you will see that all the carpets are burned, we also had the carpets in my grandfather's house.
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