The Aya Sofya Hurrem Sultan Hamam in Istanbul recently went through a $10 million restoration.Ayasofya Hurrem Sultan HamamThe Ayasofya Hurrem Sultan Hamam in Istanbul recently went through a $10 million restoration.
Ayasofya Hurrem Sultan HamamThe Ayasofya Hurrem Sultan Hamam in Istanbul recently went through a $10 million restoration.
For years the domed structure between the Aya Sofia (Hagia Sophia) and the Blue Mosque was used as a state-run carpet shop. Kilims and halis were strewn every which way across marble navel stones under huge domes that let shafts of light illuminate the structure built in 1556 by the famed architect Sinan to house the baths of Roxelana, known locally as Hurrem. (Hurrem was the slave who became the powerful wife of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent.) Now, thanks to a $10 million restoration, the marble-clad space is once again a Turkish bath house, with separate facilities for men and women.
There are far less expensive hamams in Istanbul, like the neighborhood facility on the Asian side, recently enjoyed by the Frugal Traveler, or the popular Cemberlitas near the Grand Bazaar. But the new Ayasofya Hurrem Sultan Hamam (Cankurtaran Mah. Bab-ı Hümayün Cad. No.1; 90-212-517-35-35) will appeal to anyone who is turned off by the musty odors and coarse towels often found elsewhere.
At the Sultan Hamam, the changing rooms, steaming alcoves and scrubbing areas are spotless, with pleasant aromatherapy vapors wafting overhead. And instead of partially nude attendants, the workers here are covered: the women wear nifty turquoise halter tops and matching wrap skirts that evoke traditional pestemels, or Turkish bath towels. The quality and length of the exfoliation, soap-suds scrub, shampoo and massage are excellent, although there is no opportunity afterward to lounge about on the central slab to let the heat sink deeper into one’s muscles.
After the basic service (for an “introductory’’ price of 70 euros, about $100, tip included), clients are wrapped in luxurious terrycloth bath sheets and led to a relaxation lounge where they are offered tall glasses of iced cucumber water or a sweetened tamarind or blackberry “sherbet’’ drink.
Other, pricier, treatment options include a bridal service with a full-body clay mask and a henna party for the bride’s girlfriends and a new-mother-and-child bath incorporating 41 different spices.
via High-End Hamam Opens in Historic Istanbul Location – NYTimes.com.
News has come of two royals rather more exotic than our own. One is perhaps the world’s most unlikely reigning monarch, a man trapped by genetic accident in a palace that has become, if not exactly a prison, then a sumptuous reminder of a burden. The other is a woman abducted, thrown over a saddle, and carried off to be a royal wife who grew to revel in intrigue and the manipulation of her menfolk.
The first may be a reluctant king, but he is a magnificent quiz question. Here it is: What reigning monarch in South-east Asia is a trained ballet dancer and speaks fluent Czech? The answer is King Norodom Sihamoni of Cambodia, the latest in a 2,000-year-old line who, when his father Sihanouk, abdicated in 2004, was impelled by a sense of duty to abandon his life as a professional dancer and choreographer in Prague and return to the palace in Phnom Penh as king. There he carries out such royal duties – largely confined to meeting, greeting, and paperwork – as the powerful Prime Minister Hun Sen allows him. A young civil servant told the Associated Press: “On television, the leaders bow down before him, but behind his back there is no respect.”
He was nine when he was sent to Prague, and grew up there, graduating from the city’s Academy of Musical Art. He then moved to Paris, staying on after his father’s restoration to the throne in 1993, and he taught, performed, and choreographed classical ballet and Cambodian dance, as well as working for Unesco, the UN’s cultural arm. Unlike his showman father, who had six wives and numerous lovers, he is quiet, contemplative, and never married. He often dines alone, and then retires to watch DVDs of operas and ballets. His voracious reading includes Czech theatre reviews – a reminder, one suspects, of where he would rather be.
Separated from Sihamoni by the centuries, and by the relish she had for her royal status and what came with it, is our second royal, Roxelana, the wife of Ottoman Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent. She was born Aleksandra Lisowska, the daughter of a Russian Orthodox priest, in the Ukraine, but some time around 1520 a raiding party of Crimean Tartars rode into town, and carried her off. She was sold as a slave in Constantinople – now Istanbul – entered the harem, and took the fancy of Suleyman, who later made her his fourth wife.
Her reputation is that of a devious player of courtly politics, advancing the claims of her son, Selim, to the Ottoman throne. His eight-year reign as sultan, beginning in 1566, was a disastrous time, notable for the invasion of Cyprus and the massacre of 30,000 islanders, plus his addiction to drink so chronic that he became known as Selim the Sot. But Roxelana was a more considerable character than some historians have allowed. She founded mosques, schools, a women’s hospital, and, in Jerusalem, a soup kitchen for the poor. There was also a bath house built in her name, and it is this which has brought her into focus now.
Roxelana’s hamam, a long, domed structure between the Blue Mosque and the Haghia Sophia in Istanbul, was completed in 1557, just a year before her death. No one knows whether she used the hamam herself, and some think it was built so that bathers could pray for her health. But, gradually, the bathhouses which had once been so central to the life of the city fell out of use. Roxelana’s ceased working in 1906. It finally became, of all undignified things for a royal hamam, a carpet showroom. Then, in 2007, the city decided to restore it, and it is now opening to the public. Visitors can, for a fee of about £76, sample the steam bath, peeling, and soap massage in a marbled, alcove-filled interior built for the favourite wife of one of the greatest Ottoman sultans.
via David Randall: The reluctant king and the bathhouse queen – Commentators, Opinion – The Independent.
For decades the 16th century bath house built for the Ottoman Empire’s most infamous woman, Roxelana, languished unnoticed between the Blue Mosque and the Haghia Sophia, relegated to life as a carpet showroom.
The turkish bath (hamam), known in the West as Roxelana, is located close to the Hagia Sophia, it is now a state run carpet shop. (File photo)
Ottoman bath houses, structures once so important they were designed by the finest architects of the realm, fell out of favor as Turkey modernized and its citizens installed running water and bathrooms in their homes.
Yet the architectural pedigree of many of the bath houses, the rising number of foreign tourists, and a resurgent interest among Turks in all things Ottoman, have revived the fortunes of the old stone hamams as developers recognize their huge earning potential.
Water streams out of a tap at the newly restored Roxelana’s hamam in Istanbul. (File photo)
Water streams out of a tap at the newly restored Roxelana’s hamam in Istanbul. (File photo)
Roxelana’s hamam, a long, domed building completed in 1557 by the prolific architect Sinan, is the latest Istanbul bath to be restored to its former grandeur—emerging after years of neglect as an oasis of gleaming marble and inviting alcoves.
“Turkey is learning to place more importance on its past,” said architect Tevfik Ilter, who led the 17 million lira project.
“In the last 15 years we started to restore our buildings. Before that the focus was on constructing things fast. If a structure was broken we’d just try and fix it with concrete.”
In 2007 Istanbul authorities decided to return the hamam to its original use after a 105-year hiatus and launched a tender for its restoration, won by a tourism development group.
The bath will open in June and charge 86 euros for the customary steam bath, peeling and soap massage. The same service in one of the handful of old local hamams still in operation in Istanbul would cost around 15 euros.
Visitors to the separate men’s and women’s sections of the bath enter a soaring domed chamber the size of a small mosque, with tiers of wooden changing rooms circling the walls.
After donning a cotton wrap known as a pestemal and slippers they enter the steamy, white marble bath. Once the moisture has penetrated their skin, an attendant scrubs the body to remove the dead skin cells, before dousing the visitor in water.
“It is not just about bathing. It is a purification process, a ritual process,” Mr. Ilter said.
Hamams are a tradition common to most Muslim countries as Islam emphasizes cleanliness and washing, particularly before prayer. But besides their original religious function they were also a place for people to relax and mingle.
While Istanbul now offers four or five historic luxury hamams to chose from, the figure of Roxelana, long a subject of Western orientalist fantasy could prove a particular draw.
Born into a Ukrainian family as Aleksandra Lisowska sometime around 1500 she was captured by raiding Crimean Tartars and sold as a slave in Constantinople, where she was selected for the harem.
Through her charm and guile she managed to catch the eye of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent, displacing his former favorite and eventually becoming his wife.
The bath’s reopening coincides with the screening of a television drama based on the life of Roxelana, which has captivated Turkish audiences, but also drew complaints for its sexual content and liberty with the truth.
Its glamorous costumes, sumptuous interiors, and the endless conniving and plotting among the women of the harem have fed the resurgent local interest in the Ottoman Empire, from which modern Turkey was formed in 1923.
History has not viewed Roxelana kindly, portraying her as a meddlesome schemer. Her son Selim, inherited the empire from his father but proved a disastrous ruler and an alcoholic.
Selim is said to have died in 1574 after slipping and banging his head in a hammam while drunk.
“We don’t know for sure whether Roxelana ever came to her hamam. She died in 1558 and the bath was finished in 1557,” said Ilter.
“Some people think the Sultan built it for her so bathers would pray for her in her ill health. Either way the location of the hamam, right opposite the Haghia Sophia in a central position shows her power and influence.”
Old Istanbul is littered with the ruins of old hamams, most of which are beyond saving. But other restorations are already in the works, particularly of structures built by Sinan.
“History used to be about war and about being a hero. Now we are learning about the history of architecture, leisure and social life,” Mr. Ilter said.
via Bathhouse of Sultan’s favorite reopens in Istanbul.
