Our last Turkey visit was a stop at Trabzon -- one of the easternmost of the Greek settlements and later the former headquarters for an offshoot of the Byzantine empire that lasted from the time the 4th Crusade took Constantinople until about 250 years later when the Ottomans conquered what was called the Empire of Trebizond , a few years after THEY took Constantinople. PLEASE PUSH F11 TO SEE THESE PICTURES FULL SCREEN.
Our stop in Trabzon exposed us to two Byzantine jewels, one a monastery high atop a mountain, the other a church/mosque in the heart of town. First our fearless buses drove up about 30 miles south from our landing port at Trabzon, up about 3500' into the Zigana Mountains of the Altındere National Park where the Değirmen Creek begins its descent towards the Black Sea. As the road climbed, the creek descended noisily and vigorously.
Winding roads keep the larger buses from traveling further up the hill and we were "lightened" into mini-buses for the final climb to the Sumela Monastery. Founded in 386 AD, the monastery has had its ups and downs (despite its aerie-like perch). Various emperors have restored and ignored it. Various armies have come through this strategic territory and defaced its icons and frescoes. The facade of the monks' cells we see here is from the 19th century.
The Monastery grew to its current footprint in the 13th century when the Alexios III Megas Komnenos, the Emperor of Trebizond, began to support it and several other monasteries. Trebizond was more of a juggling act than an empire; its kings would marry their beautiful daughters off to Anatolian princes to keep the peace with neighbors. Alexios was in a constant race with the Venetians and Genoans for hegemony in his own cities.
The Ottoman Sultans, in typically tolerant fashion, allowed the monastery to exist and it remained a popular religious attraction until the 19th century. Like much of the Pontic Greek institutions, this monastery clung to its wealth and its cliff -- as well as its religion. Its library was renowned. Unfortunately, the Russians visited it when they occupied the Trabzon area from 1916-1918. It ceased being a monastery in 1923 when those Turks who were Orthodox were expelled to Greece (and Greece expelled its Muslims to Turkey). Many had lived in their adopted countries for many centuries and spoke only the local tongue.
Now a museum, the monastery perches high above the roadway, requiring a fairly hazardous climb up the slope over tall pines and their muddy tree branches. During the 19th century, a silver mine opened nearby in Gümüşhane (which means "silver city" in Turkish.) This enriched the local economy including the bishops who directed some of their largesse to the monastery. This line allows for materials to be brought up "dumb waiter" style.
Soon the many tourists reach the steep stairs next to the restored aqueduct which brought water to the monastery.
This is the only entrance into the complex and it appears easy to defend, especially if only tourists make the attempt. We didn't see the magic fountain, a kind of Lourdes shrine with healing properties venerated by Christians and Moslems alike.
Tourist access empty buildings which were damaged by fire around 1929. Old photos show wooden balconies on many of these buildings. Besides the monastery's location, the main attractions are frescoes in varying states of disrepair on both interior and exterior walls. The monks quarters -- three stories of cells which have dramatically hung over the cliff since the 1860s -- are at right. They are pretty much empty with walls barren of anything of much interest.
A cave holds a chapel decorated with frescoes inside and out. The inner walls of the cave have been smoothed to hold frescoes and this outer wall was added to confine the space.
Our guide said that many of the faces were chipped away and the flecks of paint sold in markets as miraculous cures. Depending upon how easy it is to reach an icon, the more likely it is to be defaced (literally). Here's an Annunciation scene.
Inside the chapel most walls show three levels of frescoes with mostly New Testament scenes. Fire severely damaged the monastery after its abandonment in 1923. Recent reconstruction has removed most signs of smoke damage.
Here's a stitched-together look at the chapel interior -- floor to ceiling. An old myth credits St. Luke with painting an icon of the Madonna which fled a sinful Athens to hide here. Two monks found it and took its location as a sign for monastery construction. Rescued from a storm after praying to the Madonna, Alexis III (1349-90) paid to have the place redone and even came by in 1361 to watch an eclipse of the sun.
Here's Barack Obama trying to get the Catholic vote by cross-dressing as the Madonna. Below him the Christ Child Bidens his time but doesn't quite have the peace sign down. A good try but maybe not enough counteract religious hockey moms in getting the family values vote.
Most interior scenes feature New Testament scenes from the life of Mary and/or Jesus. Left: Mary greets her cousin Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist in what Catholics call the Visitation. The middle scene may be Joseph betrothed to Mary. At right is probably the Nativity.
Jonah and the whale is one of the relatively scarce Old Testament frescoes here. Fattened by silver money from Gümüşhane, the coffers of the local bishops funded further frescoes as well as the restoration of those already on these walls.
This appears to be an attempt by the one of the Trabzon Emporers to appear Christ-Pantocrator-ish in order to get some religious cachet to spill over to his realm.
This shows what the unrestricted use of camera flash can do to a fresco. Who would have thought?
This graphic novel on the exterior shows the events leading up to (and from) Christ's Crucifixion. Note how the higher scenes show less vandalism.
Here the Passion starts with Christ entering Jerusalem -- minus a few facial paint flecks.
The Resurrection scene appears to have huge portions removed back to the underlying wall.
The removal from the Cross, on a lower level, is pretty well scratched.
Here the Old Testament gets its due with key scenes from the Book of Genesis (in random order): God at left gives Adam and Eve (and the serpent) a performance review at left; at right, his angel expels them from the garden.
Here Adam and Eve get clothes and learn the joys of agriculture.
At left, Adam names the animals in a creationist frenzy; at right, Eve emerges from Adam's rib.
This exterior Resurrection scene is better preserved than the one inside the chapel.
Right: the temptation of Eve
Here Gary finds other topics of interest besides the walls.
Now, for the 2nd Byzantine jewel. We returned to Trabzon near the city center to see one of its most significant building, the 13th century Hagia Sophia. Built as a church for a long-gone monastery, it survived by conversion to Islam in 1577, becoming a mosque over a century after the Ottoman conquest. Today it's a museum.
Guide books tout Hagia Sophia as being in the classic Greek cross shaped, but this picture and my own circumnavigation suggest its an old Roman basilica with dome and entrances added (and side aisles absent). Several feel the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul was the model for this building but that's a bit hard to see here. Note at right in this floorplan are ...
...three cylinders forming what was once the apse. This site is on the shore about 50 feet above the Black Sea just to the right of this picture. Note the eagle at high center.
The exterior of the apse also holds ancient graffiti when sailors carved images of their ships onto the church walls, hoping that such defacing would result in God's grace for their voyages.
Back to the main entrance, we see the eagle again over the arch that defines the main entrance, along with several other carvings. Between I957 and I962, noted Byzantine scholar David Talbot Rice of Edinburgh University supervised the restoration of the Byzantine images buried beneath in the mosque walls. Rice was one of the college chums of Evelyn Waugh who provided inspiration for Brideshead Revisited. The last of Talbot's many books was on this church/mosque.
This eagle was the symbol of one of the most successful and the longest lasting Byzantine dynasties, the Grand Comneni. The Byzantine eagle is two-headed, but the Comneni's emblem has only one. The Comneni ruled in Constantinople about a century; when that town fell to the 4th crusade, grandsons of the the slain emperor started a new empire here in Trabzon that lasted around 250 years. Typically the women in the family would be married to Turkish governors to help keep the peace. The dynasty fell to the Ottomans and the emperor and all his male heirs were beheaded in 1461 -- 8 years after Constantinople fell.
This appears to be the legendary (and legendarily ill-behaved) centaur with bow and arrow. The Russians occupied Trabzon from 1916 to 1918 until the army collapsed during the Russian revolution. They started some archeology work here and began to pull down some of the plaster used by the Mosque converters to cover the Christian icons in the apse.
Further reliefs above the entrance arches. Note the tree (maybe a Jesse tree?) at right.
These exterior carvings were probably influenced by churches in Georgia and Armenia, relative neighbors to this quite-distant Byzantine outpost.
Another exterior detail, one likely to survive mosque duty as its not of humans or animals.
Let's go inside: this vertical slice showing the 12-sided dome down to the extremely fine Byzantine floor. Note that unlike Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, simple columns here can bear the weight of a much smaller dome.
Again the twelve sided dome. The Ottomans probably whitewashed the Christian frescoes in the 1577 conversion to a mosque. However, in the late 1800s, they replastered the inside of the church, probably causing the lion's share of the damage.
A closeup of the dome; note that even the windows have frescoes. A 12 sided dome makes a natural display case for the Apostles. The remaining frescoes are considered major works of the late Byzantine period and are probably from the 3rd quarter of the 13th century.
The exterior of the dome. A tent-shaped cupola such as this is typical of Byzantine construction in the Caucasian range.
Today only about 1/6 of the frescoes, which once covered the entire interior, survive. These are often marked by chip marks made when the repairers of the 1800s attempted to give the new plaster a better grip. Typical of when Christian decorators need four images, the pendentives hold scenes from each of the four evangelists. Here we have John baptizing Jesus.
The dome is held by four pillars such as these with what looks to be typical symmetrical Arabic ornamentation...
...but some of the capitals appear to be reused from earlier buildings but their date and source is unknown.Professor Talbot Rice speculated that these capitals were from the 8th century since they are similar to some found in the Archaeological Museum in Istanbul.
The frescoes were stripped of the Moslem plaster and whitewash, resulting in highly scratched areas (described by the restoration supervisor as a "snowstorm" appearance.) These scratches and chips were then filled in with "earth tones" -- not exact matches to the paint. The overall impression is still somewhat foggy.
The easy flow of the robes indicates that their painters learned the techniques of the Constantinople painters of the late 13th century and contributes to the dating of these frescoes.
The miracle at Cana where water is turned into wine.
Christ feeding the multitudes starting with a few loaves and fish. Note the flowing garments.
A last look at the dome and the apse at rear center.
This is thought to be one of the best examples of a Byzantine floor.
The tower is from the monastery, long gone. It also has frescoes but did not appear to be open. The monastery was founded by Emperor Manuel I Comnenos between 1238 and 1263. Earlier travelers described his picture inside Haigia Sophia, but that fresco has disappeared. It is likely that Manuel's tomb was once inside this church as well, probably directly under the missing portrait.
The churchyard contains what appear to be Greek columns from previous buildings. Those who worked on the 1957 restoration also excavated a small church as well.
Before getting back on the Corinthian II for the long sail to Yalta, we wandered into the Trabzon market to soak up a bit of provincial Turkish color. Coppersmiths were once big here (mining is still a large part of the economy in this area). This whole block used to be nothing but the coppersmiths stores...
...but the area is a full featured market...
...teeming with real people buying real stuff.
A last picture, this one of a dolmus which we found congregating in the central square near the required statue of Attaturk. These are like jitneys, shared taxis that drive assigned routes. We took one (with our guide) in Istanbul. They work well. Passengers sit in three seats and those in the middle seat make change for the driver while he fights Turkish traffic.
