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ANKARA |
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Modern ANKARA is really two cities, a double identity that is due to
the breakneck pace at which it has developed since being declared
capital of the Turkish Republic in 1923. Until then Ankara - known as
Angora - had been a small provincial city, famous chiefly for the
production of soft goat's wool. This city still exists, in and around
the old citadel that was the site of the original settlement. The other
Ankara is the modern metropolis that has grown up around a carefully
planned attempt to create a seat of government worthy of a modern,
Western-looking state. It's worth visiting just to see how successful
this has been, although there's not much else to the place, and the
museums and handful of other sights need only detain you for a day or
two at most.
The City
Finding your way around Ankara is fairly easy. The city is bisected
north-south by Atatürk Bulvari , and everything you need is in easy
reach of this broad and busy street. At the northern end, Ulus Meydani (known
simply as Ulus), a large square and an important traffic intersection
marked by a huge equestrian Atatürk statue, is the best jumping-off
point for the old part of the city, a village of narrow cobbled streets
and ramshackle wooden houses centring on the Hisar , Ankara's old
fortress and citadel. It was the Gauls who built the first
fortifications on this site, but most of what can be seen today dates
from Byzantine times, with substantial Selçuk and Ottoman additions.
There are tremendous views of the rest of the city from inside, as well
as an unexceptional twelfth-century mosque, the Alâeddin Camii . The
Aslanhane Camii and Ali Elvan Camii bazaar areas to the south are more
impressive, built by the Selçuks during the thirteenth century, with
beautifully carved ceilings supported by wooden columns and intricately
carved mihrabs .
Follow Kadife Sokak from here towards the modern city and you come to
the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations (Tues-Sun 8.30am-5pm; $5), which
boasts an incomparable collection of archeological objects housed in a
restored Ottoman bedesten , or covered market, but offers frustratingly
little in the way of explanation. Hittite carving and relief work form
the most compelling section of the museum, mostly taken from Carchemish,
near the present Syrian border. There are also Neolithic finds from
Çatal Höyük, 52km southeast of Konya, the site of one of Anatolia's
oldest settlements and widely regarded as the world's first "city";
early Bronze Age stag figures, pottery and vessels unearthed at Kültepe,
near Kayseri; examples of Urartian metalwork; and Phrygian finds from
the royal tombs at Gordion.
North of Ulus Meydana is what's left of Roman Ankara, namely the Column
of Julian on Hükümet Meydana, erected in honour of a visit to Ankara by
Julian the Apostate, who reigned briefly from 361 AD. Close by, the
Hacibayram Camii was erected on the ruins of the Temple of Augustus and
Rome , built by the Phrygians during the second century BC in honour of
Cybele. Today the remains of the temple wall on the square next to the
mosque are about all that's left. The Hacabayram Camii itself was built
in 1400 by Haca Bayram Veli, the founder of an order of dervishes, whose
tomb in front is a popular place of pilgrimage. South down Atatürk
Bulvara, the Gençlik Parki was built on the orders of Atatürk to provide
a recreational spot for the hard-working citizens of his model
metropolis; it features an artificial lake, funfair, cafés and an Opera
House near the entrance (Atatürk developed a taste for opera while
serving in Sofia in 1905). Further down Atatürk Bulvara, the Ethnography
Museum (closed for restoration at the time of writing) boasts rooms used
as an office by the great man, as well as the usual collection of folk
costumes and Ottoman art and artefacts.
Across the main west-east rail line lies Sihhiye Meydani and the real
heart of modern Ankara, which focuses on the large square of Kizilay ,
the main transport hub of the city. A few streets east rise the four
minarets of the Kocatepe Camii , a modern mosque built in Ottoman-style
that ranks as one of the biggest in the world. Beyond lies Turkey's
parliament building, a strip of embassies and the Presidential Palace ,
whose grounds are home to the Çankaya Atatürk Museum .
Northeast of here, Anit Kabir is the site of Atatürk's mausoleum (daily
9am-5pm; winter closes 4pm; bus #265 from Ulus and near Tandogan Ankaray
station), at the end of a long colonnaded avenue lined by Hittite lions.
A twentieth-century reworking of a Hellenistic temple, it's almost bare
inside except for the forty-tonne sarcophagus and the guards who keep an
eye on visitors to make sure they evince an appropriate degree of
respect. Outside, on the left of the courtyard, is the sarcophagus of
Ismet Inönü , Atatürk's friend and prime minister, who succeeded him as
president of the republic. At the southeastern end of the courtyard is a
museum (Sun 1.30-4.30pm) containing various pieces of Atatürk
memorabilia, including a number of Lincoln limousines which served as
his official transport.
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