Historic fountains no longer quench Istanbul's thirst

Historic fountains no longer quench Istanbul's thirst

Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Vercihan Ziflioğlu
ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News
The last street fountain in Istanbul's Boyacıköy neighborhood is waiting to be repaired and reopened for public use – if the Culture Ministry grants permission



Nazaret Özsahakyan, president of the ruling board of the Boyacıköy Armenian Church, saıd there were five fountains in the neighborhood during his childhood.
The last street fountain in Istanbul’s Boyacıköy neighborhood, a remnant of one of the city’s oldest traditions, is waiting to be saved.

The land for the fountain was given to Misak Amira Misakyan, the royal banker, by order of Sultan Abdulaziz. (“Amira” was the title given to government officials of Armenian origin who served in high positions within the state.) As soon as he took over the land, Amira Misakyan built the Boyacıköy Armenian Church in 1826, which stands to this day, and a fountain across from the church for people to quench their thirst.

Fountain culture is among the oldest traditions in Istanbul. Research shows that more than 800 fountains of various types were built near water sources inside the city’s borders during Byzantine and Ottoman times. But in the 1950s, the cabinet passed a bylaw on water that reverted authority over fountains from the Board of Monuments to the municipalities, which have neglected their care.

Hundreds of fountains, including ones built in the names of sultans, have since been destroyed; their water sources have been illegally connected to buildings and their historic epigraphs looted.

Remaining fountains in poor condition

Nazaret Özsahakyan, president of the ruling board of the Boyacıköy Armenian Church, told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review that during his childhood, there were five fountains in the neighborhood. Today, only two of them remain and both are in poor condition.

The two remaining fountains are the one built by Amira Misakyan and the fountain of Sultan Mahmut II, which is on the street behind the church. “There is nothing left of the Mahmut II fountain,” Özsahakyan said. “First, they broke the fountain, then one day at midnight, they dismantled the epigraph with the sultan’s signature on and ran away with it.”

Özsahakyan, who calls himself a history lover, says he is struggling to protect Amira Misakyan’s fountain because “it was built by our church’s founder and is the first and last fountain located in a public area inside the provincial borders of Istanbul with a epigraph in Armenian.”

Water source siphoned away

Another important quality of the fountain is that it has its own Byzantine reservoir; the public used to be able to access the water pooling in the reservoir through the fountain. Now, Özsahakyan said, the water in the reservoir has been illegally connected to an apartment block in the neighborhood by pipes, which he showed to the Daily News.

“They not only stole the fountain’s water, they tried to dismantle the historic epigraph with hammers and run away,” he said. “They could not succeed, but inflicted considerable damage. We applied to the municipality and experts came to see it. We said we wanted to take it under our protection, but we were told that it is public property. Later, the municipality decided to sell it to us, but the Board of Monuments intervened. We made another application and are waiting for approval from the Ministry of Culture.”

Waiting for ministry approval

If the application is approved, Özsahakyan said, the drawings are ready and repairs would begin immediately. If the necessary permissions are granted, expert teams will start investigations to determine whether or not the water in the reservoir is hazardous to human health before redirecting it to the fountain for public use once again.

- - - -

Mail in the historic reservoir

Özsahakyan told an interesting anecdote about the historic reservoir: “I caught the postman several times while throwing mail into the water from the window-like part of the reservoir,” he said. “When I asked why he was throwing mail into the water, his answer made me laugh so hard. He said no one is interested in letters anymore and he is tired of wasting his time for nothing.”