Open up a world of Turkish inspiration with a Cornucopia digital subscription

Buy or gift a stand-alone digital subscription and get unlimited access to dozens of back issues for just £18.99 / $18.99 a year.

Please register at www.exacteditions.com/digital/cornucopia with your subscriber account number or contact subscriptions@cornucopia.net

Buy a digital subscription Go to the Digital Edition

Extract

The Jewel Box

The Muharrem Nuri Birgi yalı in Salacak

The Çuruksulu Mehmet Pasha Yalı once saw diplomatic service as the home of the ambassador Muharrem Nuri Birgi. Successively remodelled in the past, today it is beautifully preserved, its restrained exterior and spacious interior evincing the classical age of Ottoman style, and its clifftop position providing timeless views. It is a house of memories, where only Freya Stark was permitted breakfast in bed, and where before Nuri Bey’s time the beautiful Belkıs Hanım held court in a cloud of pink gauze. Patricia Daunt explores. Photographs by Simon Upton

  • The hall opens into an alcove with low divans. It was known as 'Beykoz' in Nuri Birgi's day. Then, the vişne vodka was as legendary as the view, the Persian calligraphy and the Turkish Beykoz opaline vessels that gave the room its name

A late-18th-century yalı stands on the cliff above Salacak, the headland sandwiched between the ancient harbour of Chrysopolis, ‘City of Gold’, present-day Üsküdar, and Chalcedon, ‘City of the Blind’, present-day Kadıköy. It is a jewel box of a house, as exquisite in shape as it is in proportion. Its wooden frames is painted in the tradition dark pigment of aşıboya, the colour reserved for the most privileged of the Ottoman sultan’s Turkish subjects.

The yalı could not have belonged to anyone but the late Muharrem Nuri Birgi, so infused is it with his personality. He was one of those distinguished Turkish diplomats educated as Ottomans. After the Second World War he was ambassador to London, then to Nato. His art de vivre, impeccable taste, acerbic wit and remarkable erudition were bywords in Europe and America. From 1970 much of his talent and energy was devoted to the restoration and adornment of the yalı. Now owned by his friends Selahattin and Ayşe Beyazit, it is kept just as Nuri Bey left it.

From its dramatic site, the yalı looks over the confluence of the Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmara to the hilly promontary of Sarayburnu on which the Topkapı Palace was built.

The house is now a private home belonging Selahattin and Ayşe Beyazıt, who preserved both house and garden almost exactly as Nuri Birgi left it three decades ago. However, it is understood that the yalı is now for sale. Its garden, proportions, and view of the sunset over Golden Horn and the Topkapı Palace surely make it the jewel in the crown of Bosphorus yalıs. We sincerely hope that the new owners will preserve this treasure as the Beyazıts have so faithfully done for three decades.

To read the full article, purchase Issue 7

Buy the issue
Issue 7, 1994/95 The Great Walls of Istanbul
£700.00 / $883.35 / €819.50
Other Highlights from Cornucopia 7
  • Istanbul in Peril

    The Anastasian and Theodosian walls together protected the city for many years; but now this vast and beautiful network is under attack from within. Cornucopia investigates the dangers that threaten this important cultural icon and its surroundings.

  • Slaves to Fantasy

    Chris Farrard questions the motives behind William Allan’s famous Slave Market


  • A bird in hand

    During the Turkish quail-hunting season, man’s best friend is the sparrowhawk. Roger Upton describes how these redoubtable birds help to bring home the bacon


  • Stock taking

    Berrin Torolsan sheds light on the secrets that ensure fluffy, succulent results from rice, bulgur or couscous, with recipes from the homely to the festive.
    More cookery features


  • East with the Night

    The fascination of Istanbul is enough to keep visitors and even the city’s more Westernised residents, from exploring the Asian interior of Central Anatolia, whose local capital, Konya, boasts a million residents and a daunting commitment to Muslim fundamentalism. But a night’s journey by train from Haydarpaşa brings one back to the very dawn of civilisation, and the experience is well worth the not inconsiderable effort of exploring.

Buy the issue
Issue 7, 1994/95 The Great Walls of Istanbul
£700.00 / $883.35 / 28,593.44 TL
More Reading
Related Issues
Cornucopia Digital Subscription

The Digital Edition

Cornucopia works in partnership with the digital publishing platform Exact Editions to offer individual and institutional subscribers unlimited access to a searchable archive of fascinating back issues and every newly published issue. The digital edition of Cornucopia is available cross-platform on web, iOS and Android and offers a comprehensive search function, allowing the title’s cultural content to be delved into at the touch of a button.

Digital Subscription: £18.99 / $18.99 (1 year)

Subscribe now