There are cities which are eternal, bewitching generation after generation
with their beauty and splendour, their names turning up again and again in the epic story of mankind. And there are districts as famous as the cities of which they are a part. However small they might be, they are stages where history has strutted for long centuries. Galata is such a place. Wherever you look in Istanbul, capital to two empires, whichever page of history you turn, it declares "Yes, me again.". Yet the people of Istanbul have always looked on Galata with suspicion as a stranger in their minds. Galata represented the western Medirerranean, and even the Atlantic, and did not belong here.

The Byzantines called it Pera the "opposite shore", and the Ottoman Turks used the ancient name Galata for which two etymologies are posited. either Otalian calata meaning "streets of steps" or galactos meaning milk. But there is no neet to go into that debate here. Galata was hometo a Venetian trading colony that the Byzantines viewed with mistrust. In 1185 mistrust is boiled over into outright hostility, and fighting between the populations of Constantinople and Galata went on for some time. In 1204 the Republic of Venice got its revenge by diverting the Fourth Crusaders against Constantinople. From that time on hatred of the "opposite shore" increased still further. After over half a century under Latin occupation,Constantinople was restored to the victorious Paleologan dynasty, who now granted privileges to the Genoese of Pera instead of Venetians, although this failed to dispel public ill-feeling. The Genoese inhabitants of Pera consolidated their new status by erecting the famous Galata Tower.

Galata was surrounded by its own walls enclosing the area from the sea up to what is now Sishane and Tunel. During the reign of the Turkish conqueror of Istanbul Mehmed II (1451-1481) the first settlement commenced beyond these walls. Fist the district of Kasimpasa, where the naval arsenals was situated, grew apace,and then the Venetian bailos as their ambassadors were called, who had formerly lived within the walls of Istanbul settled outside the walls of Galata. Their Plazzo Venezia was built after the Turkish conquest, and it was probably in reference to the Venetian bailo that the area above Galata became known as Beyoglu, meaning "Son of Lord". The Italians of Galata had numerous churches, including St.Anne´s, St.Benedict´s, St.John´s, St.Sebastians, St. Anthony´s, St.George´s, St.Mary´s and St.Francis. Arap mosquewhich is became visible after the extensive demolitions along the waterfront in Karakoy, also dates from this period.

In the 19th century, this area became Istanbul´s financial center,
and Banks Street (Bankalar Caddesi) is lined by buildings in neo-renaissance, oriental and Byzantine Moorish style. Some of these buildings still houses their original instituttions, while other have changed hands and now belong the institutions like Central Bank and Sabanci University. In Byzantine times the Latin population of Pera was in the majority, but under the Ottomans they were outnumbered by both the Muslims and Greek communities. The Latins or Levantines as they are later became known, consisted of people from diverse Eurpoean countries, predominantly those of the western Mediterranean. Their shared language was Italian until the 19th century, when it was suspended by French, which became the lingua franca of newspapers, theatres and business life of Prea. The walled district of Galata, however retained its own individual character, and the people here though of themselves as Istanbulians, whatever their race or creed. Climbing Camondo Steps to the street of Kurt Cinar brings you to the Austrian Lycee of St. George, the apartment in St. Pierre Han where the reowned poet Andrea Chenicois thought to have been born, and on the corner of Eski Banka Street the Church of Sts Peter and Paul, the most vivid and nostalgic reminder of old Galata. Galata was the dock area behind the harbour, and gradually acquired a notorious reputation for crime and devauchery. It was a place of merchants and seamend, and in 1853 during the Crimean War, when allied troops poured into Galata, it was here that the Ottoman goverment formed the fist modern municipality to keep the streets clean and well lit. The decision to tax gambling saloons , music halls, and similar establishments here rather than close them down angered conservative Muslims. But there were other reputable institutions in the narrow streets of Galata, such as Catholic missions schools and hospitals. The British built a hospital here for the soldiers during the Crimean war, and a British police station to keep order.

Ashkenazi Jews fleeing eastern Europe and Russia in the 19th century who took refuge in the Ottoman Empire formed a large community in Galata. The Ashkenazi Synagogue is just one of numerous Jewish sites in area which still has its Jewish tailors, the tofre begadim. The Zolfaris Synagogue in Karakoy is now being renovated as a Turko-Jewish museum.

Yuksekkaldirim, the steep street leading up from Galata Tower is famous for its music shops, and above all for Galata Mevlevihane , or dervish lodge, today the Museum of Divan Literature, where the dervishes still perform their whirling ceremonies.

At one time the Italians of Galata included such illustratious Venetian families as Perone,Fornettio,Doria,Negri,Drapeis,Navoni,Samsoni,Bruttti,Cavalorsa,Salvagi,Alessio,Paterio, and Testa. All the languages of the Ottoman Empire could be heard in this polyglot area, and the inhabitants tended to mix up several languages in one sentence as Eduardo d´Amicis noted with suprise in the late 19th century. In this time of new building Galata attracted builders and stonemasons from Italy, but as time went on the Italian population dwindled. Today more Turkish than Italian used at the services in the Catholic churches of Galata.

Galata has preserved its historic buildings to a greater extent than the most of the districts of Istanbul, and 19th pictures reveal no startling changes. But the same is not true of the cultural and social structure of Galata, which sinking into poverty from the 1960s, is now on the upturn and attracting a new influx of intellectuals, artists and foreigners. The famous Germania apartment block (now Murat Apt. in Serdar-i Ekrem St.) is a typical example of this upward trent. The area around the Galata Tower is gradualy losing its shabby appearance, and Galata promises to soon become a picturesque district with a flavour of Southwest Europe, loking across the Golden Horn to Old Istanbul. As it attracts young people , the area is joining the process of rejuvenation which has transformed Beyoglu in recent years, so perhaps we should all go before crowds move in.