Turkey’s Golden Horn Is Shining Again

The stench is largely gone and the waters of the Golden Horn, once plied by the imperial boats of the Ottoman sultans, are slowly turning from black to blue.

Authorities have razed some 600 factories and a city-owned slaughterhouse that spewed filth into this fabled waterway, a 4 1/2-mile arm that flows into the Bosporus Strait dividing Europe and Asia and was once described by the Ottoman poets as “Sadabad,” or “place of bliss.”

Nursen Sevik’s family moved to the scenic banks of the Golden Horn, one of the world’s great natural harbors, after the foul smell that permeated the area largely vanished a few years ago.

“Before, I had to cover my nose even riding inside a bus along it,” Sevik said. “We would not have moved in if the smell had not disappeared.”

Ali Kaplan, another resident, said the waterway “was like a cesspool.” But it is getting better each day, recovering from a rush-filled swamp land. Fish are returning, though not yet enough to entice fishermen.

Once, a giant iron chain stretched across the mouth of the Golden Horn to keep invading forces off the bay.

In 1453, Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II could not break the chain. But he earned the title “Conqueror” when he used animal and human power to pull some 70 ships over a nearby hill on oiled pieces of wood and into the Horn--defeating a stunned Byzantine fleet and capturing Istanbul for the Turks.

Vegetation in the Horn has recovered after authorities pumped out 6.5 million cubic yards of mud with pipes into a barren stone quarry four miles away. The project cost more than $500 million.

“There was no oxygen in some parts before the dredging,” said Mustafa Ozturk, head of the cleanup work at Mayor Ali Mufit Gurtuna’s office.

Former Mayor Bedrettin Dalan, who first launched the cleanup in 1984, promised: “The color of the Golden Horn waters will be as blue as my eyes.”

Dalan kept his word by sometimes ignoring or circumventing court orders against demolition in his haste to restore the past glory and beauty to the Golden Horn.

Tourists savor the view of the setting sun which casts a golden hue on its waters--which is believed to give its name to the horn-shaped estuary. Greek mythology says the “Horn” was formed as Zeus’ lover, who was transformed into a heifer, struck the strait in retreat from Zeus’ jealous wife.

“Very nice, looks really golden,” said Maritta Wanke, a German tourist from Berlin. “It is hard to imagine battleships when you look at this marvelous view.”

The view is thought to have inspired Army Capt. John C. Fremont, who is widely accepted to have called the entrance to California’s San Francisco Bay “Chrysopylae” or Golden Gate around 1846, because it reminded him of the Golden Horn, or “Chrysoceras” in Istanbul.

The modern-day version, with its cement-and-iron bridges, does not live up to its romantic image.

Still, couples have returned to the green shores of the Golden Horn, lined with the sacred Eyup mosque, the Genoese Galata Tower and the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate for romantic strolls. Some residents even cool off in its waters during hot summer days, despite warnings from environmentalists that it is still not clean enough for swimming.

“We want the Golden Horn to become a water sports and pleasure center again like in Ottoman times,” Ozturk said. “More activity in the water will help the vegetation recover faster.”

The municipality played host to the first Balkans youth rowing championship in early September. The waterway also is host to annual rowing races between Oxford, Cambridge and Istanbul’s Bosporus universities.

“I learned to swim here,” said 60-year-old Erdogan Taskin, who takes his dog Pinti for a boat trip in the Golden Horn each day. “He likes it clean, like me.”