Channel Istanbul Cancel

In the Ottoman period, the first attempt to connect the Black Sea to Marmara was made during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, and the sultan commissioned Mimar Sinan for this work. However, the idea remained on paper. After Kanuni, he tried for the same purpose, but was not successful. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan wants to realize what the 8 sultans could not do with the Kanal Istanbul project.

During the Constitutional referendum campaign in 2011, the head of the Humanity Monument dedicated to Turkish-Armenian peace in Kars, as the result of the 'freak fatwa' of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, 'Allahuekber!' He was torn between his burials. The nearby tomb of Abu'l-Hasen al-Harakani, which was the reason for the demolition of the monument, was not just the place where the person was actually buried, but only a place of 'authority'. According to the Islamic scholar Kazvînî (d. 682/1283), the real grave was in Harakân, near Bistâm in Horasan, but what a range ... While the monument was demolished, Erdoğan was explaining the 'Crazy Project' in Istanbul. Kanal Istanbul, which will connect the Black Sea and the Sea of ​​Marmara over Çatalca, was' crazy proce. There was neither scientific research, feasibility studies, nor benefit-loss analyzes behind it. Erdogan thought and announced: "Channel Istanbul should be opened, will be opened!"

(The drawing was taken from Muhammed Kürşad Sucuoğlu's thesis entitled "SWOT analysis of the Canal Istanbul Project in terms of Turkish Maritime", which was accepted at Istanbul University / Institute of Science in 2014.)

IS THE PROJECT INSPECTION?
'Ferman after the reading of the fierce but shallow controversies in what a scientist such as the ground, environment, sea, climate, plant and animal tissue, social texture, economic structure, maritime law and so on. they could not make clear what they would bring, what they would bring, nor Erdoğan was able to tell us what this project was about.

Moreover, it turned out that the project was not the original idea of ​​Erdogan (or his team). CHP Chairman Kılıçdaroğlu said that the first idea of ​​building a channel to connect the Black Sea to Silivri was expressed in 1994 by Bülent Ecevit, one of the former leaders of the CHP, before Ecevit, in 1990, the Ministry of Energy Consultant Yüksel Önem It was understood that Tübitak's Science and Technical Magazine published an article titled “I Think of Istanbul Channel…” in August 1990 issue.

The last one to get the idea of ​​the Istanbul Canal was Bilal Özyurt. 8 May In the 2011 dated May 10th edition of Cumhuriyet newspaper ile The Real Owner of the Channel X, Bilal Özyurt sent the project prepared by 2004 to the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality. October 23'da personally sent to Prime Minister Erdogan. In a statement to local media, proj I wrote down the project of opening this channel and establishing a modern city around it. Özyurt, after the Prime Minister announced his 'Crazy Project', started to make statements to the local newspapers, but he could not believe that he was the master of the project.

CHANNEL THESIS MADE IN TIME!
In the past four years, Erdogan has clearly given hints that he has not given up on the project, but I always wished he had forgotten this project. However, CB Erdogan brought me to my dinner at the iftar dinner given to the workers working on the construction of the 3rd bridge, which was declared to be named as the “Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge”, as if taunting the Alevis. Erdogan said, “What should we do and realize Kanal Istanbul? From the moment we finish this, Istanbul will become a different attraction in every aspect. Now, the investment will cost 12 billion euros. Excluding VAT to the government. 22 billion euros will generate income. But there are those who cannot digest it. But what we say is 'If the horse does not know the sea fish, it knows it' and so we continue on. ” The moment he said, I was mad. I thought and frightened the horrible consequences of the mentality of “I did, it happened” Let's see how long this time will be this vigilance… Let's go back to history after this long entrance and take a look at the fate of Ottoman channel projects that inspired Erdogan.

DON-VOLGA CHANNEL PROJECT
In the Ottoman period, the first attempt to connect the Black Sea to the Marmara was made during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent (1520-1566), and the sultan appointed Mimar Sinan for this work. The aim was to bring the timber brought from Eskişehir, Bolu and Kocaeli to the capital without disturbing the city order. But the idea remained on paper.
Another project of the Kanuni period was the Don-Volga Canal Project to connect the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea. 1568 who suggested the channel to the sultan was the last grand vizier of Kanuni, Sokollu Mehmet Pasha. The aim was to draw a set that would prevent the Russians from descending to the south by combining the Don and Volga rivers with a canal. In this way, after the collapse of the Golden Horde State, the Astrakhan Khanate was to be dominated by the Ottoman Empire, and it would be possible to control both the khanates in Volga and the trade routes to Central Asia. This control was of vital importance for the Russian-Iran-Ottoman competition on Georgia, Azerbaijan and Shirvan. Secondary objectives included revitalizing the Silk Road trade, exploiting the navy in the war with Iran, and liaising with the Turkish khanates in Central Asia. The Sokollu enemies had tried to convince the sultan that the project was useless and costly, but the main obstacle was the death of Kanuni in the Xigumvar campaign in 1563.
His son, II. Selim was interested in the project of Sokollu, the fathers of his father. We learned from Halil İnalcık that Sokollu appointed Çerkez Kasım Pasha to the Beylerbeyligi. Pasha channel found the excavation site. This was the six-mile-mile region of Perevolok (today's Stalingrad). The Ottoman incumbents believed that there were traces of ve mosques, baths and madrasahs in the square eh, an ancient Islamic city with no people in it. According to Halil İnalcık, the ruined city around Volga might have been Yeni-Saray. The new palace was the capital of the Golden Horde and its place was identified by Russian archaeologists in the 1940. The original name of the Astrakhan Khanate was the Dragon Khanate, and the work of the Russians was called Astrakhan.

CHANNEL WAITING
Seeing that the preparations came to the final stage in 1569, the Crimean Khan State Giray got into a double game with the concern that the Ottoman State's need for it would decrease, and even its autonomy would be lost. On the one hand, the Russian Tsar IV. (Terrible), he said to Ivan, 'The Ottoman will capture the Astrahan and proclaim me the inn of this place. On the one hand, you will send a great army to the Ottoman sultan, 'Tsar Astrahan', you can not cope with this army because of thirst, famine, cold, Azov Sea is shallow, stormy, you can not put your ships here, the channel you will do is most useful for the Muscovite, the best of us join our forces and go to Moscow, "he said. Neither side came to this game. In the spring of 1569, the Navy Ottoman army (the number varies from a few thousand to 200 thousand in the sources, Halil İnalcık estimates the number as 13-14 thousand spikes and janissaries). They joined them with the army of the Crimean Khan (around 50 thousand). Surgeries, guns, ammunition and provisions moved to Perevolok location and the excavation started. As a result of this activity, a third of the distance between the two rivers was excavated within three months.

EJDERHEN'S LIVING AND HEATING
However, such a branching of the issue, Iran and Russia to establish an alliance against the Ottomans, the Crimean Khan's ambivalent attitude, the Tatar army unrest, and most of the season to return to the winter, the hard winds, the boggy force of the channel has slowed down the excavation. (According to the story, the Crimean Khan demolished the channel sets to his soldiers.) Finally, the Crimean Khan and Kasım Pasha were forced to quit the channel business and march directly onto Astrakhan. He convinced Selim. So the channel project collapsed. However, the Dragon Campaign was not successful. According to the allegations of the 60-70 around the Ottoman-Crimean army and the 130 thousand existed Muscovite army, although there was no serious collision, the military began to decline. During a one-month ricat time, half of the army was destroyed in deserts and swamps (officially entered in the wrong direction of the Tatar guides). According to the historian Hammer, only 7 was able to return to Istanbul. In the meantime, the ammunition and supplies stored in the Azov fortress were destroyed by the rebels Janissaries detonating the gunpowder tank. In short, a complete defeat was experienced. The Sultan, of course, blamed Sokollu for all of this, but did not go further than to scold him in front of everyone. If he were to comfort, Ivan the Terrible did not live in Astrakhan because of the fear of the Crimean Khan, instead he founded the New Astrakhan in an island in the middle of the Volga. Then the Ottoman-Russian relations (up to 1587) were focused. (Click to read the article on Ottoman-Russian relations) Ottoman conquest of attention to the conquest of Cyprus, the fight with Russia was left to the Crimean Khanate. (To open the Don-Volga Channel, it was also 16 after years of efforts, but in the 1953, Stalin was the USSR).

(A stamp printed in honor of the opening of the Don-Volga Canal at 1953.)

SOKOLLU'S SÜVEYŞ CHANNEL INITIATIVE
The second attempt to connect the Black Sea to the Marmara Sea was made by Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, but this time he was the third. It was built during the Murad period (1574-1595). (You can understand Sokollu, 14 had been in the period of over three years in the reign of the three sultans. The longest record was 22 by Çandarlı Halil Pasha, but 2 was the longest Grand Vizier of Sokollu with its meter height.) Our Pasha outside the Don-Volga Canal, Suez Canal and Sakarya River- He was the author of Sapanca Lake-Izmit Bay Canal projects.
I would like to open the Suez parenthesis because the subject is indirectly related but with an interesting story. The idea of ​​combining the Red Sea with the Mediterranean 2 goes all the way to the millennia, but the concrete incident that makes us think that Sokollu is channeling Suez, there are those who claim that Sultan Alaeddin, the ruler of Aceh in Sumatra, asked for help in his war against the Portuguese colonialists, but that this aid was late and insufficient sending because of the Zigetvar Expedition. but it is clear that Sokollu's vision is broader than this. According to the sources, Sokollu sent an edict to the Beylerbeyi of Egypt in December 1568, whether or not a channel could be opened in Suez, how much money would be spent for it, how much ship, worker, material, etc. she asked if she would need one. However, because Sokollu's dignity was shaken by the Astrakhan downfall, who also violated the Don-Volga Channel, it did not come behind.

FALSE CALCULATORS OF ENGINEERS
Not only the Mediterranean Sea but also the Red Sea (via the Straits of Gibraltar) with the Atlantic Ocean (through the Babü'l-Mendep Strait) connecting the Indian Ocean to the Suez Canal project to realize the 3 century after the French was the best. The French couldn't do it. Napoleon Bonaparte, who invaded Egypt between the 1798-1802, assigned it to the engineer Lepere, who made the timing mistake at the moment when the seas were swollen, so he thought the Red Sea was the highest 10 meter from the Mediterranean. It was therefore decided that the construction of the canal was very difficult. About half a century later, the French Consul in Cairo, M. Ferdinand de Leseps (who was not an engineer) had studied the subject and convinced his country when he realized that it was possible to open the canal, and Egypt Khıdivi had first official permission from Kavalalı Mehmed Said Paşa. The first digging was shot at 25 April 1859, the channel was opened to traffic at 17 November 1869. 2 million 400 thousand Egyptian workers worked in the canal construction, some of them 125 thousand had lost their lives on this road. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli 's master maneuver and shares of the canal were seized by Britain because the Suez Canal was right in the middle of Britain's dominion - in short, it was too strategic to be left to the French!

AİDA OPERATION, EUGENİE AND ABDÜLAZİZ
If you say, let's leave politics and look at more fun topics, Hıdivi İsmail Pasha of the time not only invited emperors and empresses, kings and queens, princes and princesses, scientists, poets, famous names of Europe to the opening ceremony. He built an opera house in Cairo and ordered an opera to Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi. The opera opera Aida, which did not reach the opening ceremony (its first representation will still take place in Cairo but on December 24, 1871), but gained a great reputation in the following years, thus emerged. The rumor of Empress Eugenie, who will represent France at the opening ceremony, on his way to Istanbul and that he had a small adventure with the sultan Abdülaziz, has survived to the present day ... Lesseps intended to open the Panama Canal in the 1880s but could not complete the project. Let us leave Cemal Pasha's channel bosses during the First World War to another article.

(A lithograph poster of the representation of the Aida Opera in 1908 in USA-Ohio.)

SAKARYA-SAPANCA-IZMIT CHANNEL
Returning to the subject, III. Murad, Don-Volga and Suez channel proposals were not warm, but Sakarya River-Sapanca Lake-Izmit Bay Channel liked the project. 21 January 1591 in the history of Iznikmid (Iznik) and Sapancı (Sapanca) sent to the fate of women in Turkish today was written with: "Sakarya River Sapanca Lake and Sapanca Lake to the Gulf of Izmit I'm living. What should be done, neglect and looseness of this issue. How far away from Sakarya to the lake and how many arcs of the lake from the lake. In the meantime, mill, dairy, farm, etc., if there is, if you can transfer to another place is able to be written, should be urgently written and broad.,
The responsibility of the channel was given to Sokollu Mehmed Pasha. Former treasurer of Budin Ahmad Efendi was appointed to Kanal Eminliği. Then the architects and craftsmen were sent to the region, and the Anatolian, Karaman, Sivas, Maraş and Erzurum beylerbeyi and Eyüp women were ordered to collect 30 bin works at the construction site. However, all these preparations were not successful, as a result of the intrigues of statesmen turned against each other as a result of this project! Medi

THIRD AND FOURTH INTEGRATIONS
The third attempt to connect the Black Sea to the Marmara Sea, IV. Mehmed period (1648-1687) was made. It was also aimed to connect the Black Sea to Sakarya River and Lake Sapanca and Izmit Bay. When the architect called Hindioğlu, who made the discovery in the region by order of the Sultan, mentioned some difficulties, the opening of the channel was postponed for the third time.
The fourth attempt was made by the 'reformatory sultan' III. During Mustafa period (1757-1774). This time, however, the merger of the Black Sea and the Sapanca River was abandoned due to the financial difficulties, and the aim was to merge Sapanca Lake and the Gulf of Izmit. The aim was to get the timber from Sakarya and its surrounding forests to Istanbul faster. The two edicts issued by the Sultan in the years 1759 and 1761 were not enough, even though the excavation works were started, the initiative did not give any support to the project.

CHANNEL MAKUS TALİHİ
The issue of re-introduction of the issue in the Xnumx Kocaeli and Hüdavendigar (Bursa) sancaklerında Dezir Hacı Ahmed Aziz Pasha, the canal in the economic sense of a report on how useful the sultan II. It was with Mahmud (1813-1808). Aziz Pasha stated in the report that it was possible to clean up the land until the place of Sakarya or to the Beypazarı sides and transfer all kinds of crops to neighboring the river easily to Marmara. He also requested from Istanbul to send experts to the region for inspection, measurement and drawing of the land. This time the job must have been taken seriously, because Aziz Pasha was brought to the head of the project, and architects and masters were given the order. However, the misfortune manifested itself again. Aziz Pasha died on 1839 days after receiving the order to work on the excavation could not be started. The project was then rushed again, with the excuse of the proje depressed and troubled days of the state. Ardından
Abdülmecit (1839-1861) and Abdülaziz (1861-1876) in the period of the unfortunate channel project was again shelf. However, the initiatives at 1845, 1857 and 1863 did not yield results.
Erdogan, perhaps to defeat this jinx took the channel from Sakarya region to Çatalca region and has the ambition of achieving the success of eight sultans. There is no one around to remind him that the end of crazy projects without such untouched books are not good at all. Speaking of the book, the Montreux (Montreux) Treaty, which determines the status of Istanbul and the Dardanelles straits (click here for more information), is unlikely to be affected by this project. In short, in a folk saying, gid we are going to a kingdom, we go to the apocalypse, ac

Source: Radikal - Ayşe Hür