Not so many people know about this place, even locals maybe never pay attention. One of my favorite…read moreforgotten place which has a remarkable story, finally not about how Kanuni Sultan Suleyman (longest-reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire) had a hamam built for his love Hurrem Sultan. No, this is a story of a group of underdogs.
This is Bulgarian Iron Church has a 114 year history. In the 19th century, there used to be Bulgarian minority and they had a small wooden church. (Well at the time they were allowed to have their own national church.) It was located by the Golden Horn coast, between Balat and Fener where the current church is today situated. Inaugurated in 1849, the church became a symbolic for Bulgarian national resurrection and their struggle for independence.
However, shortly after, the structure suffered from a ''fire'' or who knows!?. Due to the weak ground conditions, using iron was a necessity for building the church. The project of constructing a larger church was launched in 1898 by Hosvep Aznavur, Armenian born architect in Istanbul. The prefabricated parts, 500 tons of metal plaques were brought to the city from Vienna by vessels through the Danube River and Black Sea (How cool is that!).
Created from cast-iron, from a flat-pack, the main skeleton of the church was made of steel and covered by metal boards (Even cooler!). Nuts, bolts, rivets were used when attaching all the pieces together.
At the end of the one and a half years, the construction of this dazzling white Neo-Gothic church finally completed. Today it's one of the world's few surviving prefabricated cast iron churches and as I said one of my favorite hidden gem that is almost forgotten.
