Wegen Hagia Sophia: Griechen erklären ihren türkischen „Kollegen“ den Krieg

Hacker aus Griechenland und der Türkei liefern sich ein regelrechtes Duell im Internet, berichtet der griechische Sender „Star“. Der Cyberkrieg ist ausgebrochen, nachdem die Website von Premierminister  durch eine Hackerattacke lahmgelegt wurde und eine Koranlesung in der Istanbuler Hagia Sophia stattfand.

Artifacts of Hagia Sophia on display Trabzon Museum

Thirty-three historic artifacts in the garden of the Hagia Sophia in the Black Sea province of Trabzon have been moved to the Trabzon Museum after the structure was turned into a mosque again.

According to information provided by the Provincial Culture Directorate, the Hagia Sophia, which served as a museum for some time, has been transferred to the Trabzon Regional Directorate of Foundations through a court decision and turned into mosque again. Therefore, 33 historic artifacts and epitaphs from the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman eras in the garden of the structure were decided to be transferred to the Trabzon Museum. 

Thessaloniki: Greece’s new hot spot for Turks.-Thessaloniki is also considered an open-air museum of Byzantine art.

 Barçın Yinanç
Greece’s second largest city has of course a special place in the minds and hearts of Turks since it is the birth place of Atatürk, the Republic’s founder. Thessaloniki is also considered an open-air museum of Byzantine art.

With the rise in the last decade of a middle class in search of tourist destinations abroad yet frustrated by European Union visa regulations (the all too familiar Schengen visa), many Turkish tourists are increasingly seeking visa-free travel. Government efforts to abolish visa requirements with certain countries were emphatically appreciated as it has boosted tourism with countries like Russia, Lebanon (before the Syrian war) and Croatia (before it became an EU member). If we look at the last example, Turkish tourists’ arrivals to Croatia dropped 20 percent after the nation entered the EU last summer, despite Zagreb’s efforts to ease the process of visa attainment for Turkish nationals.

The ghosts of Smyrna in Izmir ....

The Hellenic spirit still lingers in Smyrna, writes Alexander Billinis (neoskosmos.com)

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There is something about travel to our lost homelands that creates spectral yearnings in me. I have had the great fortune to visit and to experience nearly every country bordering Greece, or where the Byzantine legacy still remains in culture or edifice. Nowhere were the ghosts more numerous than in my visit to Smyrna last autumn.

This is probably because Byzantine and Hellenic legacy is officially expunged from the record in Izmir, whereas in Constantinople there is still a tiny Greek community and the Patriarchate of Constantinople maintains a slipping grip on the spiritual legacy of Byzantium, and over all Orthodox. It could be, too, that what the city represents simply transcends the grave for Byzantine descendents.

Whatever it was, even Constantinople did not stir up the same whirl of spectral emotions as Smyrna.