Be?ikta?
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Image:Besiktas Square.jpg Image:Barbaros Park Statue.jpg Image:Deniz Muzesi Naval Museam.jpg
Beşiktaş (pronounced 'Besh-ik-tash') is a district of İstanbul, Turkey located on the European side of the city, by the coast of The Bosphorus.
Beşiktaş district council administers a number of communities running up the Bosphorus on the European side (from Dolmabahçe Palace up to Bebek) and the land on the hills behind these settlements. The district includes some of Istanbul's best-known locations, such as Arnavutköy, Balmumcu, Bebek, Etiler, (parts of) Levent, Ortaköy, Ulus, and Yıldız.
The Bosphorus has been settled for a long, long time and there are many places of historical interest. The name Beşiktaş has mutated from Beştaş (meaning "five stones"), referring to the pillars to which ships were moored in the time of Barbarossa.
In the Byzantine era the villages on the Bosphorus shore were very popular places to live. Churches and a monastery were built and the tradition of having a summer palace on the Bosphorus was begun by the Byzantines with their Ayios Mamas palace complex. The Bosphorus settlements however, being outside the city walls, were vulnerable to raiders from the Black Sea coasts and little of this architecture has survived. In the Ottoman period, once the emperors had established control of the Black Sea coasts the Ottoman navy was docked in the Bosphorus and the Bosphorus villages became safe and attractive again. One man in particular, the legendary sailor Hayrettin Pasha (Barbarossa), built his palace and mosque in Beşiktaş, making it his home.
The central district of Beşiktaş itself hosts a major bus terminal, a ferry port for boats to the Asian side of the city, and the city's naval museum (Deniz Muzesi). Opposite to the museum is a historical Ottoman mosque. The centre of Beşiktaş is usually overcrowded, but some exploration off the beaten path reveals many winding streets, house cafés, restaurants and bars. Politically this area has always been centre–left leaning and has in the past been a stronghold of the Republican People's Party.
Beşiktaş is also home to the Yahya Efendi Tekke—one of the best-preserved surviving tekkes in İstanbul.
The big Barbaros Bulvarı avenue takes traffic uphill and inland from the centre of Beşiktaş, a major route to the Bosphorus bridges. To the left (going uphill) is the centre of Beşiktaş, Abbasağa Park and streets leading to Ihlamur Kasrı (a summer palace of the Ottoman dynasty in its last period) and up to Dikilitaş and Şişli. Beşiktaş Pazarı near Ihlamur has been one of the best-known open air markets of Istanbul for several decades.
To the right of Barbaros Bulvarı lies Yıldız palace and Yıldız park, now home to Yıldız Technical University. From this point on, housing becomes more upmarket and much more expensive as we get into the Balmumcu, Etiler (where Boğaziçi University is located) and Ulus areas. All this was farmland in the Ottoman period, and the small palace called Balmumcu Kasrı was a hunting lodge of the sultans.
Going along the Bosphorus from Beşiktaş in northward direction we pass the Çırağan Palace hotel and come to a number of well known districts that still retain some of their original village identity:
Ortaköy. In the past this was a cosmopolitan area with communities of Turks, Greeks, Armenians and Jews. Ortaköy is highly visible from the Bosphorus because of the incredibly ornate mosque right on the jetty (a product of the feverish imagination of the Balyan family). Today Ortaköy is a popular city neighbourhood with art galleries, cafes, bars and restaurants and on Sundays a craft market in the streets.
Kuruçeşme: the coast and the steep hillside behind it from the little point in Ortaköy called Defterdarburnu up to the beginning of Arnavutköy at Sarrafburnu and the entrance to Robert College. There is still some of the lush green on the hillside which gave the area its original name, Koruçeşme.
Arnavutköy (previously known as Hestai, then Promotu and Anaplus). The long lost Byzantine church of Ayios Mihael built by Constantine was here. It was pulled down and its stones used to build the castle of Rumeli Hisarı.
Bebek, named in the period of the conquest when Bebek Çelebi (most likely a nickname, as "bebek" means "baby" in Turkish), lieutenant of Fatih Sultan Mehmet, was sent here to build the castle of Rumeli Hisarı and thus establish control of the Bosphorus. Bebek Çelebi built himself a house and a garden here. Since then many of Turkey's great and powerful have followed in his footsteps and built themselves luxury homes along this coast.
Aşiyan, between Bebek and Rumeli Hisarı. Now best known for the cemetery where many of Istanbul's aristocracy chose to be buried, this area is built on a slight point out into the sea, and as this narrows the Bosphorus it was known in Greek as Lomekopi or in Turkish, Boğazkesen, the Bosphorus breaker. The area today takes its name from the house of poet Tevfik Fikret up on the hill overlooking the sea, and "âşiyan" means 'bird's nest' in Persian.
BJK. The district also hosts a football team, Beşiktaş Jimnastik Kulübü (Beşiktaş Gymnastics Club), founded in 1903, which won twelve Turkish Super League titles and participated three times (1997-98, 2000-01, 2003-04) in the UEFA Champions League. The football team wears black-and-white shirts and are nicknamed the "Black Eagles". The club is widely supported by the working class and also has earned fame with their notoriously faithful fans.
Beşiktaş has a population of 190,813 (2000 census).