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Excerpt characterizing Constantinople

It was not difficult to say “tomorrow” and maintain a tone of decency; but to come home alone, to see your sisters, brother, mother, father, to confess and ask for money to which you have no right after your word of honor was given.
We weren't sleeping at home yet. The youth of the Rostov house, having returned from the theater, having had dinner, sat at the clavichord. As soon as Nikolai entered the hall, he was overwhelmed by that loving, poetic atmosphere that reigned in their house that winter and which now, after Dolokhov’s proposal and Iogel’s ball, seemed to thicken even more, like the air before a thunderstorm, over Sonya and Natasha. Sonya and Natasha, in the blue dresses they wore at the theater, pretty and knowing it, happy, smiling, stood at the clavichord. Vera and Shinshin were playing chess in the living room. The old countess, waiting for her son and husband, was playing solitaire with an old noblewoman who lived in their house. Denisov, with shining eyes and tousled hair, sat with his leg thrown back at the clavichord, clapping them with his short fingers, striking chords, and rolling his eyes, in his small, hoarse but faithful voice, sang the poem he had composed, “The Sorceress,” to which he was trying to find music.
Sorceress, tell me what power
Draws me to abandoned strings;
What fire have you planted in your heart,
What delight flowed through my fingers!
He sang in a passionate voice, shining at the frightened and happy Natasha with his agate, black eyes.
- Wonderful! Great! – Natasha shouted. “Another verse,” she said, not noticing Nikolai.
“They have everything the same,” thought Nikolai, looking into the living room, where he saw Vera and his mother with the old woman.
- A! Here comes Nikolenka! – Natasha ran up to him.
- Is daddy at home? – he asked.
– I’m so glad you came! – Natasha said without answering, “we’re having so much fun.” Vasily Dmitrich remains for me one more day, you know?
“No, dad hasn’t come yet,” said Sonya.
- Coco, you have arrived, come to me, my friend! - said the countess's voice from the living room. Nikolai approached his mother, kissed her hand and, silently sitting down at her table, began to look at her hands, laying out the cards. Laughter and cheerful voices were still heard from the hall, persuading Natasha.
“Well, okay, okay,” Denisov shouted, “now there’s no point in making excuses, barcarolla is behind you, I beg you.”
The Countess looked back at her silent son.
- What's wrong with you? – Nikolai’s mother asked.
“Oh, nothing,” he said, as if he was already tired of this same question.
- Will daddy arrive soon?
- I think.
“Everything is the same for them. They don't know anything! Where should I go?” thought Nikolai and went back to the hall where the clavichord stood.
Sonya sat at the clavichord and played the prelude of the barcarolle that Denisov especially loved. Natasha was going to sing. Denisov looked at her with delighted eyes.
Nikolai began to walk back and forth around the room.
“And now you want to make her sing? – what can she sing? And there’s nothing fun here,” thought Nikolai.
Sonya struck the first chord of the prelude.
“My God, I am lost, I am a dishonest person. A bullet in the forehead, the only thing left to do is not sing, he thought. Leave? but where? anyway, let them sing!”
Nikolai gloomily, continuing to walk around the room, glanced at Denisov and the girls, avoiding their gaze.
“Nikolenka, what’s wrong with you?” – asked Sonya’s gaze fixed on him. She immediately saw that something had happened to him.
Nikolai turned away from her. Natasha, with her sensitivity, also instantly noticed her brother’s condition. She noticed him, but she herself was so happy at that moment, she was so far from grief, sadness, reproaches, that she (as often happens with young people) deliberately deceived herself. No, I’m having too much fun now to spoil my fun by sympathizing with someone else’s grief, she felt, and said to herself:
“No, I’m rightly mistaken, he should be as cheerful as I am.” Well, Sonya,” she said and went out to the very middle of the hall, where, in her opinion, the resonance was best. Raising her head, lowering her lifelessly hanging hands, as dancers do, Natasha, energetically shifting from heel to tiptoe, walked through the middle of the room and stopped.
“Here I am!” as if she was speaking in response to the enthusiastic gaze of Denisov, who was watching her.
“And why is she happy! - Nikolai thought, looking at his sister. And how isn’t she bored and ashamed!” Natasha hit the first note, her throat expanded, her chest straightened, her eyes took on a serious expression. She was not thinking about anyone or anything at that moment, and sounds flowed from her folded mouth into a smile, those sounds that anyone can make at the same intervals and at the same intervals, but which a thousand times leave you cold, in the thousand and first times they make you shudder and cry.
This winter Natasha began to sing seriously for the first time, especially because Denisov admired her singing. She no longer sang like a child, there was no longer in her singing that comic, childish diligence that was in her before; but she still did not sing well, as all the expert judges who listened to her said. “Not processed, but a wonderful voice, it needs to be processed,” everyone said. But they usually said this long after her voice had fallen silent. At the same time, when this raw voice sounded with irregular aspirations and with efforts of transitions, even the expert judges did not say anything, and only enjoyed this raw voice and only wanted to hear it again. In her voice there was that virginal pristineness, that ignorance of her own strengths and that still unprocessed velvet, which were so combined with the shortcomings of the art of singing that it seemed impossible to change anything in this voice without spoiling it.
“What is this? - Nikolai thought, hearing her voice and opening his eyes wide. -What happened to her? How does she sing these days? - he thought. And suddenly the whole world focused for him, waiting for the next note, the next phrase, and everything in the world became divided into three tempos: “Oh mio crudele affetto... [Oh my cruel love...] One, two, three... one, two... three... one... Oh mio crudele affetto... One, two, three... one. Oh, our life is stupid! - Nikolai thought. All this, and misfortune, and money, and Dolokhov, and anger, and honor - all this is nonsense... but here it is real... Hey, Natasha, well, my dear! Well, mother!... how will she take this si? I took it! God bless!" - and he, without noticing that he was singing, in order to strengthen this si, took the second to the third of a high note. "My God! how good! Did I really take it? how happy!” he thought.
ABOUT! how this third trembled, and how something better that was in Rostov’s soul was touched. And this was something independent of everything in the world, and above everything in the world. What kind of losses are there, and the Dolokhovs, and honestly!... It’s all nonsense! You can kill, steal and still be happy...

Rostov has not experienced such pleasure from music for a long time as on this day. But as soon as Natasha finished her barcarolle, reality came back to him again. He left without saying anything and went downstairs to his room. A quarter of an hour later the old count, cheerful and satisfied, arrived from the club. Nikolai, hearing his arrival, went to him.
- Well, did you have fun? - said Ilya Andreich, smiling joyfully and proudly at his son. Nikolai wanted to say “yes,” but he couldn’t: he almost burst into tears. The Count was lighting his pipe and did not notice his son’s condition.
“Oh, inevitably!” - Nikolai thought for the first and last time. And suddenly, in the most casual tone, such that he seemed disgusted to himself, as if he was asking the carriage to go to the city, he told his father.
- Dad, I came to you for business. I forgot about it. I need money.
“That’s it,” said the father, who was in a particularly cheerful spirit. - I told you that it won’t be enough. Is it a lot?
“A lot,” Nikolai said, blushing and with a stupid, careless smile, which for a long time later he could not forgive himself. – I lost a little, that is, a lot, even a lot, 43 thousand.
- What? Who?... You're kidding! - shouted the count, suddenly turning apoplectic red in the neck and back of his head, like old people blush.
“I promised to pay tomorrow,” said Nikolai.
“Well!...” said the old count, spreading his arms and sank helplessly onto the sofa.
- What to do! Who hasn't this happened to? - said the son in a cheeky, bold tone, while in his soul he considered himself a scoundrel, a scoundrel who could not atone for his crime with his whole life. He would have liked to kiss his father's hands, on his knees to ask for his forgiveness, but he said in a careless and even rude tone that this happens to everyone.
Count Ilya Andreich lowered his eyes when he heard these words from his son and hurried, looking for something.
“Yes, yes,” he said, “it’s difficult, I’m afraid, it’s difficult to get... never happened to anyone!” yes, who hasn’t happened to... - And the count glanced briefly into his son’s face and walked out of the room... Nikolai was preparing to fight back, but he never expected this.
- Daddy! pa... hemp! - he shouted after him, sobbing; forgive me! “And, grabbing his father’s hand, he pressed his lips to it and began to cry.

While the father was explaining to his son, an equally important explanation was taking place between the mother and daughter. Natasha ran to her mother excitedly.
- Mom!... Mom!... he did it to me...
- What did you do?
- He did, he proposed. Mother! Mother! - she shouted. The Countess could not believe her ears. Denisov proposed. To whom? This tiny girl Natasha, who had recently been playing with dolls and was now taking lessons.

Settlements of the first wave arose on the Bosphorus Cape about 8.6 thousand years ago, that is, even before the formation (according to the theory of the Black Sea flood, the Black and Mediterranean seas connected as a result of an earthquake 5-7 thousand years ago) and flooding of part of the coast. At the beginning of the expansion of Greek colonists, the indigenous population here were the Thracians. According to legend, when King Byzantine (either the son of Poseidon and Keroessa, who was born to Io from Zeus on the Golden Horn, or the son of Nysus from Megara, which sounds more realistic) asked the Delphic oracle for advice on where to found a new colony, he ordered to build “ opposite the blind." And in the convenient narrow deep bay of the Golden Horn with two natural harbors protected from the sea, Byzantium appeared - the predecessor city of Constantinople. And the “blind”, it seems, meant the founders of the neighboring Megarian colonies (Astaka, Selymbria and Chalcedon), who had not previously seen such a profitable place, despite the hostility of the Thracians and the shortage of drinking water. As for the local residents, they were subjugated and reduced to the position of agricultural slaves like the Spartan helots.
Having a strategically advantageous position between the Balkans and Anatolia and between the Black and Mediterranean Seas, the city could control trade between Europe and Asia, and therefore quickly developed and grew rich. But for the same reason, Byzantium was besieged many times; Athens and Sparta fought for it. Power of Rome from 74 BC e. provided the military defense of the city for more than 200 years, although it deprived it of income from customs duties. And during the civil war of 193-197. the city was besieged, all fortifications destroyed and all political and trade privileges deprived by order of Septimius Severus, because he short-sightedly supported his enemy Pescennius Niger. After this, Byzantium could no longer recover and remained a seedy Roman province until Emperor Constantine (reigned 306-337) chose this place to create his new capital (by that time Rome had ceased to be the main residence of the emperors).
The foundation of New Rome took place in the fall of 324, and Emperor Constantine personally decided to mark its borders, which were immediately surrounded by an earthen rampart. The grandiose “construction of the century” began, requiring the involvement of financial and human resources from the entire Roman Empire. The flow of Egyptian grain, previously intended for Rome, was redirected to New Rome. By order of the emperor, famous architects, painters and sculptors, the best masons, plasterers and carpenters were brought to Byzantium (they were exempted from other state duties). To decorate Byzantium, works of art were brought from Rome and Athens, Corinth and Delphi, Ephesus and Antioch... In a certain sense, the continuity of the cultural heritage of Ancient Hellas, Ancient Rome and Byzantium was carried out through successive plunders in favor of the next main center of power and influence. This time - in favor of Constantinople.
During Constantine's lifetime, about 30 palaces and temples, more than 4,000 houses of the nobility and thousands of houses of common people, a new hippodrome, a circus and two theaters, many baths and bakeries and eight water pipelines were built, and construction of an underground reservoir began. Constantine favored Christian priests and founded the Church of Hagia Sophia and many other churches near the main Augusteon square, but did not interfere with the pagan priests who settled on the New Roman Capitol. And he paid great attention to the development of navigation and trade: equipping convenient harbors, building berths, breakwaters and trading warehouses, increasing the fleet. Very soon, Constantinople as a trading city surpassed the glory of Greek Byzantium.
As befits the successor to the Eternal City, Constantinople grew on seven hills. First, the earthen rampart of Constantine, then the Theodosian Wall, completely fenced off the cape occupied by the city on the southern shore of the Golden Horn.
The capture of the Byzantine capital by the Ottoman Turks in 1453 shocked the entire Christian world.
Less than a century after the capital of the Roman Empire was moved to Constantinople, the empire was divided in 395 into Western and Eastern. The Western Roman Empire collapsed into several barbarian kingdoms in 476, and the Eastern, Byzantine Empire lasted for almost a thousand more years. For a long time it was the largest, most prosperous and cultural city in Europe.
Under the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (reigned 527-565), an attempt was made to restore the empire, that is, to recapture the lands of the former Western Roman Empire, and this was even partially successful, but it still failed to retain the captured territories. Justinian's reign went down in history not only with military victories and the development of the new Justinian Code of Roman Law, but also with the largest “revolt of Nika” in the history of Constantinople and Byzantium in general in 532 and the first recorded case of a plague pandemic. The “Nick” uprising began at the hippodrome during the races as a banal brawl of fans (“blues” - venetos, “greens” - prasins), but after the execution of the instigators, both hippodrome parties of fans united against the emperor, recalling both tax oppression and oppression of pagans. As a result, about 35,000 people died, many houses burned down (including the imperial palace and the first cathedral building, which they immediately began to rebuild, larger and more magnificent than before). Eyewitnesses wrote: “The empire itself seemed to be on the brink of destruction.” The rebels put forward their candidacy for emperor, Justinian was ready to flee, and only by a miracle, thanks to the prompt intervention of one influential courtier, who quickly bribed most of the senators, the uprising was suppressed. And the “Justinian Plague” came to Constantinople along trade routes from Ethiopia or Egypt in 541, reached its apogee by 544 and destroyed about 40% of the city’s population (according to contemporaries, 5,000, sometimes up to 10,000 people died daily); The disease covered the entire territory of the civilized world and lasted, manifesting itself in separate outbreaks, until 750.
The next critical moment in the history of Constantinople was its terrible sack during the IV Crusade, when a lot of cultural property, including Christian shrines, was lost. Although at that time the Byzantine Empire fell not at the hands of the Saracens, but at the hands of Christian knights sponsored by the Doge of Venice. It was partly a punitive expedition in revenge for the destruction of the Venetian quarter and the thousands of Venetian merchants imprisoned in Constantinople in 1171.
For the period from 1204 to 1261, Constantinople became the capital of the Latin Empire, and the Orthodox high priest was replaced by a Catholic one. After the restoration of the Palaiologan dynasty and the Byzantine Empire, the Venetian merchants in Constantinople were supplanted by the Genoese. They settled on the northern bank of the Golden Horn, in the Gapat area, built a high tower and fenced themselves off with a wall. In the Middle Ages, most of the income from Constantinople trade passed into the hands of the Genoese. Moreover, even after the fall of Constantinople and the collapse of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, enterprising Italian merchants were able to negotiate non-aggression and free trade with the Ottoman Empire.
Under the Ottoman Empire (1453-1922), Constantinople began to be called Istanbul, but it was officially renamed only in 1930 during the reforms of Atatürk.

General information

Location: on the cape of the European coast of the Bosphorus Gulf (later areas appeared on the Asian coast).

Administrative affiliation: il Istanbul, Türkiye.
Name options: Byzantium (until 330), New Rome (until 450 officially), Constantinople / Constantinople (until 1930 officially), Istanbul / Istanbul (since 1453, since 1930 officially).

Status: ancient Greek colony of Byzantium since 667 BC. e. to 324 AD; capital of the Roman Empire New Rome from 330 to 395; capital of the Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire: 395-1204 and 1261-1453; capital of the Latin Empire: 1204-1261; capital of the Ottoman Empire: 1453-1922; since 1922 - a city of the Turkish Republic.
Languages: Greek was the predominant language in ancient times, as well as Latin, Genoese and Byzantine dialects (currently Turkish).

Ethnic composition: in ancient times Greek colonists from Megara and local Thracians, under Constantine a multinational Hellenistic city including large diasporas of Byzantines, Genoese and Jews (now Turks).
Religions: Ancient Greek period - paganism, Byzantine period - Orthodoxy, Ottoman period - Islam.
Currency: Byzantine coin, solidus, ducat (modern - Turkish lira).

Numbers

The length of the Theodosian wall of the city: 5630 m (three rows).
Total length of city walls: OK. 16 km.

Number of towers on the walls: 400.

Center height: 100 m above sea level. m.

Number of defenders of Constantinople in 1453: OK. 5 thousand people

Number of Ottoman besiegers: from 150 to 250 thousand people. according to various sources.

Number of Ottoman ships participating in the siege: 80 military and 300 merchant ships.

Climate and weather

Average temperature in July: +23.5°C.

Average annual precipitation: 850 mm.

Economy

Attractions

Curious facts

He wanted to become the creator of a new era in its history, the founder of the “new Rome”. Old Rome did not live up to the claims of the expanded power of the rulers of the empire. It was a city of republican traditions and institutions; it contained a Senate, which, with all its forced servility, retained the memory of its former power; the population of Rome was impudent and loved to judge the actions of the government, was always ready to condemn them, they did not revere the court. Already from the time of Diocletian, sovereigns preferred other residences to Rome. Constantine only occasionally, out of necessity to maintain decency, came to the palace on the Palatine Hill, and did not stay there for long. (His dislike for Rome could have been one of the reasons for drawing up the legend that he gave Rome to Bishop Sylvester; but this legend is a fiction, and, moreover, of late origin).

History of the Byzantine Empire (documentary film)

He did not want to live in Rome, and it is not surprising that he had a desire to found a new capital, so that it would perpetuate the glory of his name and so that its population, who owed everything to the founder of the city, would pay him for his good deeds with devotion, and would adhere to those opinions in politics and religion. which the sovereign prescribes to him. Constantine first believed to establish a capital on the site where Troy stood, the mythical homeland of the Roman people (according to the legends of Aeneas); but it soon turned out that romantic ideas did not have the power to captivate him to the point of oblivion about real benefits. There was no area that, in its position, would have provided such convenience for the founding of a capital as the former Greek colony of Byzantium, standing on the strait that connects the Black Sea with the Propontis (Sea of ​​Marmara). There was a route for goods from all parts of the world, there was an excellent harbor, which in its shape was called “horn”, and in the wealth of its trade “golden”. The surroundings of the city were hills covered with vineyards, orchards and between them valleys, very fertile; this area formed a peninsula, which could easily be protected by a wall from enemy attacks; Byzantium decided the fate of many wars, its walls withstood many sieges, it was the central point from which troops could easily march to both the Danube and the Euphrates to protect the empire from the most dangerous enemies. The legend also says that the idea of ​​​​founding a new capital on the site of Byzantium was given to Constantine by inspiration from God.

The space occupied by the ancient city of Byzantium and Constantinople - under Constantine and 100 years after him, under Emperor Theodosius II

The new city, named Constantinople after its founder, was built very quickly. The ceremonial consecration of the foundation of its western wall took place on November 4, 326, and less than four years later (May 11, 330) the new residence was consecrated. Constantine wanted New Rome to be in no way inferior to the Old, so he carefully fortified it and decorated it with magnificent buildings. Two large squares were lined with colonnades on all sides and decorated with statues; one of them was named Augusta Square in honor of Augusta Elena, the mother of the emperor, and the other - named after the emperor himself. In the center of the Square of Constantine stood a tall porphyry column, and on it a bronze statue of the sun god with a wreath surrounded by rays; a little later this statue was altered so that it became an image of Constantine himself. The legend connected with it fantastic beliefs. They said that the palladium of the city of Rome, secretly transported to the new capital, was buried under the marble base of the column, and part of the Life-Giving Cross was placed inside the colossal statue. The statue was broken by lightning and overturned by a storm on April 5, 1101; but most of the column has survived to this day.

The Hippodrome of Constantinople (circus), which then served the Turks for a long time to train troops, was a huge and magnificent building, about 400 steps long and 100 wide, and decorated inside with statues, obelisks and a column woven from three bronze snakes with a golden tripod that stood before in the Temple of Delphi: it was a gift from the Greeks to Apollo of Delphi after the victory at Plataea. The art of Constantine's time, which had fallen into decay, could not create good works, so former famous works of art were taken from everywhere to decorate the new capital. Despite all the expressions of Constantine's devotion to Christianity, the consecration of the new capital was, on his orders, carried out by one of the main priests of the Roman pagan cult (pontiffs) and the Neoplatonist Sopater with pagan rites. Constantine built temples to the goddess of Happiness (Tyche) and the Dioscuri in the city; he decreed that every year on the day of foundation there should be a solemn procession in the hippodrome; here they carried his statue, in which in the palm of his outstretched right hand stood the image of the patron genius of the new capital; his successors were required to kneel before this statue. It must be assumed that the statues of gods and heroes transported to Constantinople were left unaltered under Constantine; but later, when antipathy towards everything pagan intensified, they were remade: the pagan attributes of the images were replaced by Christian symbols. Constantine wanted to occupy a neutral position between paganism and Christianity, so he built a Christian church in his capital in honor of the holy apostles. It was built of multi-colored marble, surrounded by colonnades and various outbuildings; all this together formed a magnificent whole.

Bird's eye view of Constantinople in the Byzantine era (reconstruction)

Not far from the hippodrome stood a palace, a huge building, almost as large and richly decorated as the Roman Palatine Palace, surrounded by colonnades, courtyards, and gardens. Baths, theaters, water pipes, bread stores, a beautiful house for meetings of the Senate on Augusta Square, magnificent houses of senators and other noble people who settled in the residence of the sovereign, formed several groups of luxurious buildings, between which industrialists, merchants, and ship owners attracted to the new capital with the trade benefits of its position and the benefits that the emperor gave to those moving to it. He made every effort to ensure that it became a populous city. He gave gifts and honorary positions to senators and other nobles so that they would move from Rome to Constantinople. Many were deceived by this, others, even without rewards, themselves wanted to live near the imperial court.

Soon New Rome became almost as populous as Old Rome. He had the same privileges. Members of the city government received the rank of senators, citizens of Constantinople received all the rights of citizens of the city of Rome; bread, wine and oil were distributed to the people here even more generously than in Rome; public games and other entertainments for the people were no less magnificent than those that had previously taken place in Rome. The climate was excellent, the surroundings were beautiful, and the city's position was very favorable for trade. Therefore, Constantinople, divided like Rome into 14 parts, soon became the second largest city in the universe. But he did not grow by himself, he was a greenhouse plant. The splendor here was borrowed, the works of art were taken from other cities, the population was a diverse mixture, had neither national unity, nor patriotism, nor a glorious past. Rome, abandoned by the emperor, still produced a more majestic impression than Constantinople. Its triumphal arches, temples, theatres, circuses, baths, squares decorated with statues, picturesquely located along the valleys and hills, enlivened by gardens and the murmur of fountains, the water of which flowed into the city through 19 water pipes on high arches, gave the former capital such a grandeur that was artificially the created Constantinople was far from having it. But Rome was not fit to be the capital Christian state: it remained a pagan city, and long after Constantine paganism still prevailed over Christianity in it. The Lateran Basilica, the only Roman Christian church that we know for certain was built by Constantine, could not compare in splendor with the pagan temples in Rome.

Constantinople - the most beautiful city in the world
The construction of Constantinople began in 324, on May 11, 330 the city was consecrated / “Our Faith” / May, 2017

The fertile soil of Rus' led to the emergence of an innumerable number of saints, from the first ascetics who went into caves that later became monasteries, to confessors who refused to betray the faith at the point of Bolshevik rifles. We will talk about them, about how the Orthodox Church lives today and how it preserves the spirit of Russian holiness, in the section “Our Faith.” More in and more

Ivan Aivazovsky “View of Constantinople and the Bosphorus”, 1856

Constantine moved to Nicomedia in Asia Minor after his victory over Licinius in 324, and almost at the same time he began to build a new capital of the empire - on the site of the ancient town of Byzantium. Byzantium, founded around 660 BC, was located on the European (Thracian) shore of the Bosphorus.

Constantine appreciated the uniqueness and geographical advantage of this place just during the battle with Licinius. Rome, the Eternal City full of idols and pagan temples after the adoption of Christianity by Constantine, had to go into the shadows. The empire, like the emperor himself, was changing rapidly. A new capital was needed, and the terrain on the hilly peninsula between the Bosphorus Strait and the Golden Horn Bay suited this perfectly.

In addition, trade routes from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean successfully crossed here. This place served as a bridge between Asia and Europe.

The city of Constantine was built by the best craftsmen of the empire and a large number of workers, including 40 thousand Goths. In a short period of time, fortress walls were built, wide streets were paved, many public buildings were erected - the Senate, the imperial palace, temples, a hippodrome for 30 thousand spectators, a forum, aqueducts and porticoes.

The new capital was decorated with renowned works of art brought from all over the Mediterranean. The solemn consecration of the new capital by Christian bishops took place on May 11, 330. For more than ten centuries, this date became a holiday for the residents of the city; it was celebrated on a special scale.

When illuminated, the capital received the name New Rome, but very soon the inhabitants of the city, paying tribute to the main builder, began to call it Constantinople - the city of Constantine. Unlike Old Rome, the New was the capital not of a pagan, but of a Christian empire. It is interesting that the emperor himself had not yet been baptized; he had the status of a catechumen (preparing for baptism). Constantine himself was baptized in Nicomedia, but the royal city became a spiritual font for many peoples, from here the mission of the holy Equal-to-the-Apostles brothers Cyril and Methodius went to the Slavs, and the people of Kiev were baptized by Greek priests in the waters of the Dnieper.

Constantine's work of strengthening, expanding and beautifying the city was continued by his successors, and New Rome quickly became the largest center in Europe and Asia. Ambassadors, merchants, and pilgrims flocked to it from all over the world. In the capital it was possible to make a stunning career, social status and the thickness of the wallet did not matter, a simple soldier or official could become an emperor. Constantinople became the most desirable city in the Mediterranean.

“The incomparably beautiful center of the entire inhabited earth” is what the Byzantine scribe Theodore Metochites called this city in the 14th century.

The defenders of the city, with God's help, managed to repel countless raids by the Goths, Arabs, and Slavs. At the end of the history of Byzantium, when the era of its political power was already in the past, the city of Constantine continued to retain its cultural and ecclesiastical significance until its capture by the Turks in 1453, and the Turks would retain the name of the city until 1930.

Today this is what the main symbol of Constantinople looks like - Hagia Sophia

During the Russian-Turkish wars of the 19th century, the Russians more than once came close to capturing and liberating the city; in March 1807, the Russian squadron of Vice Admiral Dmitry Senyavin began a naval blockade of Constantinople; in February 1878, Russian troops stood almost under its very walls, but did not enter the city. There were other plans for landing troops on the Bosphorus, unfortunately, they were not implemented for a number of reasons.

But many Greeks still believe that it was the Russians who erected the cross over Hagia Sophia.

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