SINOP TARIHI CEZAEVI

Built within the walls of the ancient fortress of Sinop, it is one of the oldest prisons in Turkey.

The fortress. Located on the Black Sea coast, the fortress was built in the 7th century BC, when the city was re-founded as a Greek colony. It was renovated by the Persians, the Kingdom of Pontus, the Romans and the Byzantines. When the Seljuks seized Sinop, they divided the fortress in two. From then on, it served as a dungeon and shipyard until 1568. The ruins of the city walls, built by the Seljuks after its capture in 1214, still surround the narrowest part of the peninsula. Kumkapı (the Golden Gate), is the most important of the seven city gates. Its remains still sit on a 15-kilometre beach. As for the walls of the citadel, they are made up of disparate elements: barrels and capitals, stones and bas-reliefs...

Prison. Erected in 1882 in the southern part of the fortress by Governor Veysel Paşa, the prison is U-shaped. Located inside a fortress, it was considered a high-security prison centre from which it was impossible to escape. In 1997, the prison was abandoned and the inmates transferred to a new building. Famous people have been imprisoned there, hence the abundant Turkish literature about it.

The dungeon. At the entrance to the prison, on the right, sits the old dungeon which served as a prison after 1568, where enemies of the Ottoman Empire were locked up.