Sadullah Pasa yalisi

Located at Cengelkoy on the Asian side of Istanbul..Just after the first bridge towards the black sea, on the right..
It is one the most beautiful yalis of Istanbul..

lets copy and paste some architectural (boring) info first:

Placed longitudinally along the waterside on the north-south axis, the mansion has a traditional Turkish plan known as the central hall (merkezi sofali) type on two floors. Four entrances, one at the center of each side, lead into a rectangular central hall at the ground floor that has two rooms at its four beveled corners. The north and south entrances open into enclosed stairways, and the western entrance gives out to the dock. The scale of the mansion is relatively small; the central hall measures 8 by 11 meters.

This plan is repeated on the second floor, except for the shape of the central hall, which becomes elliptical. The upper rooms are also slightly larger; they project beyond the frame carried on angled consoles on the exterior. Crowned with a shallow ribbed vault, the oval hall of the upper floor is extended by rectangular iwans (eyvan) to the west and east, providing views of the Phosphorus and the gardens respectively. Its ribbed structure and decoration is likened to a tent by scholars, who trace the evolution of this form to the domed tent (otag), which in Central Asian tradition was raised for festive occasions.

The painted decoration of the walls, dating from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, was revealed when the wallpaper was removed during the 1947 restoration. The rooms are all decorated individually with motifs taken equally from the classical Ottoman and baroque traditions. Among depictions of flowers, fruits and vegetation adorning the rooms on the second floor are landscape renderings that show contemporary sites such as the Topkapi Palace and the Serefabad Seaside Palace. The room ceilings have plaster molding with varied patterns, the more elaborate of which are on the second floor.


It was built in 1770 (it is just an estimate) during Abdülhamid I  (1774-1789). It is one of the oldest remaining yalis of Istanbul. First owner was Mehmed Aga, who served the chief officer (darüssaade agasi) of the Ottoman palace. Then Koca Yusuf Pasha, one of the grand viziers, bought it. When Koca Yusuf Pasha died, Yali was occupied by his daughter who was married to Seydi Ali Pasha , Kaptan-i derya (the admiral who is in charge of the fleets ) Then Seydi Ali Pasha´s son who was the governor of Bahdad, lived there until his bankruptcy. Then Yali was bought by Ayasli Esat Muhlis pasha at 1851..
But it was his son gave his name to this Yali : Sadullah Pasha..
So who is this Sadullah Pasha?
He was one of the finest Ottoman creation at his time. he had a very good education and a very capable statesman.. He was one the first persons who supported ideas such as positivism and materialism in poetry in ottoman literature..
When Murat V  become the sultan, he sent his boat to pick him up from that yali.. Although his luck seemed to be going up, the sultan´s luck was quite bad. He stayed only 93 days in power.
When Abdulhamid the paranoid took the reign, he did not want Sadullah Pasha around.. Of course he was a very capable man, and Abdulhamid had to give him a job, he sent him to Berlin as ambassador..
He was one of the persons who signed the Berlin treaty

(During the celebration of the treaty, this is just a rumor of course, he was taken  pity by one of Princesses (Sophia, daughter of Queen Victoria) as he was just sitting alone and watching the celebrations, she  invited him to dance with her. He was quite embarrassed by the fact that like any of his Ottoman Pashas in his era, he did not know how to dance -From their point of view, dancing was an act performed by gypsies or belly dancers- )
Anyway, Sadullah Pasha´s next job was ambassador of Vienna. He was sent there in 1883 and he committed suicide with gas in 1891.
He lived at the same time as Besir Fuad
Possibly they knew eachother..
Besir Fuad was another famous person in ottoman literature. Because he cut his wrists and wrote everyting down about how it felt until his dead!!

When they informed his wife who was waiting for him in that yali, the poor woman, Necibe Hanim, lost his marbles..Front time to time, she would walk with pink clothes until her dead (1917) in that yali. Because Sadullah Pasha told her ´pink suited her well´ in their youth.
Yali was rented by Aysegul Tecimer later on(Asil Nadir´s ex wife)..

Lets put some pictures now:

Please have a look at it if you happened to be taking a Bosphorus´ trip in Istanbul..

Well since you all seem showing great interest to yali´s of Istanbul, I will right more about them..

Tophane Müsiri Zeki Pasa yalisi:

This is Boris Johnson..

What is Boris Johnson got to do with this yali? I will try to explain later on..

This yali is just under the second bridge, on the European side of Bosphorus and it was built in second half of 19. century.
Its architect was   Alexander Vallaury who also designed Pera Palace (Pera Palace was built in 1892 for the purpose of hosting the passengers of the Orient Express and was named after the place it is located. It holds the title of "the oldest European hotel of Turkey" --Agatha Christie was in fact one of the hotel´s most ardent visitors. The "Agatha Christie Room", number 411, is now preserved in her honor. It is rumored that she wrote Murder on the Orient Express here ) 
This yali does not look like any classical  yalis of istanbul, because it was built with stones..It looks like a kind of chateau with Baroque style..It has three entrance one from the sea side the others from the garden and it is a 4 storey building.

Anyway, lets talk about Zeki Pasha who gave his name to this yali..
He was one of the most loyal persons to Sultan Abdulhamid (the paranoid). He must have been because, anybody who wanted to run a country like Ottomans 150 years ago would know where the trouble might come.. Of course it would be the army!! And Sultan Abdulhamid kept him as a commander of all military schools for over 20 years..

Of course during this 20 years, he spent his entire time to keep his position by flattering the sultan, informing sultan with everything and to show the sultan that he was his most loyal servant to him..Sometimes if someone informed the sultan about a topic before him he would be very upset and get the people pour cold water over his head..Because everybody was informing the sultan about everything, he would right little notes about where he would go, what he would do etc and send them into sultan to ask his permission so that the sultan would not suspect him doing something behind..

Anyway lets leave buttery Zeki pasha and talk about his son-in-law: Ali Kemal,  who  was a liberal Turkish journalist, newspaper editor and poet and he was briefly Minister of the Interior in the government of Damat Ferid Pasha.
Ali Kemal was one of the people who started his fame as an opposition against the sultan.
He was exiled and escaped to Paris. He come back to Istanbul in 1908 (when the constitution was restored.)
And then he started his opposition of young Turks until "his end"!!
Because he was against the young Turks, he  thought that the independence war in Anatolia was part of Young Turks too.
He opposed them with all his power!.
He even applauded when Istanbul was occupied by the allies in 1919 (after the ottoman defeat in WWI)
But when Istanbul was taken back, he was kidnapped and sent to Ankara for trial.
He never arrived. When he arrived in Izmit, he was given to the people who were provoked by Sakalli (bearded) Nureddin pasha earlier.
(in wiki it says : Nureddin arranged for the kidnapping of the pro-British politician, Ali Kemal bey who was seized on 4 November 1922 while at a barber´s shop in the Tokatliyan Hotel and taken out of the British zone to Izmit where he was seized by a mob and murdered. Though sometimes described as a lynching, Zeki Kuneralp, Ali Kemal´s Turkish son, was probably right when he wrote in his memoirs that his father was deliberately murdered.)
His murder was also described in Nazim Hikmet´s poetry (http://www.alpersirvan.com/..%FDm+Hikmet&sayfa=1 - for Turks only)
In order to humiliate, Nureddin called him as ´Artin Kemal´ (Artin is an Armenian name)
Back to the beginning:
This Artin Kemal or Ali Kemal Bey was great grand father of  Boris Johnson, the present Mayor of London..

 At last the missing link.....phew....... here was me thinking it was bar boys and holidays 

But if I wrote it in the beginning you would not read the rest

Thanks for all the postings above, I look forward to reading them properly when holed up in my Aberdeen hotel

Great piece about Ali Kemal Bey in Wiki.  I saw the "Who do you think you are" programme last year about Boris.  It was really very interesting.