The Grand Bazaar is one of the largest and oldest grand bazaars in the
world, located in the center of Istanbul, in the middle of Beyazit,
Nuruosmaniye and Mercan districts. The Grand Bazaar was founded in 1461, when
Fatih Sultan Mehmet started its construction. The main Grand Bazaar was built
from wood by Sultan Suleiman The Magnificent.
The Grand Bazaar has an area of 110,868 m², a covered area of 45,000 m², 3600 shops on 65 streets and a total
of 14 inns. Although most of them have changed today, we can deduce what was
made and sold there in the past from the names of the streets and inns of the
Grand Bazaar. The bazaar has eleven gates.
During the Ottoman period, the grand bazaars in Bedesten also functioned as
a financial center, which led to the accumulation of capital through trade, as
well as a treasury in which the valuables of the Palace were preserved. Fatih
Sultan Mehmet built the Cevahir and Sandal bedestens (bedesten: a type of
covered market) as a source of income for Hagia Sophia. Other shops began
opening in their vicinity, and this eventually became the Grand Bazaar of
Istanbul.
Evliya Çelebi (the Turkish traveler) described the Grand Bazaar as an
enormously powerful fortress. Celebi described the artisans of the Grand Bazaar
in the 1640s as follows:
"In a select and crowded part of Istanbul, it is a market that
constitutes the grand treasury of the House of Osman, a veritable fortress of
laughter. Here are the goods of all the travellers, viziers and notables, who
have several hundred underground cellars with iron doors... There is a
jewelers' gate that opens to the East, on which there is a terrible bird with
outspread wings... The purpose of engraved this image on the door was this: the
thing known as Income is a wild bird that flies into the air. If you can hunt
this bird with kindness, you can profit in this bedesten!"
