Sofia to Istanbul - Part 2 Great Continental Railway Journeys


Sofia to Istanbul - Part 2

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Transcript


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I'm embarking on a railway adventure that will take me

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beyond the edge of Continental Europe.

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I'll be using this, my Bradshaw's Continental Railway Guide,

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dated 1913, which opened up an exotic world

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of foreign travel for the British tourist.

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It told travellers where to go, what to see, and how to

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navigate the thousands of miles of tracks crisscrossing the Continent.

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Now, a century later,

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I am using my copy to reveal an era of great optimism and energy,

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where technology, industry, science and the arts were flourishing.

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I want to rediscover that lost Europe, that in 1913 couldn't know

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that its way of life would shortly be swept aside by the advent of war.

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I'm continuing my journey along the eastern edge of Continental Europe.

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I began in Sofia, capital of Bulgaria.

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My journey then took me to the ancient city of Plovdiv.

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Today, I'll follow the historic route of the Orient Express,

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crossing into Turkey from Svilengrad,

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and visiting Edirne, the former Ottoman capital,

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before arriving at my final stop - Istanbul.

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'On this leg, I'll get to grips with a slippery Turkish tradition.'

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I've noticed that one of the techniques is to

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thrust a hand down the breeches of the other wrestler,

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so, clearly, it's no holds barred.

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'I'll discover what Istanbul would have been like in 1913...'

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There were refugees everywhere.

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Muslim refugees from the Balkans crowded every available space.

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'..delight in a Turkish treat...'

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You should feel the resistance,

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but your teeth should be able to bite cleanly through the product.

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I think I had that experience, but...

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I think I might need another to be sure.

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SHE LAUGHS

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'..and fulfil a boyish fantasy.'

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This is the route of the Orient Express, and I am driving the train.

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I'm continuing my journey towards Istanbul, Constantinople.

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Unfortunately, today, there are no through train services

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and it seems that things weren't very different

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at the time of my guidebook.

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"Since the outbreak of hostilities..."

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That would be a reference to the Second Balkan War.

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"..the train service has been suspended."

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Today, it's for a happier reason.

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The European Union has designated a railway network

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running from Dresden and Strasbourg in the west to Istanbul in the east.

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And the section that I'm about to come to

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is being massively rebuilt

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so that the spirit of the Orient Express can rise again.

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As there are no public services through to my next destination,

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I'm leaving this train at Parvomay to meet Richard Kerry,

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the British civil engineer

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who's supervising the rebuilding of this historic railway.

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-Hello, Richard.

-Hello, Michael. Nice to meet you.

-Very good to see you.

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I'm sorry to lower your visibility, but...!

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-Not as bright as mine.

-Not quite.

-Right.

-Please, welcome aboard.

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Thank you very much.

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Richard, I think this is the smartest wagon I've seen on rails for a long time.

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-What is it?

-Well, it's a works train.

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It's a specialist train that they use to monitor and oversee

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the electrical feeding system above the railway.

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'The line will also be straightened,

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'allowing trains to run at up to 100mph.'

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So, this section really tells the whole story.

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Here we are moving on an old track, which is very, very bumpy,

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overgrown in places, foliage on either side.

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And yet we can also see, to the sides, the new construction site,

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the dust, the lorries, the trucks, the earth-moving equipment.

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It's all happening.

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Yes, obviously, 100 years ago, the engineers were not able

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to form their way through the hillsides

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in the way that they do now.

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So, now, we've come off the old line. The bumping has stopped -

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this is obviously new track -

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we're passing a station that's under construction.

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Absolutely. I'm glad you noticed the difference.

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Now we're on the new line,

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we can speed up to 160km per hour

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and take ourselves off down to the borders of the European Union.

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Bulgaria became a member of the EU in 2007,

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and this railway line is part of the new European high-speed rail network.

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This 150km stretch between Parvomay and Svilengrad

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is costing £300 million to build.

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As I near the end of my exclusive preview

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of this exciting new project,

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I get to live the dream.

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This is the route of the Orient Express,

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and I am driving the train.

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And nobody's told me, but I think this is the accelerator.

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Anyone know where the brake is?

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Here in the driving seat, you get a complete appreciation

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of the difference that the new track makes.

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It's wonderfully smooth

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and I can see now all the posts have gone in along the side of the line.

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This is where the wires will hang.

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And shortly, the route of the Orient Express

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will be fast and electrified.

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My engineering train has taken me as far as Svilengrad,

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just short of the Turkish border.

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From here, I have no choice but to hit the road.

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I'm now approaching the Turkish border, to my chagrin,

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in a car, not a train.

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Bradshaw's is not encouraging.

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"Customs examinations are extremely vexatious and unreasonable,

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"books being liable to seizure and to being destroyed.

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"Passport and luggage are examined.

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"It's advisable to put guidebooks and maps in one's pocket

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"to avoid confiscation."

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But what pocket is big enough for a Bradshaw's?

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The border had only just been settled here in July 1913,

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following fierce fighting during the two Balkan Wars.

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So, travelling into Turkey a century ago,

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I might have been crossing a warzone.

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Today, my passage into Turkey's toehold in Europe

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goes without a hitch.

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When I left Bulgaria, I not only quit the European Union,

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but also Christendom.

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The boundary between Christian and Muslim domains

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has been hotly disputed over many centuries.

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At one time, it stood close to the French town of Tours.

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At another time, it was just outside Vienna.

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And for the last century, it's run just close by here,

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just outside Edirne.

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This city was the empire's capital

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before the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453.

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Thereafter, it remained an important Ottoman centre.

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So much so that Sultan Selim II commissioned his finest architect

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to build the monumental Selimiye Mosque at its highest point.

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Sultan Selim's fine mosque, according to Bradshaw's, has a lofty dome,

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four minarets, many marble courts, colonnades

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and 999 windows.

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It is the work of Mimar Sinan, and "Mimar" means "architect",

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and he was simply the greatest of the Ottoman period.

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This predates St Peter's Cathedral in Rome, and the Taj Mahal,

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but in common with those two great buildings,

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it seems to me that it wears its bulk very lightly.

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It's as though the four minarets are somehow carrying it towards heaven.

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I really do feel as though

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I've stepped over a threshold into the Orient,

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not only because of the architecture, but also because of the traditions.

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This part of Turkey

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maintains a practice dating back over 3,000 years

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and I've been invited to this stadium to witness it.

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An oil wrestling tournament has been held annually in this area

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since 1346,

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making it the longest-running sports competition in the world.

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The wrestlers are covered in this stuff, which is olive oil,

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and that makes it very difficult

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for either one to get a grip on the other.

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Now, they're wearing leather pants, and I can see that

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they're trying to put their hands inside the other's trousers.

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So, I think anything goes. Any hold at all is allowed.

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But, apparently, at the end of it all,

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there are marks given for gentlemanly conduct.

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Ouch.

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I wonder what straight-laced Edwardian tourists

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would have made of this.

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-Ah!

-Oh!

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-Hello.

-Do you speak English?

-Yes. A little.

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Well, thank you. I've rarely seen such an extraordinary spectacle.

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-Thank you very much.

-Congratulations.

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Were you a kid when you started this?

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-Ten years.

-Yeah?

-Ten years.

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-Are you very exhausted?

-Yes.

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Thank you very much. Bye.

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It's clear that I've tumbled into another world.

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And after watching such exertions,

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I'm ready to slide into my bed for my first night's sleep in Turkey.

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This morning, I've come two miles out of town

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in search of the historic route of the Orient Express.

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I've found this beautiful old station

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where I'm meeting historian Soner Tursun.

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-Hello, Soner.

-Hello.

-Very good to see you.

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My guidebook tells me that the station is some distance

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from the town, and so it is.

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Why was it built here?

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Well, actually, the company had no interest

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in building the station closer to the city,

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because it had to cross the Maritsa River

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and, of course, the company was paid by the kilometre they build,

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so it was not good for them to take the shortest route.

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That's extraordinary. Now, who was it who built the line we know

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as the Orient Express?

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Well, actually, it was such a big project

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that no single person was totally responsible for it.

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The Ottoman Empire had no money, so it granted concessions.

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The first person was Baron von Hirsch.

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Von Hirsch set up a consortium and construction began in 1870.

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When did an Orient Express first pass through this lovely Edirne station?

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What we call the Orient Express, starting from Paris,

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ending in Istanbul, crossed the line in 1883.

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The Orient Express had a reputation for luxury.

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Until it gained a reputation for murder.

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One of the people who made the Orient Express so famous

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was, of course, Agatha Christie,

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with her novel Murder On The Orient Express.

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What was her experience of the line, then?

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It was an unlucky travel,

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because the train got stuck because of a snow slide.

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The train had to wait for a long time

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and probably she was inspired because of this event.

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Because in this story,

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the Orient Express gets stuck because of a snow slide

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and in the morning, they see one of the passengers was killed

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and everyone becomes the suspect.

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If only I could make such a fortune out of every train delay.

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This beautiful old station is now out of commission

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and houses the Fine Arts faculty of the University of Trakya.

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In its heyday, the railway carried countesses and millionaires,

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presidents and crooks,

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all speeding their way to my final destination.

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For the last leg of my journey,

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I'm picking up the train to the centre of a city

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known in my Bradshaw's as Constantinople,

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and renamed Istanbul in 1930.

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A short stroll from my stop, I find the old Sirkeci station,

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the grand terminus of the Orient Express,

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which ran from Paris for almost a century, until 1977.

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"The principal railway station,

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"the terminus of the Oriental Railway Company,"

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says Bradshaw's, "is the arrival and departure station

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"for all trains connecting with the rest of Europe."

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I know it's semi-deserted today.

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I imagine the excitement of travellers

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arriving from points all over the continent,

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the commotion as they descended from the train with their trunks

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and their hatboxes and their servants.

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The noise of the impact of West upon East.

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Istanbul is built, like Rome, on seven hills.

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This is a city as treasured and fought over as Jerusalem,

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as important a city of empire as Rome.

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It's one of the greats in the long history of the Old World.

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I've come to admire the most famous building in this historic city,

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which began life as a Christian cathedral.

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When I first saw the Hagia Sophia,

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it took me a while to work out what this building was

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because, of course, it looks like a mosque, but it was built by a Roman.

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It was built by the Emperor Justinian.

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And, to me, it's just extraordinary that such an immense building

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could have been created 1,500 years ago.

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-Hello. Do you speak English?

-Yeah.

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-Are you enjoying your visit to Istanbul?

-Yeah, definitely.

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-What have you enjoyed so far most?

-The Hagia Sophia.

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I think it's really beautiful to see how the Islamic and the Christian...

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..art converges together.

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Especially in times of war and stuff like that.

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Do you feel while you're in Istanbul

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-that you're in this meeting place of East and West...

-Yeah.

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-..of Islam and Christianity?

-Yeah, definitely.

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And I think the church really shows, in one building, the whole city.

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There's an extraordinary buzz about the streets of Istanbul.

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The shops and the cafes tumble into the street.

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The restaurant owners invite you into their premises.

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The merchandise is exotic.

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OK, it's touristy, but it is undeniably different.

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You have made the journey.

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Hello.

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Cheese, potato, apple pie. Turkish borek.

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-Apple pie. Apple pie.

-Apple pie.

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-How much is that?

-Three dinar. Four dinar, three dinar.

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-There we go. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you.

-Bye-bye.

-Bye-bye.

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-Hello, good day.

-Mm.

-Yes, please.

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It's good. It's good.

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Leaving the hectic buzz of the Old City behind,

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I'm making my way down to the banks of the Bosporus,

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the narrow channel which links the Black Sea with the Mediterranean.

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-Hello, Caroline.

-Hello, good to see you.

-Very good to see you.

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Here, I wanted to discover more about Istanbul in the early 20th century

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from historian Caroline Finkel.

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Caroline, we can see the Suleymaniye Mosque and the Topkapi Palace.

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I suppose these buildings really represent

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the Ottoman Empire at the height of its powers.

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That's very much the case.

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They're built, as you can see,

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on the spine of the hill in a very dominating position.

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Everyone who approached by sea would see them immediately,

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standing there on the promontory,

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and it must have been quite a sight when you came to the city.

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'The Topkapi Palace was the first seat of government

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'for the Ottoman sultans,

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'who held absolute power across the empire.

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'Next to it, the Suleymaniye Mosque was completed in 1557,

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'when the empire controlled

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'most of the eastern and southern Mediterranean.'

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But by the early 20th century, the city was no longer

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at the centre of a thriving empire.

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The 1913 traveller, using my guidebook,

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what would he have found in Constantinople?

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It seems to me rather surprising

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that people were being encouraged to come.

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I don't think the FCO today would recommend that people came in 1913.

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It was a terrible year. The city was in turmoil.

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It was just, of course, before the First World War,

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but the First World War was merely a culmination

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of everything that went before.

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The empire had shrunk dramatically,

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losing provinces that had been Ottoman for five centuries

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in a matter of weeks during the First Balkan War of 1912.

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There were refugees everywhere.

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Muslim refugees from the Balkans crowded every available space.

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Hundreds of thousands of refugees with nothing.

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While the empire's borders contracted,

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pressure for reform built inside Turkey

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from a revolutionary group known as the Young Turks.

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And the great powers circled like vultures over the Bosporus.

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The greatest threat came from the Russians,

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who were trying to come down and take warm-water harbours.

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They only had the cold waters of the north, frozen much of the year,

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and this was the cause of much of the wars

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between the Ottomans and the Russians.

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As the Ottomans had grown weaker, they'd sought an ally in the West

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and had aligned themselves with the newest state in Europe, Germany.

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The Germans did not have a record of having tutored the Ottomans,

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for better or for worse, throughout the long centuries.

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They had industry, technology to sell, military reforms, railways,

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and it was a very happy alliance between the two.

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The Ottomans' defeat in the First World War

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gave rise to the nationalist movement which was to remove the sultans

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and lead to the foundation of the modern state of Turkey.

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I've stayed overnight in this opulent hotel

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which, at the time of my guidebook,

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was the property of the International Sleeping Car Company

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which ran the trains of the Orient Express.

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Ah, the elegance of centuries gone by.

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Good morning.

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Having relished the heights of Edwardian luxury,

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there's one more treat I have to delight in while I'm here.

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-Hello, Hande.

-Oh, hello.

-Good morning, I'm Michael.

-Good morning.

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-Nice to meet you.

-What a delightful shop.

-Thank you.

-How old is it?

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It's 238 years old, exactly.

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It was opened 1777.

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'Hande's ancestor, Haci Bekir, moved to Istanbul from Anatolia

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'and set up this shop.

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'His excellent sweetmeats came to the attention of Sultan Mahmud II,

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'who appointed him Chief Confectioner to the Palace.

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'Today, Hande Celalyan is the fifth generation of the family

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'to run the shop.'

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And when can we call these confections Turkish delight?

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This is when an English traveller

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bought some Turkish delight from Istanbul

0:21:510:21:54

and brought it to England.

0:21:540:21:55

At that time, it was called rahat-ul hulkum.

0:21:550:21:58

-What was that word?

-Rahat-ul hulkum.

0:21:580:22:01

Rahat-ul hulkum.

0:22:010:22:03

And then it was rahat lokum, and lokum simply for us, too.

0:22:030:22:07

-Oh, lokum is easier.

-That was the development of the word in Turkish.

0:22:070:22:10

Lokum. I can manage that, actually.

0:22:100:22:13

'Hande is constantly developing new varieties

0:22:130:22:17

'using a vast array of tantalising ingredients.'

0:22:170:22:20

This is Turkish delight with walnuts. So, as you see...

0:22:200:22:25

they are produced in rolls.

0:22:250:22:28

-Like sausages.

-Like sausages, yes, indeed.

0:22:280:22:30

-And then they are cut here by hand freshly in the shop.

-Fantastic.

0:22:300:22:35

What would you say to someone like me

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who finds Turkish delight a little too sweet?

0:22:360:22:40

You should try something with nuts,

0:22:400:22:42

because the nuts are cutting the sweetness.

0:22:420:22:46

Tell me your impression.

0:22:460:22:47

Well, I think you're right. It's not too sweet.

0:22:490:22:52

It has a lovely elasticity. Yeah, I like that.

0:22:520:22:55

You should feel the resistance

0:22:550:22:57

but your teeth should be able to bite cleanly through the product.

0:22:570:23:01

Well, I think I had that experience,

0:23:010:23:03

but I think I might need another to be sure.

0:23:030:23:06

SHE LAUGHS

0:23:060:23:08

For my final delight here in Istanbul,

0:23:130:23:16

I'm heading back to Sirkeci Metro station

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to cross one of the most fought-over sea channels in the world.

0:23:190:23:22

Bradshaw's tells me you can take a rowboat from the European side

0:23:240:23:28

across the Bosporus to the Asian side in 15 minutes.

0:23:280:23:32

But since 2013, this brand-new railway has existed, the Marmaray,

0:23:320:23:37

and that goes deep in the tunnel from the Asian side to the European side,

0:23:370:23:41

and then that's going to connect to railways

0:23:410:23:43

that go all the way out to the suburbs.

0:23:430:23:45

And, of course, it will connect to railways

0:23:450:23:48

going all the way out to the suburbs on the Asian side, too.

0:23:480:23:51

Plans for a rail tunnel under the Bosporus

0:23:530:23:56

were first mooted during the reign of Sultan Abdulmecid in 1860.

0:23:560:24:01

But they've only just been realised.

0:24:010:24:03

This tunnel, 60 metres underground,

0:24:060:24:08

was particularly problematic to engineers

0:24:080:24:11

as it crosses a tectonic faultline on its route to Asia.

0:24:110:24:15

Amazing to think that we're now under the Bosporus.

0:24:160:24:19

If I could tunnel through the roof of this train and keep going,

0:24:190:24:22

I'd arrive in one of the most famous stretches of water in the world.

0:24:220:24:26

Quiz question - when do you change continent without changing city?

0:24:320:24:36

Answer - in Istanbul.

0:24:360:24:38

Welcome to Asia.

0:24:380:24:40

Now on the Asian shore, I'm drawn to the famous Haidar Pasha station,

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from where trains used to depart for Izmit and Ankara.

0:24:500:24:54

It was completed in 1909 by the Ottoman Anatolian Railway Company

0:24:540:24:59

after being chosen as the Asian terminus

0:24:590:25:02

for the ambitious German Berlin to Baghdad railway.

0:25:020:25:06

But with the advent of the new Marmaray line,

0:25:080:25:12

the station is now redundant.

0:25:120:25:15

Haidar Pasha Terminus marked the end of many a journey.

0:25:150:25:19

But I'm amazed to discover tucked behind the now-derelict station

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the final resting place for thousands of British soldiers and expatriates.

0:25:230:25:28

Historian Lynelle Howson is showing me around.

0:25:280:25:32

Lynelle, Bradshaw's says that,

0:25:320:25:34

"In the beautiful British cemetery of Haidar Pasha

0:25:340:25:38

"are buried thousands who died of sickness or wounds

0:25:380:25:40

"during the Crimean War."

0:25:400:25:42

This is truly a very historic place.

0:25:420:25:45

And is Bradshaw's right about thousands lying here?

0:25:450:25:47

Yes. Most of the Crimean servicemen buried here are in mass graves.

0:25:470:25:52

I've heard anything from 6,000 to 8,000

0:25:520:25:55

buried right here in the cemetery, in Haidar Pasha.

0:25:550:25:58

Do you get the impression that in the 19th century,

0:25:580:26:01

this was a place of some homage, of pilgrimage?

0:26:010:26:03

I certainly do, not least because Bradshaw mentions it.

0:26:030:26:06

He points it out as somewhere that people might be interested to come

0:26:060:26:09

specifically because of the Crimean War

0:26:090:26:12

and the fame of Florence Nightingale and the nearby hospital.

0:26:120:26:16

'Shortly after my guidebook was published,

0:26:160:26:18

'thousands more would die during the First World War,

0:26:180:26:21

'not far away at Gallipoli.

0:26:210:26:23

'And some of those casualties were brought here, too.'

0:26:230:26:27

9th Battalion Australian infantry.

0:26:270:26:30

A soldier of the Indian Army.

0:26:300:26:33

South Wales.

0:26:330:26:34

How many nationalities are represented here?

0:26:340:26:37

Well, if we consider modern nationalities,

0:26:370:26:40

we'll have more than 20, I would say.

0:26:400:26:42

Here at the crossroads of Europe and Asia,

0:26:470:26:50

it's poignant to reflect on the price of conflicts past and present.

0:26:500:26:55

In 1913, the intrepid Bradshaw traveller

0:27:000:27:04

would hope to journey to Constantinople on the Orient Express,

0:27:040:27:08

passing through the newly independent Bulgaria.

0:27:080:27:12

But warzones would interrupt his progress

0:27:120:27:15

as the Ottoman Empire disintegrated.

0:27:150:27:19

The Balkans were the tinderbox that would ignite the First World War.

0:27:190:27:23

And two years later,

0:27:230:27:25

Turkish cemeteries would fill with British Empire dead.

0:27:250:27:29

Today, trains pass from Europe to Asia under the Bosporus.

0:27:290:27:34

Turkey is a democratic nation

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with a majority Muslim population that borders Iran, Iraq and Syria.

0:27:370:27:43

Just like 100 years ago,

0:27:430:27:45

it is an important square on the international strategic chessboard.

0:27:450:27:50

'Next time, I'll learn how the Austro-Hungarian Empire,

0:27:530:27:57

'when faced with the future,

0:27:570:27:58

'fought to hold on to its past.'

0:27:580:28:01

Not everybody likes it when a new world begins.

0:28:010:28:04

A new world beginning means an old world ends.

0:28:040:28:08

'I'll attempt an Edwardian-style winter sports challenge...'

0:28:080:28:12

Yay!

0:28:120:28:14

'And I'll travel along one of the world's

0:28:140:28:16

'most impressive feats of railway engineering.'

0:28:160:28:19

There weren't tunnel-drilling machines,

0:28:190:28:21

so they had to drill the holes by hand.

0:28:210:28:23

So, it's a handmade railway line.

0:28:230:28:27

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