Behind the prison walls in Sinop

It was a curiously innocent sight in a place that was sometimes almost too frightening for comfort. In the courtyard behind this one, for example, stood what were once isolation cells, a row of windowless hellholes in which men would have been incarcerated with only a stinking toilet for company despite the high heat and humidity of the Black Sea in summer.

The Old Prison must be Turkey's most unexpected tourist attraction. It stands tucked up inside a castle that was built by the Selçuks after they captured the city in 1214. As so often happened, they were happy to reuse whatever materials came to hand, which means that today's prison visitors get to appreciate a patchwork of old stones interspersed with pieces of ancient columns. The prison itself was a much later addition, plonked down in the south part of the castle in 1882, with an extra wing for juveniles added in 1939. In 1979, the buildings were badly burnt in a riot and the prison was abandoned. Eventually it fell into the hands of the Ministry of Culture, who decided to open its doors to the paying public.

Don't come here expecting the sort of “interpretation” that would now be commonplace in the UK or the US. Instead, this is, for the most part, simply a building that has been abandoned, its toilets uncleaned, its doors hanging off their hinges. In the yard of the juvenile wing, a prison bus stands with its tires let down and its doors open. But then there are occasional surprises. Through a tiny hole in a bricked-up doorway, you can peer at what would once have been a craft workshop, a place where prisoners were taught how to make the wooden boats that you'll see on sale in the town center. Another peephole lets you look in on the sort of dormitory cells that were, until quite recently, the norm. The barber's shop also stands untouched, the clothed pin-ups on the wall a reminder of a gentler, more respectful era.

The single most horrific room in the whole complex is a lightless dungeon that must have pre-dated the modern prison. “The prison guards,” reported the 17th-century travel writer Evliya Çelebi, “were like dragons and the prisoners were all tied from their arms to the iron railings, and each has a bushy moustache where you can hang 10 men. ... They never let anybody escape from there and they don't even let the birds fly above them.” The sentences handed down were unimaginably harsh: 130 years for one man, 150 years for another. And who were the prisoners? Well, during the later period, for which records survive, the information board informs us that they were “wild murderers and writers and artists who are wanted [sic] to be isolated from the community.”

The visit to the prison is pretty chilling, but there are plenty of more conventional things to see in Sinop, as pretty a small town as you could hope to find, standing on an isthmus jutting out into the Black Sea. It's possible, for example, to follow much of the circuit of the old walls, the lower parts of which date back to circa 72 B.C. when they were built by Sinop-born Mithridates VI Eupator (“the Great”), ruler of the expanding Pontic Kingdom. The inclusion of old Roman, Genoese and Turkic stones in the masonry makes it plain that the walls were patched up over and over again across the centuries. They are still being patched up today, although, freed from the need to ensure that they're strong enough to defend the town, the work being done now is mainly as unsatisfactory as that done to the walls of İstanbul, a fact that becomes glaringly obvious whenever a stretch of restored wall rubs up against a stretch that has been left untouched.

Sinop's most famous resident was probably Diogenes the Cynic (404-323 B.C.), a peculiar philosopher who stripped his life down to the basics until eventually he ended up living inside a barrel in Athens. There he was visited by Alexander the Great, who is said to have envied Diogenes, but when he asked the Cynic if there was any favor he could do for him, Diogenes simply growled, “Stand out of my light!” Today a statue of Diogenes and his famous barrel has been erected in front of the walls at the point where the isthmus begins.

If you walk straight ahead from the statue and keep going until you come to the main square, which is dominated by the Adalet Sarayı (Palace of Justice), you can then turn left and circle a small park in which stands a monument to 40 local soldiers killed in a surprise Russian attack in 1853 (they are also commemorated by a pretty fountain near the waterfront). Behind the park, Sinop's fine museum contains an unexpectedly impressive collection of 19th-century icons, a reminder of a time when this was a much more cosmopolitan town. There's also an impressive Roman mosaic depicting the seven Muses, and many more fragments of mosaic scattered about outside in a delightful garden. Here, too, are the remains of a small temple, discovered in 1951, which may or may not have been dedicated to the god Serapis. Assuming that it was, it's possible that the cult of Serapis spread from here in the fourth century B.C. until it reached Egypt, where it became immensely more important.

The ethnography collection that used to be housed in the museum has been moved into a huge half-timbered and stone mansion in a large garden that looks as if it might have walked here from Safranbolu (unfortunately it's currently closed for restoration). Nearby, in Kuru Çeşme Sokağı, a few other old Ottoman houses stand awaiting their second moment in the sun.

Sinop's most impressive mosque is the Alaadin Cami on the main street. Although much modernized, it dates back to 1267 when it was built for the Selçuk grandee Muinettin Süleyman Pervane, the man also responsible for the Pervane Medresesi in the street behind which has been turned into a showcase for local handicrafts. Both buildings were in the way of a thank-you after he had snatched the town back from the rump Byzantine Empire based in Trebizond (Trabzon) in 1265.

For many people, the highlight of a visit to Sinop will be the chance to promenade along the waterfront in the evening before knuckling down to a fish dinner with all the trimmings in one of the harbor restaurants. The low point, however, is likely to be a visit to what is called the Balatlar Kilisesi (“Palaces Church”), hidden away in a back-street residential area. This enormous complex has to have been more than just a church, and some have even suggested that it was the palace of King Mithridates himself. However, within the complex is a large church decorated with Byzantine frescoes. Offered no protection, these irreplaceable paintings have become a canvas for local taggers who have completely ruined them. It's Sinop's shame, and a depressing example of the sort of damage being done to fragile monuments all over the country.

40 Martyrs Fountain

40 Martyrs Fountain

Sinop Ethnography Museum

Sinop Old prison

WHERE TO STAY

Denizci Otel: 0368-260 5934
Hotel Melia-Kasim: 0368-261 4210
Otel Mola: 0368-261 1814
Otel Sarı Kadır: 0368-260 1544

HOW TO GET THERE

In the summer, there are daily flights from İstanbul. Otherwise, it's a 12-hour bus ride from İstanbul, rather less from Ankara.