I have been to Istanbul more than once. And I always caught myself thinking that I absolutely do not know the city. Trying to correct this feeling, with the help of guidebooks and guides, I discovered new pages for myself each time. Thus, gradually immersing myself in the Istanbul theme, its past, I made an unexpected discovery. Istanbul, with its numerous skyward-reaching mosques and the noise of bazaars, began to expand in time; it no longer seemed to me to be Istanbul. Through the Muslim architectural outline, another, no less great city, Constantinople, the biblical City of Kings, began to emerge.
Its cobbled streets and squares, fortress walls and aqueducts, temples and miniatures, towers and bridges rose from the fog of history, filling the city with the life of Byzantine times. Byzantium did not perish; it was alive, and Constantinople lived on, and I saw and sensed this awakening of the Great Empire. It had not disappeared anywhere; it just needed to be looked for to be seen.
This time, for the journey to Constantinople and Byzantium, we have a whole week - seven days, a car, and a guide, hotels - all included; we just need to deeply immerse ourselves in history.
The uniqueness of Byzantine civilization lies in the fact that it is the only civilization whose dates of birth and death are known with precision to the day. Byzantium was born on November 8, 324 AD, when a new capital of the Roman Empire, named Constantinople, was laid on the site of the ancient town of Byzantium on the shores of the Bosphorus. It completed its historical journey on May 29, 1453, when Constantinople was conquered by the Turks. In fact, the history of Byzantium as an independent state and the history of Byzantine civilization began in 395 AD, when the Roman Empire was divided into two parts. The eastern part of the empire was named Byzantium - after the ancient Greek colony of Byzantium.
The Great Silk Road to China passed through Constantinople, the route to the ports of the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Indian Ocean.
The military-strategic position of Constantinople ensured Byzantium's dominance over the straits. In periods of its power, Byzantium included the territories of the Balkan Peninsula, Asia Minor, Northern Mesopotamia, part of Armenia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, the islands of Crete and Cyprus, Chersonesus in Crimea, and some areas of Arabia.
A dangerous enemy of Byzantium in the east remained the New Persian Empire with the Sassanid dynasty. It was the only one that could compare with Byzantium in terms of power.
