History
In 1872, Ottoman sultan Abdülaziz (reigned 1861–1876) granted the islet to the court architect Sarkis Balyan (1835–1899), who erected a three-story house on it as his own residence. In 1874, during one of his several visits to Istanbul, Russian painter Ivan Aivazovsky stayed in the mansion of Sarkis on the islet, and made here a number of paintings commissioned by the sultan for the Dolmabahçe Palace.
Called as the "Sarkis Bey Islet" during his lifetime, it was rented out by his legal heirs after the World War I to "Şirket-i Hayriye", the company operating passenger ferries in Istanbul, and was used for a long time as a coal depot.
In 1957, Galatasaray S.K. purchased the islet and constructed premises and sports facilities on it. The swimming pool on the islet served home to the water polo team from 1957 to 1968.
Read more about this topic: Galatasaray Islet
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now.”
—Richard M. Nixon (b. 1913)
“As History stands, it is a sort of Chinese Play, without end and without lesson.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“the future is simply nothing at all. Nothing has happened to the present by becoming past except that fresh slices of existence have been added to the total history of the world. The past is thus as real as the present.”
—Charlie Dunbar Broad (1887–1971)