Dragos Tepesi

Dragos Hill stands on the border of Maltepe and Kartal on the Anatolian side, rising 107 metres from the Marmara shore, and is one of the viewpoints closest to the sea on this side of the city. Most of the hill lies within Kartal's Orhantepe neighbourhood; its western slopes spill over into Maltepe. It is known for its long shoreline, its view of the Princes' Islands, its moonlight and its calm, which is why the name "Istanbul's Balcony" is used for Dragos as well. The name entered Turkish with the meaning of dragon; according to legend a treasure lies hidden on the hill and a dragon guards it. Maltepe's name comes from the same legend: the name, meaning the hill with the treasure, was given after the Turkish conquest of the Kocaeli Peninsula. Kartal's name, according to the sources, comes either from the sixth-century fishing village of Kartalimen or from a fisherman named Kartelli who was the first to settle here. The Dragos stream, which flows into the sea at the foot of the hill, is the first border ever drawn between Turks and Byzantines in Anatolia. In the treaty he made with the Byzantine emperor in 1081, the Seljuk ruler Süleyman Şah, son of Kutalmış, accepted this small stream as the border and undertook not to cross it. The stream still separates Maltepe from Kartal today. The history of the area goes back to the sixth century; in the Byzantine and Ottoman periods Dragos was one of the settlement centres of the Anatolian side. The sources record that this shore was known as Bryas in Byzantine times and that in the ninth century Emperor Theophilos built a palace here inspired by the palaces of Baghdad; whether the palace stood at Küçükyalı or at Dragos is disputed. Excavations begun in 2010 by the Kartal municipality and the Istanbul Archaeological Museums uncovered the remains of a bath, a church and graves dated to the Late Roman and Early Byzantine periods on the southern foot of the hill. The bath is thought to have been in use between the sixth and fourteenth centuries; tear bottles, glass bracelets, Byzantine coins and pottery fragments came out of the site. Bath remains had also been identified at the same spot in 1974-1977. The excavation, led by the culture director of the Kartal municipality, lasted two and a half years. It has been argued that the remains are connected to a Byzantine palace, but more than half of the site has not yet been opened. On the seaward slope of the hill stands the Dragos campus of Marmara University, opened on the site of the former TEKEL cigarette factory. The campus's official name is the Mehmet Genç Külliyesi. The centre of Kartal lies at an average of 65 metres above sea level; the 107 metres of Dragos is the point on this shore where the eye climbs highest. From Byzantine and Ottoman times until the 1970s this shore was a summer retreat from the city; the summer houses with gardens are the trace of that period. Today the hill is densely built up, but the seaward ends of the streets and the shoreline keep the view. The best time to visit is late afternoon; the sun goes down in the west over the islands and the colour of the Marmara changes minute by minute. Choose one of the steep streets climbing from the coast road; as you rise, the ridges of Büyükada and Heybeliada appear first, and in clear weather the other islands too. Looking south you see the islands, looking west the long green line of the Maltepe shore, and to the east the tall buildings of Kartal. The wind off the sea is harder on the hill than on the shore; in spring and autumn bring an extra layer. It is easier to finish the walk on the shore; do the climb first and leave the descent for the Dragos waterfront. The waterfront path connects to the coastal park in the Maltepe direction and to the Kartal shore in the Kartal direction, and in both directions you walk away from traffic. The municipal social facility on the shore, the Dragos Sosyal Tesisi, is a good place to sit and look at the sea at the end of the descent. Coming at night under the full moon is also an old habit of this quarter. The hill is an open neighbourhood; there is no ticket and no entry time, but the university campus and the excavation area are seen from outside and not entered. For transport, the Marmaray stations of Cevizli on the Maltepe side and Atalar on the Kartal side are the nearest rail stops; from either you walk down to the coast road and climb the hill. The coast-road buses and minibuses running between Bostancı and Tuzla pass in front of the Dragos waterfront. For those walking from Maltepe Coastal Park, the hill is the natural end point of the shore walk.