Today in Turkey there’s an Epiphany ceremony held on the shores of the Bosporus to bless its waters. 10 facts about the Bosporus:
The Bosporus is a strait that connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara. It forms one of the continental boundaries between Asia and Europe. The city of Istanbul sits on its banks.
It’s 31 km (19 miles) long and 110 m (360 ft) deep at its deepest point.
The name comes from Greek mythology, specifically the story of Io. She was turned into a cow and condemned to wander the Earth until she crossed the Bosporus, where she met the Titan Prometheus, who told her she would be restored to human form by Zeus and become the ancestor of the greatest of all heroes, Heracles. It translates as “cow passage”, sometimes translated as “ox ford”. Incidentally, the name is sometimes spelt Bosphorus in English, although the ancient Greek name doesn’t justify adding the h.
It is 700 m (2,300 ft) making it narrowest strait in the world to be used for international navigation.
There are three bridges across the Bosporus: 15th July Martyrs Bridge completed in 1973, the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge (1988) and the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, completed in 2016. There’s also a railway tunnel underneath it as well as numerous ferries which cross daily. The possibility of building a tunnel beneath it was even being discussed in the time of the Ottoman Empire, according to historial records.
The strait is of great strategic importance, particularly for defending Istanbul, and so over the years emperors and sultans built castles and fortifications along its length, including the castle of Anadoluhisarı, constructed on the Asian shore by Bayezid I in 1390–91, and Rumelihisarı, built directly across the strait by Mehmed II in 1452.
In modern times, rich people build their mansions on the shore. Mansions built directly on the waterside are known as “yah”. The oldest surviving yah was built by grand vizier Amcazade Köprülü Hüseyin Pasha in 1699 on the Asian shore. The most expensive yah is Erbilgin Yalısı which Forbes magazine listed as the fifth most expensive house in the world, worth $100 million.
It’s a very busy waterway with an estimated 48,000 ships passing through every year (or 132 every day). Traffic in the strait increased after the signing of the Montreux Convention in 1936, which gives the right of free passage to merchant vessels, while the transit of warships is subject to restrictions. However, in 2002 there were restrictions placed on oil tankers – tankers more than 200m long were no longer allowed to pass through at night.
It’s also very important for the fishing industry. The currents (the waters in the upper layer of the Bosphorus flow from the Black Sea to the Marmara, the currents in the lower layer flow in the opposite direction) and temperature of the water are such that fish are attracted to it, and use it to migrate between the two seas, so the fish available to be caught vary according to the season.
There is an annual Swimming race and yacht festivals which take place here.
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