Construction of the warehouse of the Genoese in Trebizond

Kalepark (originally called ''Leonkastron''; and later ''Güzelhisar'', meaning "Beautiful Castle" in Turkish) was procured and further fortified by Genoese merchants as a

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

fortress on the east side of

Trabzon Trabzon (; Ancient Greek: Tραπεζοῦς (''Trapezous''), Ophitic Pontic Greek: Τραπεζούντα (''Trapezounta''); Georgian: ტრაპიზონი (''Trapizoni'')), historically known as Trebizond in English, is a city on the B ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

. The fortress was built on a rocky outcrop strategically overlooking both harbors of the city: the summer harbor at a distance to the west, and the winter harbor just to the east of it. A few hundred meters to the west of Leonkastron lay the "Venetian Castle", which was a competing fortified trading outpost. In the following centuries many other Europeans settled on the streets between these forts - such as traders from

Lviv Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukrain ...

in Ukraine - and it thus became known as the "European quarter". In the 1740s, a palace was built for the Ottoman Governor Ahmet Paşa at the same location, which was destroyed by a fire in 1790. The castle was frequently shelled during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

by the

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

naval forces, due to its easily accessible location near the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Rom ...

coast.Ganita(Tr)
File:'Kéraban the Inflexible' by Léon Benett 084.jpg, Kalepark as depicted in

Kéraban the Inflexible ''Kéraban the Inflexible'' (french: Kéraban-le-têtu, 1883) is an adventure novel Adventure fiction is a type of fiction that usually presents danger, or gives the reader a sense of excitement. Some adventure fiction also satisfies the litera ...

by Jules Verne. File:Trebizond, the Scene of the Armenian Massacre - ILN 1895.jpg, The Kalepark featured prominently in the 1895

Illustrated London News ''The Illustrated London News'' appeared first on Saturday 14 May 1842, as the world's first illustrated weekly news magazine. Founded by Herbert Ingram, it appeared weekly until 1971, then less frequently thereafter, and ceased publication i ...

. File:View of a castle by the sea at Trebizond.jpg, The Kalepark in ruins. Drawn by

Eugène Flandin Jean-Baptiste Eugène Napoléon Flandin (15 August 1809 in Naples – 29 September 1889 in Tours), French orientalist, painter, archaeologist, and politician. Flandin's archeological drawings and some of his military paintings are valued m ...

Notes and references

External links

Towers of Trabzon (gallery)
{{Castles in Turkey History of Trabzon Province Empire of Trebizond Trabzon Buildings and structures in Trabzon Castles in Turkey