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CGMP-dependent protein kinase

cGMP-dependent protein kinase or protein kinase G (PKG) is a serine/threonine-specific protein kinase that is activated by cGMP. It phosphorylates a number of biologically important targets and is implicated in the regulation of smooth muscle relaxation, platelet function, sperm metabolism, cell division, and nucleic acid synthesis.

Genes and proteins
PKG are serine/threonine kinases that are present in a variety of eukaryotes ranging from the unicellular organism Paramecium to humans. Two PKG genes, coding for PKG type I (PKG-I) and type II (PKG-II), have been identified in mammals. The N-terminus of PKG-I is encoded by two alternatively spliced exons that specify for the PKG-Iα and PKG-Iβ isoforms. PKG-Iβ is activated at ~10-fold higher cGMP concentrations than PKG-Iα. The PKG-I and PKG-II are homodimers of two identical subunits (~75 kDa and ~85 kDa, respectively) and share common structural features.

Each subunit is composed of three functional domains:

 * (1) an N-terminal domain that mediates homodimerization, suppression of the kinase activity in the absence of cGMP, and interactions with other proteins including protein substrates
 * (2) a regulatory domain that contains two non-identical cGMP-binding sites
 * (3) a kinase domain that catalyzes the phosphate transfer from ATP to the hydroxyl group of a serine/threonine side chain of the target protein

Binding of cGMP to the regulatory domain induces a conformational change which stops the inhibition of the catalytic core by the N-terminus and allows the phosphorylation of substrate proteins. Whereas PKG-I is predominantly localized in the cytoplasm, PKG-II is anchored to the plasma membrane by N-terminal myristoylation.

Tissue distribution
In general, PKG-I and PKG-II are expressed in different cell types.
 * PKG-I has been detected at high concentrations (above 0.1 μmol/L) in all types of smooth muscle cells (SMCs) including vascular SMCs and in platelets. Lower levels are present in vascular endothelium and cardiomyocytes. The enzyme is also expressed in fibroblasts, certain types of renal cells and leukocytes, and in specific regions of the nervous system, for example in the hippocampus, in cerebellar Purkinje cells, and in dorsal root ganglia. Neurons express either the PKG-Iα or the PKG-Iβ isoform, platelets predominantly Iβ, and both isoforms are present in smooth muscle.
 * PKG-II has been detected in renal cells, zona glomerulosa cells of the adrenal cortex, club cells in distal airways, intestinal mucosa, pancreatic ducts, parotid and submandibular glands, chondrocytes, and several brain nuclei, but not in cardiac and vascular myocytes.

Specifically, in smooth muscle tissue, PKG promotes the opening of calcium-activated potassium channels, leading to cell hyperpolarization and relaxation, and blocks agonist activity of phospholipase C, reducing liberation of stored calcium ions by inositol triphosphate.

Role in cancer
Cancerous colon cells stop producing PKG, which apparently limits beta-catenin, thus allowing the VEGF enzyme to solicit angiogenesis.

Behavioral genetics in Drosophila melanogaster
In Drosophila melanogaster the foraging (for) gene is a polymorphic trait that underlies differences in food-seeking behaviors. The for locus is made up of Rover (forR) and Sitter (forS) alleles, with the Rover allele being dominant. Rover individuals typically travel greater distances when foraging for food, while Sitter individuals travel less distance to forage for food. Both Rover and Sitter phenotypes are considered wild-type, as fruit fly populations typically exhibit a 70:30 Rover-to-Sitter ratio. The Rover and Sitter alleles are located within the 24A3-5 region of the Drosophila melanogaster polytene chromosome, a region which contains the PKG d2g gene. PKG expression levels account for differences in forR and forS allele frequency and therefore behavior as Rover individuals show higher PKG expression than Sitter individuals, and the Sitter phenotype can be converted to Rover by over-expression of the dg2 gene.

title: CGMP-dependent protein kinase


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1908 in Swedish football

The 1908 season in Swedish football, starting January 1908 and ending December 1908:

Stockholmsserien klass 1 1908

 * Title-deciding match

Svenska Mästerskapet 1908

 * Final

Corinthian Bowl 1908

 * Final

Kamratmästerskapen 1908

 * Final

Wicanderska Välgörenhetsskölden 1908

 * Final

National team results
🇸🇪 Sweden: Ove Eriksson - Theodor Malm, Nils Andersson - Sven Olsson, Hans Lindman, Thor Ericsson - Gustaf Bergström, Erik Bergström, Erik Börjesson, Karl Gustafsson, Karl Ansén.

🇸🇪 Sweden: Oskar Bengtsson - Åke Fjästad, Theodor Malm - Sven Olsson, Hans Lindman, Thor Ericsson - Sune Almkvist, Erik Bergström, Karl Gustafsson, Olof Ohlsson, Karl Ansén.

🇸🇪 Sweden: Oskar Bengtsson - Åke Fjästad, Theodor Malm - Sven Olsson, Hans Lindman, Olof Ohlsson - Sune Almkvist, Gustaf Bergström, Karl Gustafsson, Sven Ohlsson, Karl Ansén.

🇸🇪 Sweden: Oskar Bengtsson - Åke Fjästad, Nils Andersson - Sven Olsson, Hans Lindman, Valter Lidén - Arvid Fagrell, Gustaf Bergström, Olof Ohlsson, Karl Gustafsson, Karl Ansén.

🇸🇪 Sweden: Oskar Bengtsson - Åke Fjästad, Nils Andersson - Sven Olsson, Hans Lindman, Valter Lidén - Sune Almkvist, Gustaf Bergström, Olof Ohlsson, Karl Gustafsson, Karl Ansén.

🇸🇪 Sweden: Oskar Bengtsson - Åke Fjästad, Nils Andersson - Sven Olsson, Hans Lindman, Theodor Malm - Sune Almkvist, Gustaf Bergström, Sven Ohlsson, Karl Gustafsson, Karl Ansén.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: 1908 in Swedish football


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Sowebo

Sowebo (an abbreviation of South West Baltimore) is a community-chosen name for a historic area in the southwest of the city of Baltimore.

Sowebo encompasses the neighborhoods of Union Square and Hollins Market, Baltimore. At one point, the area suffered from decades of urban decay but, in recent years, this community has seen increasing gentrification. On its main thoroughfares, West Lombard Street, Hollins Street, West Baltimore Street and South Carey Streets, spacious three-story row houses predominate. Most are pre- and post-Civil War Italianate in style, but there are many examples of Early Victorian Greek Revival and Late Victorian Romanesque Revival. A majority of these homes have ten- to fourteen-foot ceilings, tall distinctive windows, wood floors, and plaster walls. Exteriors are brick and mortar facades with cornices and marble steps. On side streets and alley streets (which are common in Baltimore) a variety of two-story and two-story-with-attic rowhouses are found.

An uncommon synergy prevails in Sowebo as residents, both longtime and newly arrived, work together through various committees and forums to enhance the area's quality of life. An annual arts festival, called the Sowebohemian Arts Festival, is held in the streets around Hollins Market on the Sunday afternoon of the Memorial Day weekend.

The University of Maryland's BioPark is a recent addition, with portions still under construction. The state-of-the-art facility contrasts greatly with historic Sowebo, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (The Union Square/Hollins Market District ), as is the H.L. Mencken house, which is located in the neighborhood at 1524 Hollins Street.

Photographer Martha Cooper moved back to her hometown of Baltimore in 2006 and bought a home close to Hollins Market from the artist John Ellsberry where she has become the unofficial "community photographer" for Sowebo. She launched her project with $3,300 of state funds granted through the nonprofit housing organization Southwest Visions. The photo project, with or without more funding, could continue for the rest of her working life, she says.

title: Sowebo


text:
1909 in Swedish football

The 1909 season in Swedish football, starting January 1909 and ending December 1909:

Svenska Mästerskapet 1909

 * Final

Corinthian Bowl 1909

 * Final

Kamratmästerskapen 1909

 * Final

Wicanderska Välgörenhetsskölden 1909

 * Final

National team results
🇸🇪 Sweden: Oskar Bengtsson - Konrad Törnqvist, Nils Andersson - Sven Olsson, Ivar Ryberg, Thor Ericsson - Gustaf Bergström, Erik Bergström, Erik Börjesson, Herman Myhrberg, Henrik Bergström.

title: 1909 in Swedish football


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Tammin

Tammin may refer to
 * Tammin, Western Australia, a town
 * Shire of Tammin, a local government area in Western Australia
 * Tammin Sursok (born 1983), South African-born Australian actress and singer-songwriter

title: Tammin


text:
User:Murli

Hi, my name is Martin and i contribute some articles here, but mostly work in the German wikipedia (as User:Murli) and frequently on the sk:Hlavná stránka.

de:Benutzer:Murli sk:Redaktor:Murli hu:User:Murli

title: User:Murli


text:
Dust of Life: A True Ban Vinai Love Story

Dust of Life: A True Ban Vinai Love Story is the first novel of G. Y. Lee. It was first published in 2004.

Synopsis
It takes you on the romantic journey of Mua, a young Hmong man. Shortly after completing his university studies in Minneapolis, Minnesota, he was asked by Pufua, a refugee girl in Ban Vinai Refugee Camp in Thailand to help sponsor her and her family for settlement in the United States. Although he barely knew her, he traveled to Thailand to see what he could do. It was agreed that if they got on well, he would marry her and apply for her and her family to come and live with him in the USA.

Things are not straightforward and Pufua is reluctant to wed after a series of events in the refugee camp, unbeknownst to Mua. Slowly and surely he begins to work out what has happened.


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Talk:Boniface I, Marquis of Montferrat

Old talk
I'm curious as to the origin of the line "Boniface had nothing to recommend him as a leader of the Crusades: he had little to no military experience, and was more notable as a patron of troubadors (...)". Reading Queller and Madden: The Fourth Crusade (1997) Boniface is described quite to the contrary: "In his early fifties Boniface was a mature leader with long experience of command. (...) His aptitude in diplomacy is proved by his ability to retain the trust of the pope in spite of his loyalty to the Hohenstaudfen. He was widely regarded as an ideal Christian knight. (...) He was one of the best fighting men and commanders of his day."

He is described by his contemporary Geoffroy de Villehardouin as very worthy and valiant, and one of the most highly prized of living men. In the words of Robert of Clari the barons of the Fourth Crusade spoke to him as the worthiest man that we knew and the one that could bring the best counsel to our undertaking.

~ Havard 11:05, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

 * I've dealt with that in my edits and rectified it. I don't know where the original writer got the idea he was inexperienced: his military experience, which included Henry VI's Sicilian campaign, is well-attested. Vaqueiras's Epic Letter gives a great deal of detail on his early career. Silverwhistle 10:38, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

King Conrad of Jerusalem?
You state Boniface was brother of Conrad King of Jerusalem. Conrad was never crowned king, he was assassinated on the street before his coronation. The crown was passed straight to Henry of Champaign, (nephew of Richard I of England, and Philip II of France)

 * He was elected, and acted, as king though. Havard 10:24, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Conrad was king by right after his marriage to Isabella of Jerusalem in November 1190, but Guy de Lusignan (who had similarly held the crown through his wife) refused to step aside after being widowed. Conrad's title was confirmed by election in April 1192, but he was assassinated a few days later. Henry of Champagne only succeeded through marrying Isabella (who was pregnant by Conrad) a week later. Conrad also had some claim as nearest male relative of Baldwin V of Jerusalem. Silverwhistle 20:12, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Excrescent picture of Boniface being elected.
It seems too big and is tangled with the paragraph. I tried to correct it and couldn't, so perhaps someone else can sort it.--qp10qp 21:03, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

 * How is it now? Adam Bishop 23:22, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Ah, that's excellent. Cheers. I can sleep well, now.--qp10qp 00:54, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Second Marriage
The research justifying Boniface's second marriage to Jeanne is interesting but doesn't really hold up. Raynald de Châtillon did have two daughters with Constance of Antioch, but their names were Agnes and Alice, not Maria and Jeanne. The author of the Lignages d'Outremer appears to confuse Constance's first daughter from her first marriage with her first daughter from her second marriage, hence Maria for Agnes, and that casts doubt on his clarity elsewhere. I have no idea where he got the name Jeanne, maybe the early fourteenth-century duchess of Athens, but the identity of her supposed husband as the "king of Salonica" appears to be the result of confusing Azzo VI d'Este with Boniface of Montferrat, both famous marquises from Italy. The absence of any mention of a prestigious bride from overseas, right as the antecedents of the Third Crusade were beginning to gather, by either chroniclers or troubadours makes it easier to regard this as a coincidence of two errors (or one error and one deliberate falsehood, if Boniface lied to Byzantine envoys about his marital status). Gormongous (talk) 01:08, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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title: Talk:Boniface I, Marquis of Montferrat


text:
Cumberland Line

The Cumberland Line (numbered T5, coloured magenta) is a commuter rail line operated by Sydney Trains in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It connects Schofields and Leppington stations in the western suburbs. Limited services extend from Schofields to Richmond. The line opened in 1996, following the construction of a 'Y-link' track between Harris Park and Merrylands stations. The intention of this link was to allow direct services to operate from the south west suburbs to Parramatta and Blacktown without requiring a change of trains at Granville. The line takes its name from the Cumberland Plain on which much of Western Sydney was built.

History
Upon its opening in 1996, the line had a regular half-hourly service in each direction consisting of 38 journeys per day. Subsequent timetables saw its services significantly reduced to the point of running only during weekday peak hours, and from 2005 to 2013 the line only ran in one direction at a time: two services ran in the morning peak from Campbelltown towards Blacktown and three services ran in the opposite direction in the evening. Some services operated to or from Quakers Hill or Schofields on the Richmond line, but the line's official terminus on network maps and other material remained at Blacktown.

Prior to the Y-Link's opening, passengers travelling between the Western and South lines were required to change trains at Granville. With the reduction in services to peak hours only, this travelling strategy was resumed by most commuters.

In 2006, the then-Iemma Labor Government's NSW State Plan committed to re-introduce a regular half-hourly service to the Cumberland line during 2007 "subject to detailed timetable and train planning... and fleet delivery, availability and rostering". A CityRail news release on 15 December confirmed this intention, based on the gradual introduction of the then-new OSCAR (H set) trains, which would displace outer suburban Tangara G sets; the latter trains then reassigned to suburban service. This promise was not delivered, and the Cumberland Line remained a peak-hour-only service with 4 car trains.

Daytime half-hourly services were re-introduced on 21 October 2013. Services finished in the early evening and did not operate on weekends. At this time, the line was also officially extended to Schofields, where most northbound services terminated.

As part of a major timetable change for the Sydney Trains network on 26 November 2017, Cumberland Line services were modified to no longer travel to and from Campbelltown, instead starting and terminating at Leppington. Simultaneous changes to the Airport, Inner West & South Line saw that line split into the Inner West & Leppington Line and Airport & South Line. These changes mean the section of the network between Glenfield and Macarthur is served exclusively by services operating via the East Hills railway line. The changes also saw late night and weekend services introduced on the Cumberland Line. The late night services extend to Richmond, replacing T1 services at these times. On weekends, trains operate between Schofields and Liverpool only with early morning and late night services extending to Leppington and Richmond.

Description of route
Physically, the line consists of the Richmond railway line from Schofields/Richmond to Blacktown, the Main Western Line from Blacktown station to Harris Park, the 'Y-link' as described below, the "Old Main South" between Merrylands and Cabramatta, the Main South Line between Cabramatta and Glenfield, and the South West Rail Link between Edmondson Park and Leppington.

Trains and Services
During the week, the Cumberland Line usually has 2 tph in each direction between Schofields and Leppington. In the peak, the services usually only run till Blacktown due to other services. On the weekend, this line holds 2 tph in both directions between Schofields and Liverpool. The line is usually serviced by 4-car Millenniums, though sometimes being serviced by Waratah A sets.

Y-link
The 'Y-link' was opened in 1996 as part of former Prime Minister Paul Keating's 'Building Better Cities' programme in recognition of Parramatta's place as the capital of Sydney's west. It cost $80 million to construct, and required the construction of a little over one kilometre of new track and no new stations. This track consists of the creation of a triangular junction at the junction of the 'Old Main South' and the 'Main Western Line by laying track between Merrylands and Harris Park stations. The work included a new flyover of the 'Up Old Main South' over these new tracks.

Patronage
The following table shows the patronage of Sydney Trains network for the year ending 30 June 2022.

title: Cumberland Line


text: User talk:66.36.229.204

title: User talk:66.36.229.204


text:
Stage piano

A stage piano is an electronic musical instrument designed for use in live performances on stage or in a studio, as well as for music recording in Jazz and popular music. While stage pianos share some of the same features as digital pianos designed for home use and synthesizers, they have a number of features which set them apart. Stage pianos usually provide a smaller number of sounds (usually acoustic piano, electric piano, and hammond organ), with these being of higher quality than the ones found on regular digital pianos and home synthesizers.

Unlike many digital pianos, which are designed for semi-permanent installation in a private home and have design elements which make regular transportation difficult (e.g., permanently mounted legs, modesty panel, internal power amplifier and speakers, and a fixed sustain pedal), a stage piano generally has a portable, detachable stand, no internal amp or speakers (an output jack is provided so the instrument can be plugged into a keyboard amplifier), a detachable sustain pedal to be plugged into a jack, and a robust body. This enables a performer to remove all of the detachable parts and makes the instrument easier to transport to gigs and rehearsals.

Controls and features
The sounds of a high-end stage piano are usually created through sampling or complex digital signal processing-modelling, methods of higher quality compared to what is commonly found on digital keyboards, which use relatively simple synthesis methods to allow for more, different types of sounds, albeit in lower quality. Along with the sounds of the most common keyboard instruments, most stage pianos also provide a recreation of electro-mechanical pianos like the Fender Rhodes, Wurlitzer 200A, or Yamaha CP-70/CP-80 series, which were based on picking up the sound of a metal tine, reed or string hit by a hammer.

While almost all digital pianos and lower-end synthesizer keyboards designed for home use have small onboard powered speakers, stage pianos are often designed without onboard speakers; instead, they are designed to be used with external amplification. In some models, low powered speakers built into the instrument are present and are intended for home use, however in case of live performances more powerful and higher quality amplifiers are preferred, plugging them through the output jack. Only some particular models of stage pianos, such as the Yamaha P-250 or Casio Privia, have onboard powered speakers already built into the instrument.

The controls on stage pianos can usually be navigated through knobs and buttons placed on the instrument. Among these, MIDI interfaces are provided to permit them to be used as master keyboards, which can control other tone-generating modules, such as Hammond organ-emulators or synthesizer string modules.

Keyboards
Most digital stage pianos have weighted keys or semi-weighted keys.
 * Fully weighted keys are designed to replicate the weight and playing action of acoustic piano hammer-action keys. They have a piano-like feel and better touch control.
 * Semi-weighted keys are lighter and cheaper to manufacture than fully weighted keys. They give less control and are less similar to an acoustic piano, but can be played more quickly by most people.

Stage pianos usually have 88 keys, which is standard for all modern acoustic pianos. However, some stage pianos have fewer keys, such as the Kurzweil SP76 which has only 76 semi-weighted keys, but is still called a stage piano because of its layout and weighted keys.

Common stage pianos

 * Casio Privia line: Contains high-quality instrument sampled data, such as four-layer samples (more expression of tone for varying velocities) for the pianos. They have 88 weighted keys, tuning control, and 128-voice polyphony, amongst other features. The Privia family is equipped with 16-watt onboard speakers in almost all models, except for PX-3 and PX-5S models. Earlier Privia models use Zygotech synthesis engine, while newer models utilizes Casio's new Linear Morphing Technology.
 * Nord Stage line: Produces organ, piano, and synthesizer sounds. Available in 76 or 88 weighted-key models, as well as a semi-weighted model for reduced weight.
 * Clavia Nord Electro 3: Sold in 61 or 73-key semi-weighted action models. Produces organ and piano sounds, but also other sounds from the Nord Piano Library and Nord Sample Library.
 * Korg SP-series: Features 88 fully weighted keys with RH3 (Responsive Hammer 3) action with 3x10 tone banks. It also has a pair of 11-watt built-in speakers suitable for relatively small performance venues.
 * Kurzweil SP88X: Has 76 and 88-key semi-weighted action models, and an 88-key fully weighted action model. Its sounds include pianos, various Hammond-organ sounds, and synthesizer string sounds.
 * Kurzweil SP3X: Contains 512 preset sounds, 128 effects, 60 rhythm patterns and weighted keyboard action that is velocity and aftertouch-sensitive. It has 88 keys and 64-note polyphony
 * Roland RD series (RD-150, RD-300SX, RD-700 etc.): The keyboard has a full-weighted 88-key keyboard with graded hammer action. It uses high quality acoustic, electric and Rhodes piano samples, additionally providing other lead and backing instruments (e.g. clavinet, electric and acoustic bass, string/synth pads, and vocal effects). It is designed for live use, and the operation panel includes the most used functions to avoid on-screen menus.
 * Yamaha P-250 and CP300: Digital stage piano designed for professional live performance or for use as a studio instrument. Includes natural stereo grand piano, harpsichord, vintage electric piano and acoustic church organ samples, 88-key Graded Hammer (GH) action, MIDI-controller capability, and on-board 2x30W amped speakers, suitable for middle performance venues..
 * Yamaha CP33: This series of stage piano was first introduced in 1976. It has an 88-key Graded Hammer keyboard action, 28 voices, and MIDI master keyboard controller capability.
 * M-Audio ProKeys 88: Has 88 hammer-action keys, a stereo grand piano sound, 14 other instrument sounds, and MIDI controller functionality.
 * Korg SP250: Features 88 fully weighted keys, MIDI controller functionality, and a total of 30 piano, organ, string, and pad sounds. Designed for touring, it is barely more than twice the size of the keyboard itself.
 * Yamaha CP4 Stage: The latest version of Yamaha's CP line of professional stage pianos. Includes revamped stereo piano samples, 88-key Graded Hammer (GH) action, MIDI-controller capability, and new sound engine based on the home-focused Clavinova digital pianos.
 * Kawai MP7: Kawai's first model of stage piano. Also features 88 weighted keys with stereo piano samples powered by Harmonic Imaging Technology.

title: Stage piano


text:
Pedro Salinas

Pedro Salinas y Serrano (27 November 1891 – 4 December 1951) was a Spanish poet, a member of the Generation of '27, as well as a university teacher, scholar and literary critic. In 1937, he delivered the Turnbull lectures at Johns Hopkins University. These were later published under the title Reality and the Poet in Spanish Poetry.

Biography
He was born in Madrid in the Calle de Toledo, 1891, in a house very close to the San Isidro church/cathedral. Salinas lived his early years in the heart of the city and went to school first in the Colegio Hispano-Francés and then in the Instituto Nacional de Segunda Enseñanza, both close by the church. His father, a cloth-merchant, died in 1899. He began to study law at the Universidad Central in 1908 and in 1910 started to study history concurrently. He graduated successfully in both courses in 1913. During his undergraduate years, he began to write and publish poems in small circulation journals such as Prometeo. In 1914 he became the Spanish lector at the Collège de Sorbonne in the University of Paris until 1917, when he received his doctorate. He had married Margarita Bonmatí, a Spanish girl of Algerian descent whom he had met on his summer holidays in Santa Pola, Alicante, in December 1915. She had been born in 1884. They had two children, Soledad (always referred to as Solita) born in 1920 and Jaime born in 1925. His academic life seemed to act as a model for his slightly younger contemporary Jorge Guillén with whom he struck up a friendship in 1920.

In 1918 he was appointed Professor of Spanish Language and Literature at the University of Seville and he held the post until 1928, although he spent 1922–23 as lector at the University of Cambridge. One of his students in Seville was Luis Cernuda in the academic year 1919–20, to whom he gave special encouragement. He urged him to read modern French literature, in particular André Gide and the poetry of Baudelaire, Mallarmé and Rimbaud. He continued to publish poems in magazines such as España and La Pluma. In vacations, he spent time as a lecturer at the Residencia de Estudiantes, where he got to know the leading lights of his generation, such as García Lorca and Rafael Alberti. In April 1926, he was present at the gathering in Madrid where the first plans to celebrate the tercentenary of Góngora's death were laid. Salinas was to edit the volume devoted to the sonnets: a project that never came to fruition. While at Cambridge, his translation of the first two volumes and part of the third of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time into Spanish was published. And in 1925, his modernised version of El Poema de Mío Cid was published by Revista de Occidente.

In 1928 he became a researcher at the Centro de Estudios Históricos in Madrid before becoming director of studies for foreigners at the University of Madrid. In 1930, he became a professor of Spanish literature at Madrid and doubled up as originator, organiser and secretary-general of the International Summer School of Santander between 1933 and 1936. This school was set up to accommodate 200 Spanish students (approximately 4 from each of the established universities in Spain) and an international teaching staff.

On 8 March 1933, he was present at the premiere in Madrid of García Lorca's play Bodas de sangre. In August 1933, he was able to host performances at the Magdalena Palace in Santander by the travelling theatre company La Barraca that Lorca led. On 20 April 1936, he attended the launch party in Madrid for Luis Cernuda's new collection La realidad y el deseo. and on 12 July he was present at a party in Madrid that took place just before García Lorca departed to Granada for the last time before his murder. It was there that Lorca read his new play La casa de Bernarda Alba for the last time.

On 31 August 1936, shortly after the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, he moved to the US, to take up the position of the Mary Whiton Calkins professor at Wellesley College, Mass., which he held until 1937. In the spring of 1937, he delivered a series of lectures as the Turnbull Professor at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, on Poet and Reality in Spanish Literature (published 1940). In the summer of that year (and in many subsequent years), he taught in the Spanish faculty of Middlebury College, Vermont and was awarded a doctorate honoris causa. In May 1939, he participated in a PEN International conference in New York, representing the writers of the (Second) Spanish Republic.

He had been dividing his time between the faculties of Wellesley, Middlebury, and Johns Hopkins but in 1940 he took up a permanent post at Johns Hopkins where he remained for the rest of his life, including long spells of travel in South America and a period of 3 years at the University of Puerto Rico. In the summer of 1949 he returned to Europe for the last time to visit Italy and France and to work for UNESCO. At the beginning of 1951 he began to exhibit signs of ill-health, which turned out to be an incurable cancer. He died on 4 December 1951. At his request he was buried in Santa Maria Magdalena de Pazzis Cemetery in San Juan.

Salinas was the father-in-law of Spanish historian and writer Juan Marichal. Marichal would later publish Salinas' complete works, Three Voices of Pedro Salinas, which was released in 1976. His daughter edited his poetry and incorporated an introduction by his old friend Jorge Guillén.

Stylistic characteristics
His poetry falls naturally into three periods: the first three books, the love poetry, and the poetry of exile. However, there are more continuities between these phases than such an analysis would suggest. In his published Johns Hopkins lectures he remarked:
 * Poetry always operates on reality. The poet places himself before reality like a human being before light, in order to create something else, a shadow.  The shadow is the result of the interposition of a body between light and some other substance.  The poet adds shadows to the world, bright and luminous shadows like new lights.  All poetry operates on one reality for the sake of creating another.

There is a crucial difference between the world of everyday appearance and the deeper reality that the poet sees and tries to convey to his readers. Salinas writes as if he is the first person to see a particular object or feel a certain emotion and he tries to convey to the reader this sense of the wonder hidden behind familiar, banal things.

Salinas has often been compared with Guillén. To some extent this is because they were good friends and slightly older than most of the other leading members of their generation, as well as following similar career-paths, but they also seemed to share a similar approach to poetry. Their poems often have a rarefied quality and tend not to deal with "particulars", readily identifiable people and places. Nevertheless, they did differ in many respects as exemplified by the titles they gave to their published lectures on Spanish poetry. At Johns Hopkins, Salinas published a collection called Reality and the Poet in Spanish Poetry, whereas Guillén's Norton lectures were called Language and Poetry. Both devoted single lectures to Góngora and San Juan de la Cruz and the comparisons between them are instructive. Salinas seems to want to show us the poetic reality behind or beyond appearances, to educate us into how to see whereas Guillén gives us an account of the thoughts and sense-impressions going through his own mind: the reader is a viewer of this process not a participant in it. Vicente Aleixandre recalled visiting Salinas and finding him at his desk with his daughter on one knee and his son on the other and stretching out a hand clutching a pen to shake hands with his visitor. Although he was also devoted to his family, Guillén probably worked in a secluded study.

Presagios
It was at the relatively late age of 32 that Salinas published his first collection in 1923 – both Guillén, at the age of 35, and he were the oldest of the generation to get collections published. It seems that Juan Ramón Jiménez did the main editorial work - Salinas showed him a collection of 50 poems and it was Jiménez who organised them, placing three sonnets to form a central axis as well as adding an introductory essay. The title can be translated as presages, omens, prophesies and it suggests why this book is interesting. Most of the characteristics of the poet's mature style are captured here: basically simple and colloquial language used to depict everyday things in surprising ways in order to bring out the appearance/reality duality. He tended not to use traditional Spanish verse-forms in his poetry but neither did he write free verse. There is usually some kind of assonance scheme or metrical pattern underpinning the whole. His poems also tend to be short – less than 20 lines long – and playful in tone. One of the longer poems in this collection of untitled poems is 31, which deals with the apparently independent life of the poet's shadow. Eventually, the fact that he cannot control it makes him commit "fratricide" by retreating indoors, to a shadow-free zone. In such poems, the influence of the Golden Age stylistic tendency conceptismo is apparent and this becomes more marked in future collections.

Seguro azar
This book gathers together poems written between 1924 and 1928. The title is hard to render in English – sure or certain chance – but it seems to allude to the poet's confidence or certainty that he will find random moments of beauty or wonder in everyday life. The title might also suggest a growing self-confidence inside the poet. The appearance/reality conflict is now increasingly illustrated by examples gathered from life in a modern metropolis.

A key poem is "Vocación". Its first stanza is almost a paraphrase of Guillén's view of poetry as a contemplation of something in the world – saying the right words brings reality alive. The central stanza shows that Salinas questions this approach, which seems to give the poet no role beyond that of a mere spectator. In the final stanza, he gives his own conception of poetry, in which he closes his eyes and sees how blurry and incomplete the observed world is until a poet comes along to supply what is lacking to make it something perfect.

In "Navecerrada, abril" and "35 bujías", Salinas uses a riddle technique which becomes a signature device in later collections. The actual subject of the poem is only identified at the end of the poem - a technique that could derive from conceptismo or maybe Mallarmé. In the former poem, it is easy to jump to the conclusion that this is a poem about a pair of lovers. Only in the final line is it made clear that the poet is addressing his poem to a car, which he has stopped for a moment to contemplate the view from a high mountain pass. In the latter, Salinas goes a step further and tries to restore a sense of wonder to an everyday object by translating it to a mythological or legendary world. He develops the conceit of the filament of an electric light as a princess locked in a glass prison, guarded by rays of sunshine. He can only free her at night, by pressing a switch. In "Quietud", he writes a poem about the challenge of the blank sheet of paper – a theme explored by Mallarmé, and by Cernuda as well. However, for Salinas, perfection can be achieved by a poem remaining incomplete.

"Nivel preferido" is a key poem for understanding Salinas's choice of subject-matter. He grew up in the capital city and is arguably more of an urban person than most of his generation, who tended to come from provincial capitals. His poems rarely feature landscapes and wide, open spaces: this is because such views have largely been catalogued so that anyone with a Baedeker or travel guide can interpret them. What Salinas likes are little unobserved details, which abound in uncatalogued urban scenes.

Fábula y signo
This collection appeared in 1931 and presents the culmination of this phase of Salinas's poetry – it is in effect a continuation and extension of themes and techniques found in Seguro azar. "La otra" is an intriguing poem about a girl who decides to commit suicide but not by poison, shooting or strangulation: instead, she lets her soul die. She continues to be photographed and mentioned in the gossip-columns and nobody notices that she is dead. This shows the development of a more serious tendency in Salinas to go with the playful way he had drawn on conceptismo in earlier works.

In "Lo nunca igual", it is possible to see again the essential difference between Salinas and Guillén. The latter, on waking up, welcomes the return of familiar things. Salinas, on the other hand, on returning to familiar surroundings, welcomes the novelty added by his absence: these are not the things he left behind but new discoveries, despite appearances.

This collection also includes one of his most anthologised poems, "Underwood girls". This is another of those riddle poems that mythologise the everyday. The "girls" are the keys of a typewriter awaiting the touch of an operator to awaken them from centuries of slumber.

Love poetry
His love poetry is generally considered to be the highest peak of his achievement as a poet. It was written between 1933 and 1939 and was published in La voz a ti debida (1933), and Razón de amor (1936). A third collection, Largo lamento, was not published during the poet's lifetime, only appearing in full in 1971. For many years, it was assumed that these poems were rhetorical exercises - poems that use the techniques and devices of his earlier poems but focused on an imaginary love affair. Among the people who knew him well at the time, Cernuda thought that they were playful exercises, not seeing any great significance in them. Guillén, on the other hand, takes them very seriously but gives no sign that they might have been based in reality, real feelings. He even quotes the view of the critic Leo Spitzer that this is love poetry where the beloved is a phenomenon created by the poet, whilst asserting that this point of view is fundamentally mistaken. However, in 2002, Enric Bou published a set of letters sent by Salinas to Katherine R. Whitmore between the years 1932–47. She taught Spanish at Smith College, Northampton, Mass. In 1932, she spent her summer vacation in Madrid, where she met Salinas and they fell in love. A few weeks later, she returned to Northampton. She returned to spend the academic year 1934–5 in Madrid where they picked up their affair. However, on learning that Salinas's wife had discovered what was happening and had tried to commit suicide, she broke off relations. A sporadic correspondence continued afterwards but she married another man and the affair was over. The very shortness of the affair, two summers and an academic year, perhaps explains why it seems to have gone unsuspected by his close friends. The intensity of his feelings, however, are captured in the letters and, above all, in these collections of poetry. Guillén seems to have been the person who tracked down what had happened.

La voz a ti debida
This book has the sub-title Poema and it is indeed conceived as a single poem whose various episodes do not have individual titles or numbers. It takes its title from the third Eclogue of Garcilaso de la Vega. An ever new "I" eagerly pursues an ever new "you" but there is always something that eludes him. The devices of conceptismo, such as paradox and conceits, are drawn upon again perhaps in more complex ways than before because he is dealing with abstract concepts such as love. The language, however, remains very simple.

In the section "Por qué tienes nombre tú…" the poet shows his frustration at the inadequacy of words to capture the wonder he finds in the things they designate. If his lover did not have a name then he would feel that he was creating her.

In "Tú no las puedes ver…" he uses the riddle technique, holding back the banal word "tears" to the end to emphasise its inability to capture all the thoughts that have gone through his mind on seeing them and kissing them.

Razón de amor
This book takes its title from a poem from the early 13th century and falls into two sections. The first consists of untitled and unnumbered poems like those of La voz a ti debida; the second comprises eight long poems with individual titles. The subject-matter and approach is much the same as in the earlier collection but there is more assurance in the handling of the poetry. Again there is an emphasis on the inability of language to convey what the poet feels. "Beso será" develops the conceit that things that the lovers see and feel whilst they are apart, the "appearances" of trees, breezes, leaves etc., become the "reality" of the kiss when the lovers are reunited. They only become real when the lovers meet again.

Largo lamento
The poems that form this collection were written between 1936 and 1939. A selection from them had been published in 1957 under the title Volverse sombra y otras poemas. In the first edition of his Poesías completas that his daughter Solita brought out in 1971, she restored the original title and gathered together 21 poems. In the 1981 edition, she added a further 26 poems, considerably expanding the size of the collection. The manuscript, which existed almost entirely in typescript, was made up of 5 distinct groups of texts, 3 found in Gilman Hall at the Johns Hopkins campus and the other 2 amongst the poet's papers in his house in Newland Road, Baltimore. The state of the manuscripts varied between finished and properly typed up, finished by the poet but not properly typed up, and draft. Amongst the drafts, there were some that the editor felt were complete enough to merit publication.

Nevertheless, there are two distinct types of poems included in this collection - poems that seem like a continuation of the mood and style of Razón de amor and poems that seem to embody the title given to this collection: long lament. This title does not actually appear in any of the manuscripts: it only comes from letters to his Argentinian friend Guillermo de Torre and Jorge Guillén. The original conception of Largo lamento was seen by Guillén in 1938 but was subsequently put aside by the author, as was the continuation of Razón de amor.

El contemplado
Although this was published in 1946, the poems were inspired by the sea at Puerto Rico during his stay in 1943–44. It bears an epigraph from Guillen's 1945 edition of Cántico – again emphasising the strong links between the two men – on the subject of light being the best guide. The book also has a subtitle Tema con variaciones and the most noticeable aspect of these variations is the use of strict Spanish metrical forms such as silvas and romances. In Language and Poetry, Guillén says, "Even a Salinas…composed an occasional sonnet" but it is not until this work that he showed any sustained signs of interest in formal metrical structures. The vocabulary is more florid than in earlier works and there are even occasional uses of hyperbaton. These features are characteristic of the style of Góngora and lead the reader to wonder whether this is not his long-delayed contribution to the Tercentenary celebrations.

The collection shows signs of a new approach to the city and urban life that had been foreshadowed in a few poems such as "La otra" but which was outweighed by his fascination with incidental flashes of beauty and harmony. In "Variación XII" he sets up an opposition between the purity of the sea and the ugliness of the city of commerce. The city is described in terms reminiscent of Lorca's Poeta en Nueva York, which is a major change in Salinas's outlook.

Todo más claro
Published in 1949, this collection gathers poems written between 1937 and 1947. Although Salinas was never a political poet, in his American exile he saw the development of the machine-civilisation, enslaving its citizens to a world of commerce, figures and senseless advertising slogans – as in "Nocturno de los avisos". The last poem in the collection, "Cero", is a long lament expressing his horror and sadness that the pinnacle of scientific ingenuity, which should be a progressive force, has been to create something as destructive as the atomic bomb. The only consolation that he can find is revealed in "Lo inútil". Impractical, immaterial, unsought among the values of the modern world, doing no harm to others, "useless" poetry is what makes life worthwhile for him.

Confianza
These last poems were published in 1954, three years after his death, and suggest that the attitude of his previous two collections was only a passing phase. There is a return to the optimism that characterises most of his work. He reasserts his belief in the most enduring factors of life, not tied to any particular set of historical circumstances and therefore able to outlast them. The final poem is the one that was used to provide a title for the collection. It consists of a string of adverbial subjunctive clauses with the main subject continually suppressed – the implication being that it is poetry itself that will survive as long as certain things continue to happen or exist.

His work as a playwright is little-known in the English-speaking world.

Poetry collections

 * Presagio, Madrid, Índice, 1923.
 * Seguro azar, Madrid, Revista de Occidente, 1929.
 * Fábula y signo, Madrid, Plutarco, 1931.
 * La voz a ti debida, Madrid, Signo, 1933.
 * Razón de amor, Madrid, Ediciones del Árbol; Cruz y Raya (revista), 1936.
 * Error de cálculo, México, Imp. Miguel N. Lira, 1938.
 * Lost Angel and Other Poems, Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins Press, 1938 (bilingual anthology with unpublished poems. Trad. de Eleanor L. Thurnbull).
 * Poesía junta, Buenos Aires, Losada, 1942.
 * El contemplado (Mar; poema), México, Nueva Floresta; Stylo, 1946.
 * Todo más claro y otros poemas, Buenos Aires, Sudamericana, 1949.
 * Poesías completas, Madrid, Aguilar, 1955 (includes the posthumous work Confianza).
 * Poesías completas, Madrid, Aguilar, 1956 (edición de Juan Marichal).
 * Volverse y otros poemas, Milán, All'insegna del pesce d'oro, 1957.
 * Poesía completas, Barcelona, Barral, 1971. (includes the posthumous work Largo lamento)

Plays

 * El director (1936)
 * El parecido (1942–1943)
 * Ella y sus fuentes (1943)
 * La bella durmiente (1943)
 * La isla del tesoro (1944)
 * La cabeza de la medusa (1945)
 * Sobre seguro (1945)
 * Caín o Una gloria científica (1945)
 * Judit y el tirano (1945)
 * La estratosfera. Vinos y cervezas (1945)
 * La fuente del arcángel (1946)
 * Los santos (1946)
 * El precio (1947)
 * El chantajista (1947)

Other works

 * Cartas de amor a Margarita (1912–1915), edición de Soledad Salinas de Marichal, Madrid, Alianza Editorial, 1986.
 * Cartas a Katherine Whitmore. Epistolario secreto del gran poeta del amor, Barcelona, Tusquets, 2002.
 * El defensor, Alianza Editorial, Madrid, 2002.
 * Vísperas del gozo (1926).
 * La bomba increíble (1950).
 * El desnudo impecable y otras narraciones (1951).
 * Literatura española. Siglo XX (1940).
 * Reality and the Poet in Spanish Literature (1940).
 * Jorge Manrique o tradición y originalidad (1947).
 * La poesía de Rubén Darío (1948).
 * Editions of Fray Luis de Granada y San Juan de la Cruz.
 * El hombre se posee en la medida que posee su lengua.
 * El rinoceronte.

Popular culture
The painter Carlos Marichal considered his grandfather Pedro Salinas to be a mythic cultural figure. Marichal's illustration of Salina's poetry is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Art of Puerto Rico.

title: Pedro Salinas


text:
Public transport in Istanbul

Public transport in Istanbul comprises a bus network, various rail systems, funiculars, and maritime services to serve the more than 15 million inhabitants of the city spread over an area of 5,712 km2.

History

Public road transport in Istanbul dates back to 30 August 1869, when a contract to build a tram system in the capital of the Ottoman Empire was signed. With this agreement, Konstantin Krepano Efendi's "Société des Tramways de Constantinople" obtained the concession to operate public transportation for forty years. The inauguration of four lines of horse-driven trams was in 1871. In the first year, the horsecars transported 4.5 million people on the lines Azapkapı-Galata, Aksaray-Yedikule, Aksaray-Topkapı and Eminönü-Aksaray. More lines were added in the following years. 430 horses were used to draw the 45 carriages, including 15 summer-type and some double-deckers, on track. In 1912, the horse-drawn tram had to cease to operate for one year because the Ministry of Defence sent all the horses to the front during the Balkan War.

The tram network was electrified by overhead contact wire on 2 February 1914. The tram began to run on the Anatolian part of Istanbul on 8 June 1928 between Üsküdar and Kısıklı. By the 1950s, the length of the tram lines reached 130 km. The trams were on service on the European side of the city until 12 August 1961 and on the Asian side until 14 November 1966.

The same time as the horsecar started to run, construction of the Tünel, a short funicular between Pera and Galata, began on 30 July 1871. The funicular opened to service on 5 December 1874, the second oldest subway in the world after the London Underground. In the beginning, only freight and livestock were transported. On 17 January 1875, after completing the test runs, the funicular was opened to the public. It is still in service.

A commuter rail line was built on the European side of the city from Sirkeci to Hadımköy in 1872, which was followed in 1873 on the Anatolian part from Haydarpaşa Terminal to İzmit.

The ferry is one of the oldest means of transit in Istanbul, a city with two parts separated by the Bosphorus strait and surrounded by sea. In 1837, British and Russian owned boats started transport on the Bosphorus. The Istanbul Maritime Company was established in 1851 by a decree of Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid I. The ferry service began in 1853 with six paddle steamers built in the Robert White shipyard in England. The service was extended in 1859 to places around Golden Horn. After 1903 screw-driven steamboats were put in service. Until 1929 boats were imported; later on the ferries were built in the shipyards in Golden Horn. At its peak the fleet contained 40 boats. In 1867, the same company started vehicle transport across the Boğaziçi (Bosphorus) between Kabataş and Üsküdar with two ferries purchased from England, as the first scheduled ferry lines in the world. All ferry companies were nationalized in 1945.

Bus transportation in Istanbul started in 1926 with four Renault-Scania buses between Beyazıt and Karaköy. The fleet grew up from 9 buses in 1942 to 16 in 1955 and to 525 buses in 1960, and then became the backbone of public transport in an ever-enlarging city. Several British and French companies operated all public transport in Istanbul until 16 June 1939, the date of nationalization. The newly established company İETT (Istanbul Electric Tram and Tünel Company) took over from then on the task of public transport in Istanbul.

On 27 May 1961, trolleybuses were put in service first between Topkapı and Eminönü following the elimination of trams. However, the last trolleybuses were taken out of service in 1984, because they hindered the growing traffic in the narrow streets of the old city.

In 1988, a company called Ulaşım A.Ş. (Transport Inc.) was established to run the services of LRT (light rail transit) (since 1989), Metro (since 2000) and modern trams (since 1992) by the Municipality of Istanbul. The company is still active and will be the operator of the new rail lines.

Metro

The first line (M1) began service on 3 September 1989 between Aksaray and Kocatepe. The line was further developed step-by-step and reached Atatürk Airport on 20 December 2002. The line has 18 stations and is 19.6 km long. As of 2012, daily ridership was 416 journey and 210,000 passengers. Even if it's numbered as the first line, actually the line is a LRT system with many common characteristics with the T4 line, including the rolling stock. Though they are categorized differently by the operator.

The construction of the underground railway in Istanbul began in 1992. The first line (M2) between Taksim and 4th Levent went into service on September 16, 2000. This line is 8.5 km long and has 6 stations, which all look similar but are in different colours.

A northern extension from 4th Levent to Atatürk Oto Sanayi station in Maslak (ITÜ/Ayazağa) entered service in 2009, as well as a southern extension from Taksim to Şişhane station in Beyoğlu, near the northern entrance of Tünel. The last northern extension for the short term, Hacı Osman was opened in 2011. The southern extension of M2 from Şişhane to Yenikapı over the new Golden Horn Bridge was opened in 2013 permitting the line to reach the Yenikapı Transfer Center. Finally the Airport (M1A) and Bağcılar (M1B) lines' eastern terminus was extended from Aksaray to this transfer center in 2014.

The M3 line runs from Kirazlı station on the M1 line to the northern Başakşehir district. It opened on 14 June 2013. A northern extension to Kayaşehir Merkez was opened on 8 April 2023 and a southern extension to Bakırköy IDO station is still under construction.

M6 is a line branching off the M2 from the Levent station running east towards Hisarüstü and Boğaziçi University. It opened on 19 April 2015.

On the Asian side, 33.5 km (20.8 mi) long M4 line opened on 17 August 2012 up to Kartal. The line will have a total of 25 stations when the third section as far as Tuzla opens.

There is also M5, which links Üsküdar, Ümraniye and Çekmeköy. A further extension to the Sancaktepe and the Sultanbeyli districts is under construction.

Currently there are 124 Hyundai-Rotem (M2) and 120 CAF (M4) trains in service, with a trip along the entire line taking 27 (M2) and 52 (M4) minutes.

All lines are operated by Metro Istanbul (the new name of Istanbul Ulaşım A.Ş.) which belongs to the Municipality of Istanbul.

Tram
Istanbul inaugurated horse trams in 1872 and these served the people of Istanbul until 1912. Following this date, electric trams were put in place and they were the main means for urban public transport until 1966. Many routes were built step by step, and it reached their most widespread network in 1956 with 108 million passengers in 270 shuttles in 56 lines. Tramcars were not modernized for many decades, and some of the 1911 electric cars were still running in the 1960s. At that time modern buses provided faster and smoother journeys. Because of those negative issues, tram system closed in mid-1960s.

From the early 1970s, traffic congestion worsened. By the mid-1980s, Istanbulites realized that the uncontrolled extension of motorization & closure of the tram network had been a mistake. Other cities around the world, e.g. Tunis and Buenos Aires, also understood that error, and like them, Istanbul also planned the return of the tramway.

As an experiment, Istanbul first opened a heritage tram at European side in 1990. Due to increasing popularity, they opened a modern tram system starting in 1992, also at European side. Now, the Asian side has a heritage tram system, whereas the European side has both a heritage tram and a modern tram system.

The modern tram consists of lines T1, T4, T5 and T6, initially operated with 55 low-floor Bombardier Flexity Swift and 32 Alstom Citadis. The line T4 was opened in 2007 between Edirnekapı and Mescid-i Selam. There are 22 stations and length is 15,3 km. Since March 2009, the line works between Topkapı and Mescid-i Selam. Service is operated with LRT vehicles built by SGP in 1989. As of 2019, daily ridership was 446 journeys and 196,000 passengers.

Commuter rail
Starting from June 2013, suburban lines on both sides of the city (Istanbul suburban and Haydarpaşa suburban) were closed for rehabilitation works as well as for their fusion into a single line by the means of an undersea tunnel through the Bosphorus as part of the Marmaray project.

On 12 March 2019, all parts of the Marmaray were opened. A further extension to Bahçeşehir via Ispartakule is operated as a shuttle from Halkalı station.

Funicular

Istanbul is served by three underground funicular railways, of very different ages and styles.

The older of these lines is the Tünel. This line is the oldest underground metro line in continental Europe, and the second in the world after London. The Tünel is 573 m long with an altitude difference of 60 m and no intermediate stations between Karaköy and Tünel Square. It has been continuously in service since 1875. It was originally steam-powered with two wooden trains serving parallel tracks. It was modernized in 1971. Today the line is single-track with a passing loop, electrically powered and runs on rubber tyres with rebuilt ex-RATP MP 55 vehicles. A trip takes approximately 1.5 minutes. About 15,000 people use the line each day. Unlike the modern one below which runs at strictly five-minute intervals, this one has a less regular schedule.

Opened in June 2006, a second modern funicular line, the Kabataş-Taksim Funicular, is operated by Ulaşım A.Ş. and connects the Seabus port and tram stop of Kabataş with the metro station at Taksim Square. It is about 600 meters long and climbs approximately 60 meters in 110 seconds.

In October 2022 the newest funicular line the F4 (Istanbul Metro) Boğaziçi Üni./Hisarüstü-Aşiyan funicular line opened and operated by Ulaşım A.Ş. It connects with M6 (Istanbul Metro) line at Boğaziçi University.

Bus rapid transit (BRT)

The bus rapid transit (BRT) system in Istanbul is called Metrobüs. The construction of the Metrobüs BRT line began in 2005. The first line runs between Avcılar and Söğütlüçeşme. This line is 41.5 km long and has 35 stations, which are located on Istanbul's Main Highway, called the D 100. It is currently operated with Mercedes Capacity, Mercedes-Benz Citaro, and some Phileas buses. Ridership is 715.000 passengers per day.

An extension to Beylikdüzü opened in 2012.

Bus system
The bus fleet has a total of 4,012 vehicles built by MAN, Ikarus, Mercedes-Benz, BMC, Phileas, Otokar, Temsa and Güleryüz. In 2012 the daily ridership was 3,621,908 passengers, representing 30% of the city's total daily transportation.

Since 1985, privately owned ÖHO (Özel Halk Otobüsü - Private Public Bus) buses have been allowed to operate under the authority of İETT. There are 2,157 private owned public buses, including 144 double-deckers. There are 783 bus lines excluding diversions as of May 21, 2018. Many routes have diversions running one roundtrip a day on average, which usually feed less developed suburbs around frequent routes. Some routes also provide short turning services at peak hours for crowded stops. Those diversions are listed under the same headsign reference as main route. Buses running diversion routes do not display route numbers, spelling out the route on the headsign in detail instead. In 2010, the municipality decided to found a new company called Otobüs A.Ş. (Bus Inc.) in order to more quickly replace old vehicles. Otobüs A.Ş. had a fleet of 544 vehicles as of December 2012. The vehicles are fully low floor and certified to Euro 5 standards. In 2014, IETT carried 1.31 billion ticketed passengers, a record for a Turkish transport system. İETT is currently trialling outsourcing the drivers and maintenance into private bus company Akkurtlar. Outsourced drivers can be distinguished by their uniforms.

Ferries

Today, there are 3 main ferry operators in İstanbul: the municipally owned Şehir Hatları ("City Lines"), which operates traditional vapur ferries; the privately operated İstanbul Deniz Otobüsleri (İDO) ("İstanbul Sea Busses"), which operates high-speed urban and intercity services, and the privately owned Turyol which operates mostly urban services.

Şehir Hatları ferries sail on 32 lines serving 53 piers on the shores of the Bosphorus as well as the Princes' Islands. The 30 ferries of the Şehir Hatları carried 40 million passengers in 2023.

The first steam ferries appeared on the Bosphorus in 1837 and were operated by private sector companies. On 1 January 1851, the Şirket-i Hayriye (literally “The Goodwill Company”, as the Istanbul Ferry Company was originally called) was established by the Ottoman state. The Şirket-i Hayriye, renamed Şehir Hatları in the early republican period, continued to operate the city's commuter ferries until 1937, when they under the direction of the state-owned Türkiye Denizcilik İşletmeleri (TDİ) (“Turkish Maritime Lines ”). The TDİ was largely privatized in the early 2000s and ownership of the Şehir Hatları was transferred to the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality in March 2006. In 2017, the municipality established a system for musicians to play live music for passengers in the lower salons of most ferry lines.

The design of the Istanbul vapur ferries have largely been influenced by the Fairfield Shipbuilders of Glasgow, Scotland, which have built the largest number of Istanbul ferries since 1851. The companies which have designed and built the early commuter ferries of Istanbul include the White Shipbuilders of East Cowes, England (models of 1854–1860); the M. Wigram Shipbuilders of London, England (models of 1863–1869); Maudslay & Sons of London, England (models of 1870–1872); R. & H. Green Shipbuilders of London, England (models of 1872-1890 and 1894–1896); J. W. Thames of London, England (models of 1890–1893); Napier, Shanks & Bell of Glasgow, Scotland (models of 1893–1894); Fairfield Shipbuilders of Glasgow, Scotland (models of 1903–1906, 1910–1911, 1914–1929, and 1938–1962); Armstrong Shipbuilders in Newcastle and Glasgow, United Kingdom (models of 1905–1907); Atl. & Chantiers de France in Dunkerque, France (models of 1907–1911); Hawthorn Leslie and Company in Newcastle, England (models of 1911); Kinderdijk L. Smith & Zoon Ltd, Holland (models of 1951).

The oldest vapur in operation, Paşabahçe, was built by Cantieri Navali di Taranto SPA, Taranto, Italy in 1952. Since then, most vapurs have been constructed at the Haliç, Hasköy, Camialtı, and İstinye Shipyards in Istanbul.

High-Speed Ferries

On 16 April 1987 the Municipality of Istanbul established a company to provide fast sea transport with catamaran-type high-speed ferries. With the first ten vessels purchased from Norway, modernization of sea transportation was achieved. Today, the, now privately owned, İDO serves 29 terminals with a fleet of 28 catamarans, including six high-speed car ferries.

Aerial lift

There is a short gondola lift line above the Democracy Park in the valley between Taksim and Maçka, the Maçka Gondola (Maçka-Taşkışla Teleferiği), built in 1993. It connects the hotels Hilton Istanbul Bosphorus on one side with Parksa Hilton and Swissotel The Bosphorus on the other side. The cable line is 333 m long and transports in two cabins with six seats each around 1,000 passengers daily. The trip takes three minutes.

A second aerial lift line, the Eyüp Gondola (Eyüp-Piyerloti Teleferiği) was opened in 2005 between the historical district of Eyüp and the Pierre Loti Hill. The gondola lift, built by the Italian Leitner Ropeways Co. of Leitner Group was the most expensive cable car line in Turkey costing 5 million Euros.

Statistics
The average time that people spend commuting with public transit in Istanbul, for example to and from work, on a weekday is 91 min. About 30% of public transit users ride for more than 2 h every day. The average amount of time people wait at a stop or station for public transit is 19 min, and 36% of riders wait for over 20 min on average every day. The average distance that people usually ride in a single trip by public transit is 12 km, and 35% travel for over 12 km.

Smart Ticket
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Istanbul public transport websites
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Other links

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 * The Istanbul metro - UrbanRail.net
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title: Public transport in Istanbul


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text:
Arkadi Monastery

The Arkadi Monastery (in Greek: Μονή Αρκαδίου) is an Eastern Orthodox monastery, situated on a fertile plateau 23 km (14 mi) to the southeast of Rethymnon on the island of Crete in Greece.

The current catholicon (church) dates back to the 16th century and demonstrates Renaissance influence. This influence is visible in its architecture, which mixes both Roman and baroque elements. As early as the 16th century, the monastery was a place of science and art, and had a school and a rich library. Situated on a plateau, the monastery is well fortified, being surrounded by a thick and high wall.

The monastery played an active role in the Cretan resistance to Ottoman rule during the Cretan revolt of 1866. 943 Greeks, mostly women and children, sought refuge in the monastery. After three days of battle and under orders from the hegumen (abbot) of the monastery, the Cretans blew up barrels of gunpowder, choosing to sacrifice themselves rather than surrender.

The monastery became a national sanctuary in honor of the Cretan resistance. 8 November is a day of commemorative parties in Arkadi and Rethymno. The explosion did not end the Cretan insurrection, but it attracted the attention of the rest of the world.

Topography

The Arkadi Monastery is located in the Rethymno regional unit, 25 km southeast of Rethymno. The Monastery is situated on a rectangular plateau on the northwest side of Mount Ida (Crete), at an altitude of 500 m. The Arkadian region is fertile and has vineyards, olive groves and pine, oak and cypress forests. The plateau on which the monastery rests is surrounded by hills. The west side of the plateau stops abruptly and falls off into gorges. The gorges start at Tabakaria and lead to Stavromenos, to the east of Rethymno. The Arkadian gorges have a rich diversity of plants and native wildflowers.

The area the monastery is located in first developed in antiquity. The presence of Mount Ida (Crete), which is a sacred mountain because it was legendarily the childhood home of Zeus, made the area attractive to early settlers. Five km to the northeast, the city of Eleftherna had its cultural peak in the time of Homer and in classical antiquity, but its influence was also felt in the early Christian and Byzantine periods.

The closest village to the monastery is Amnatos, located three km to the north. The villages that surround Arkadi are rich in Byzantine relics that prove the early wealth of the region. The Moni Arseniou monastery, which is several km north of Arkadi, was also an example of the grand Cretan monasteries.

Arkadi Monastery is in the shape of a nearly rectangular parallelogram. The interior resembles a fortress and is 78.5 metres long on the north wall, 73.5 metres on the south wall, 71.8 metres on the east wall and 67 metres on the west wall. The total area of the monastery is 5200 m2.

Founding

The exact date of the founding of the monastery is not precisely known. According to tradition, the foundation of the monastery is sometimes attributed to the Byzantine emperor Heraclius and sometimes to the emperor Arcadius in the 5th century. And, according to the second version, the monastery took its name from the name of the emperor. However, in Crete, it is common for monasteries to be named after the monk that founded the building, which lends support to the theory that Arkadi may have been founded by a monk named Arkadios. Other such monasteries are Vrontisiou, Arsiniou and Aretiou.

According to Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, the monastery was built on the site of an ancient city, Arcadia. Legend tells that after the destruction of Arcadia, all the springs and fountains stopped flowing until a new city was built. However, in 1837, Robert Pashley found evidence to suggest that it was impossible for the monastery to have been built on the ruins of another city, so this idea has lost credence.

In 1951, the professor K. Kalokyris published an inscription dating to the 14th century and verified the hypothesis that a monastery was dedicated to Saint Constantine in this period. The inscription was located on the pediment of a church that predates the current one, over the entrance door. It read:

"The church carrying the name of Arkadi is consecrated to Saint Constantine."

Restorations
Towards the end of the 16th century, the monastery was subject to restorations and transformations largely headed by Klimis and Vissarion Chortatzis, without a doubt from the family of Hortatzis of Rethymno (a name associated with the Cretan Renaissance) and Georgios Chortatzis, the author of Erofili. Klimis Hortatzis was the hegumen of the abbey and in 1573, he made the monastery cenobitic.

He oversaw the building of the church, which took twenty-five years and was believed to have begun in 1562. In 1586, the façade of the building was built, as were the two naves. An inscription at the base of the clock also dates it back to 1587. This inscription is as following:

« ΑΦ ΚΛΜΧΤΖ ΠΖ »

or : « 15 Klimis Chortatzis 87 »

Klimis Chortatzis likely died soon after the completion and was not able to attend the inauguration of the new church, which was sometime between 1590 and 1596. This is known thanks to a letter of the Patriarch of Alexandria, Mélétios Pigas, in which he wrote that the inauguration ceremony was entrusted to Klimis's successor, the hegumen Mitrofanis Tsyrigos. Although this letter wasn't dated, one can place it between 1590, when Mélétios Pigas was ordained the Patriarch, and 1596, when the hegumen Nicéphore succeeded Tsygiros.

During the period of the first three hegumens, and up to the beginning of the 17th century, the Arkadi Monastery continued to boom, economically and culturally. The monastery became a great centre for the copying of manuscripts, and although the majority were lost during the destruction of the building by the Ottomans in 1866, some survive in foreign libraries. The monastery grew, with the construction of a stables in 1610 and a refectory in 1670.

Ottoman period
In 1645, the Ottoman Empire began their campaign to conquer Crete. In the spring of 1648, they controlled the major part of the island, with the exception of Heraklion, Gramvousa, Spinalonga and Suda, which remained under Venetian rule.

After the capture of Rethymno in 1648, the Ottomans pillaged the monastery. The monks and the hegumen Simon Halkiopoulos took refuge in the Vrontissi Monastery. They were allowed to return after having sworn allegiance to Hussein Pasha, who also gave them the right to ring the monastery's bell. The Arkadi Monastery therefore became the Çanlı Manastır (Monastery where the bell is rung in Turkish). A firman authorized the rebuilding of the destroyed monasteries according to their original plans, without changes. Arkadi benefited but abused its rights by adding new buildings.

During the Ottoman Period, the monastery continued to prosper, which was shown in the writing of Joseph Pitton de Tournefort. For the traveller, Arkadi was the richest and most beautiful of the monasteries of Crete. There were 100 monks that lived in the convent and 200 others that lived in the surrounding countryside. The monastery's territory extended north of the sea and to the east of Rethymno to the top of Mount Ida in the south. These lands allowed the monastery to support itself through agriculture.

Tournefort notes "400 measures of oil" produced each year, a figure which would have been doubled if the monastery did not give the inferior olives to charity. Tournefort also boasts of the monastery's cellars, which had at least 200 barrels, labelled with the name of the hegumen who blessed them each year with a prayer. The wine made at Arkadi was well known. This wine was called Malvoisie and was named after a town close to Heraklion. Franz Wilhelm Sieber, during his time in the monastery, recalled the hegumen's cellar and attributed the making of the wine to an excellent grape raised in high altitude, but that it was not produced at Malvoisie.

At the beginning of the 17th century, the monastery fell into decline. Sieber, who stopped there nearly a century after Tournefort and Pococke, left a less flattering description. By the time the German visited, the monastery only had eight priests and twelve monks. Farming continued, but the monastery had debts. He recalled the hegumen who often had to go to Rethymno in order to acquire funds to pay the bills.

Sieber described the library of the monastery as rich in more than a thousand texts, including religious texts and those of Pindar, Petrarch, Virgil, Dante, Homer, Strabon, Thucydides and Diodore of Sicily. But the traveller mentioned their sad state, noting that he had never seen books in such bad condition and that it was impossible to distinguish the works of Aristophanes from those of Euripides.

In 1822, a group of Turkish soldiers led by a Getimalis (Yetim Ali) took hold of Arkadi and pillaged it. The civilians of Amari gathered to plan how to retake the monastery and expel Getimalis and his troops.

Another version tells of a certain Anthony Melidonos, a Sphakian from Asia Minor, who came to the island at the head of a group of Greek volunteers from Asia Minor in order to support the Cretan efforts in the War of Greek Independence. With 700 troops, he set out across the island from west to east. After the pillaging of the monastery, he changed his course and went to Arkadi instead. Arriving in the night, his troops scaled the walls of the building and fired the monastery. He jumped on Getimalis who was drinking, grabbed him and threw him to the ground outside the room. He was about to kill Getimalis when Getimalis claimed to be at the point of converting to Christianity. A baptism immediately took place and the new convert was allowed to go free.

Turkish and Greek documents mention the capacity of the monastery to produce enough food for the residents of the region and to hide fugitives from the Turkish authorities. The monastery also provided education for the local Christian population. From 1833 to 1840, the monastery invested 700 Turkish piastres in the schools in the region.

Context

By the mid-19th century, the Ottomans had occupied Crete for more than two centuries, despite frequent bloody uprisings by Cretan rebels. While the Cretans were rising against the Ottoman occupation during the War of Greek Independence, the London Protocol of 1830 dictated that the island could not be a part of the new Greek state.

On 30 March 1856, the Treaty of Paris obligated the Sultan to apply the Hatt-i humayun, which guaranteed civil and religious equality to Christians and Muslims. The Ottoman authorities in Crete were reluctant to implement any reform. Before the majority of Muslim conversions (the majority of the former Christians had converted to Islam and then recanted), the Empire tried to recant on liberty of conscience. The institution of new taxes and a curfew also added to the discontent. In April 1858, 5,000 Cretans met at Boutsounaria. Finally an imperial decree on July 7, 1858, guaranteed them privileges in religious, judicial and financial matters. One of the major motivations of the revolt of 1866 was the breach of the Hatt-i humayun.

A second cause of the insurrection of 1866 was the interference of Isma'il Pasha in an internal quarrel about the organization of the Cretan monasteries. Several laymen recommended that the goods of the monasteries come under the control of a council of elders and that they be used to create schools, but they were opposed by the bishops. Isma'il Pasha intervened and designated several people to decide the subject and annulled the election of "undesirable" members, imprisoning the members of the committee that had been charged with going to Constantinople for presenting the subject to the Patriarch. This intervention provoked violent reactions from the Christian population of Crete.

In the spring of 1866, meetings took place in several villages. On May 14, an assembly was held in the Aghia Kyriaki monastery in Boutsounaria near Chania. They sent a petition to the Sultan and the consuls of the big powers in Chania. At the time of the first meetings of the revolutionary committees, the representatives were elected by province and the representative of the Rethymno region was the hegumen of Arkadi, Gabriel Marinakis.

At the announcement of these nominations Isma'il Pasha sent a message to the hegumen via the Bishop of Rethymno, Kallinikos Nikoletakis. The letter demanded that the hegumen dismiss the revolutionary assembly or the monastery would be destroyed by Ottoman troops. In the month of July 1866, Isma'il Pasha sent his army to capture the insurgents, but the members of the committee fled before his troops arrived. The Turks left again after destroying icons and other sacred objects that they found in the monastery.

In September, Isma'il Pasha sent the hegumen a new threat of destroying the monastery if the assembly did not yield. The assembly decided to implement a system of defense for the monastery. On September 24, Panos Koronaios arrived in Crete and landed at Bali. He marched to Arkadi, where he was made commander-in-chief of the revolt for the Rethymno region. A career military man, Koronaios believed that the monastery was not defensible. The hegumen and the monks disagreed and Koronaios conceded to them, but advised the destruction of the stables so that they could not be used by the Turks. This plan was ignored. After having named Ioannis Dimakopoulos to the post of commander of the garrison of the monastery, Koronaios left. At his departure, numerous local residents, mostly women and children, took refuge in the monastery, bringing their valuables in hopes of saving them from the Turks. By 7 November 1866, the monastery sheltered 964 people: 325 men, of which 259 were armed, the rest women and children.

Arrival of the Ottomans

Since the mid-October victory of Mustafa Pasha's troops at Vafes, the majority of the Turkish army was stationed in Apokoronas and were particularly concentrated in the fortresses around the bay of Souda. The monastery refused to surrender, so Mustafa Pasha marched his troops on Arkadi. First, he stopped and sacked the village of Episkopi. From Episkopi, Mustafa sent a new letter to the revolutionary committee at Arkadi, ordering them to surrender and informing them that he would arrive at the monastery in the following days. The Ottoman army then turned toward Roustika, where Mustafa spent the night in the monastery of the prophet Elie, while his army camped in the villages of Roustika and Aghios Konstantinos. Mustafa arrived in Rethymno on 5 November where he met Turkish and Egyptian reinforcements. The Ottoman troops reached the monastery during the night of November 7-November 8. Mustafa, although he had accompanied his troops to a site relatively close, camped with his staff in the village of Messi.

Attack

On the morning of 8 November, an army of 15,000 Ottomans and 30 cannons, directed by Suleyman, arrived on the hills of the monastery while Mustafa Pasha waited in the Messi. Suleyman, positioned on the hill of Kore. to the north of the monastery sent a last request for surrender. He received only gunfire in response.

The assault was begun by the Ottomans. Their primary objective was the main door of the monastery on the western face. The battle lasted all day without the Ottomans infiltrating the building. The door had been barricaded from the beginning and taking it would be difficult. The Cretans were relatively protected by the walls of the monastery, while the Ottomans, vulnerable to the insurgents' gunfire, suffered numerous losses. Seven Cretans took their position within the windmill of the monastery. This building was quickly captured by the Ottomans, who set it on fire, killing the Cretan warriors inside.

The battle stopped with nightfall. The Ottomans received two heavy cannons from Rethymno, one which was called Koutsahila. They placed them in the stables. On the side of the insurgents, a war council decided to ask for help from Panos Koronaios and other Cretan leaders in Amari. Two Cretans left by way of the windows by ropes and, disguised as Turks, crossed the Ottoman lines. The messengers returned later in the night with the news that it was now impossible for reinforcements to arrive in time because all of the access roads had been blocked by the Ottomans.

Combat began again in the evening of November 9. The cannons destroyed the doors and the Turks made it into the building, where they suffered more serious losses. At the same time, the Cretans were running out of ammunition and many among them were forced to battle with only bayonets or other sharp objects. The Turks had the advantage.

Destruction

The women and children inside the monastery were hiding in the powder room. The last Cretan fighters were finally defeated and hid within the monastery. Thirty-six insurgents found refuge in the refectory, near the ammunitions. Discovered by the Ottomans, who forced the door, they were massacred.

In the powder room, where the majority of the women and children hid, Konstantinos Giaboudakis gathered the people hiding in the neighbouring rooms together. When the Turks arrived at the door of the powder room, Giaboudakis set the barrels of powder on fire and the resulting explosion resulted in numerous Turkish deaths.

In another room of the monastery holding an equal number of powder barrels, insurgents made the same gesture. But the powder was humid and only exploded partially, so it only destroyed part of the northwest wall of the room.

Of the 964 people present at the start of the assault, 846 were killed in combat or at the moment of the explosion. 114 men and women were captured, but three or four managed to escape, including one of the messengers who had gone for reinforcements. The hegumen Gabriel was among the victims. Tradition holds that he was among those killed by the explosion of the barrels of powder, but it is more likely that he was killed on the first day of combat. Turkish losses were estimated at 1500. Their bodies were buried without memorials and some were thrown in the neighboring gorges. The remains of numerous Cretan Christians were collected and placed in the windmill, which was made into a reliquary in homage to the defenders of Arkadi. Among the Ottoman troops, a group of Coptic Egyptians were found on the hills outside the monastery. These Christians had refused to kill other Christians. They were executed by the Ottoman troops, and their ammunition cases left behind.

114 survivors were taken prisoner and transported to Rethymno where they were subjected to numerous humiliations from the officers responsible for their transport, but also by the Muslim population who arrived to throw stones and insults when they entered the city. The women and children were imprisoned for a week in the church of the Presentation of the Virgin. The men were imprisoned for a year in difficult conditions. The Russian consulate had to intervene to require Mustafa Pasha to keep basic hygienic conditions and provide clothing to the prisoners. After one year, the prisoners were released.

International reaction
The Ottomans considered taking Arkadi a big victory and celebrated it with cannon fire. However, the events at Arkadi provoked indignation among the Cretans, but also in Greece and the rest of the world. The tragedy of Arkadi turned world opinion on the conflict. The event recalled the Third Siege of Missolonghi and the numerous Philhellenists of the world were in favor of Crete. Volunteers from Serbia, Hungary and Italy arrived on the island. Gustave Glourens, a teacher at the Collège de France, enlisted and arrived in Crete by the end of 1866. He formed a small group of philhellenists with three other Frenchmen, an Englishman, an American, an Italian and a Hungarian. This group published a brochure on The question of the Orient and the Cretan Renaissance, contacted French politicians and organized conferences in France and in Athens. The Cretans named him a deputy at the assembly, but he turned the position down.

Giuseppe Garibaldi, in his letters, praised the patriotism of the Cretans and their wish to gain their independence. Numerous Garibaldians, moved by an ardent philhellenism, came to Crete and participated in several battles. Letters written by Victor Hugo were published in the newspaper Kleio in Trieste, which contributed to the worldwide reaction. The letters gave encouragement to the Cretans and told them that their cause would succeed. He emphasized that the drama of Arkadi was no different than the Destruction of Psara and the Third Siege of Missolonghi. He described the tragedy of Arkadi:

"In writing these lines, I am obeying an order from on high; an order that comes from agony. [...] One knows this word, Arkadian, but one hardly understands what it means. And here are some of the precise details that have been neglected. In Arkadia, the monastery on Mount Ida, founded by Heraclius, six thousand Turks attacked one hundred ninety-seven men and three hundred forty-three women and also children. The Turks had twenty-six cannons and two howitzers, the Greeks had two hundred forty rifles. The battle lasted two days and two nights; the convent had twelve hundred holes found in it from cannon fire; one wall crumbled, the Turks entered, the Greeks continued the fight, one hundred fifty rifles were down and out and yet the struggle continued for another six hours in the cells and the stairways, and at the end there were two thousand corpses in the courtyard. Finally the last resistance was broken through; the masses of the Turks took the convent. There only remained one barricaded room that held the powder and, in this room, next to the altar, at the center of a group of children and mothers, a man of eighty years, a priest, the hegumen Gabriel, in prayer...the door, battered by axes, gave and fell. The old man put a candle on the altar, took a look at the children and the women and lit the powder and spared them. A terrible intervention, the explosion, rescued the defeated...and this heroic monastery, that had been defended like a fortress, ended like a volcano."

Not finding the necessary solution from the big European powers, the Cretans sought aid from the United States. At this time, the Americans tried to establish a presence in the Mediterranean and showed support for Crete. The relationship grew as they looked for a port in the Mediterranean and they thought, among others, to buy the island of Milo or Port Island. The American public was sympathetic. The American philhellenes arrived to advocate for the idea of Cretan independence, and in 1868, a question of recognition of independent Crete was addressed in the House of Representatives, but it was decided by a vote to follow a policy of non-intervention in Ottoman affairs.

Walls and doors
The surrounding wall of the monastery forms a nearly rectangular quadrangle and surrounds an area of 5200 m2. The feeling of a fortress is reinforced by the embrasures that are on the top part of the west wall and on the southern and eastern façades. Additionally, the width of the outside eastern wall is 1.20 meters.

Inside the walls are buildings such as the hegumen's house, the monks' cells, the refectory, the stockrooms, the powder magazine and the hospice.

The monastery has two main doors : one to the west and one on the east of the building. Entree could also be made through smaller doors: one in the south-west, two to the north and one last on the western façade.

The main door of the monastery is on the western façade of the surrounding wall. This door is called Rethemniotiki or Haniotiki, after its orientation towards those two towns. The original door was built in 1693, by the hegumen Neophytos Drossas. A manuscript at the monastery describes the original door, which was destroyed in 1866 during the Turkish assault. Made of square stones, there were two windows, decorated with pyramid-shaped pediments and framed by ribbed columns that were decorated with lions. On the pediment, there was an inscription that read:

"Lord, watch over the spirit of your servant, the Hegumen Neophytos Drossas, and of all our Christian brothers."

The current door was built in 1870. The general form of the former door was conserved, with two windows at level, framed by two columns. But the inscription honoring the hegumen Drossas, the lions and the pediments were not rebuilt.

On the eastern façade of the wall is the second door to the monastery. Facing Heraklion, the door is named Kastrini, after Kastro. As with the western door, the original door was destroyed in 1866 and was rebuilt in 1870.

Church

The church is a basilica with two naves; the northern nave is dedicated to the transfiguration of Christ and the southern nave is dedicated to Saint Constantine and Saint Helen. Saint Helen stands at the center and slightly to the south of the monastery. According to the inscription engraved on the face of the clock, the church was founded in 1587 by Klimis Hortatsis. The architecture of the building is heavily influenced by Renaissance art, as the church was built in the period in which Crete was a colony of the Republic of Venice.

In the smaller part of the front of the church, constructed by square blocks of regular brickwork, the primary element is four pairs of Corinthian columns. While there is a classically antique influence, the columns themselves, placed on elevated pedestals, are Gothic. Between each pair of columns, there is an archway. The two arches at the ends of the facade support a door and a circular opening, decorated by palm leaves on the circumference. The archway in the center of the façade is plain.

On the higher part of the façade, above the columns, there is a series of molding and elliptical openings, which are also decorated in palm leaves around the perimeter. The clock is at the centre and, at each end, there are Gothic obelisks. Comparisons of the façade of the monastery with the work of Italian architects Sebastiano Serlio and Andrea Palladio suggests that the architect of the church was probably inspired by them.

In 1645, the church was damaged by looters who destroyed the altar. Long before the capture of the monastery by the Turks in 1866, the church was torched and the icons entirely destroyed. Only a cross, two wooden angels and a passage of the resurrection of Christ were saved from the flames. The apses of the church were also destroyed.

The current iconostasis, in cypress, was erected in 1902. From 1924 to 1927, at the initiative of the archbishop Timotheos Veneris, the work of strengthening and restoration of the apses and the clock were begun. The tiles on the interior of the building were totally replaced in 1933.

Powder magazine

Before 1866, the powder magazine was in the southern part of the interior. Slightly before the Turkish attack, and in fear that it could easily be broken into and the monastery blown up, the munitions were moved to the cellar, which was situated approximately 75 centimetres below where it had been originally placed, which was more secure. The powder magazine is an oblong vaulted building. It is 21 metres long and 5.4 metres wide and was destroyed entirely during an explosion in 1866, with the exception of a small part of the vault in the western part of the room.

In 1930, the archbishop Timotheos Veneris placed a commemorative inscription which was fit in the eastern wall in remembrance of the events of 1866. The inscription reads:

"The flame which lights the depths of this crypt

was a godly flame in which

the Cretans perished for freedom"

The refectory

The refectory, the place where the monks took their meals, is located in the northern aisle of the monastery. It was built in 1687, which is mentioned in the inscription located below the door leading into courtyard of the refectory. On this inscription, one can read the name of Neophytos Drossas.

From this courtyard, one can reach the hegumen's home by a staircase and the refectory. Above the door to the refectory, there is an inscription engraved in the lintel of the door in the honor of the virgin Mary and a hegumen preceding Neophytos Drossas. The refectory is a rectangular room of 18.10 meters long and 4.80 meters wide. It is covered by a vault. The eastern part holds the kitchens.

This building, which has not changed since its construction in 1687, is the place where the last fighting in the assault of 1866 took place. One can still see the traces of bullets and swords in the wood of the tables and chairs.

The hospice

The northwestern part of the monastery holds a hospice. Before 1866, this place held the hegumen's home, which was completely destroyed in the battle. It was a two-story building, the ground floor of which held kitchens and a dining room. From the dining room, a staircase led to a big room called the Synode room and was where the monks gathered after services.

After 1866, the house was left in ruins for a number of years due to a lack of funds to rebuild. Near the end of the 19th century, the hegumen Gabriel Manaris visited several cities in Russia to try to raise funds to reconstruct the building. He collected money, sacred urns and priestly clothing. In 1904, under the direction of the bishop of Rethymno, Dionyssios, the house was cleared and replaced with a hospice, which was finished in 1906.

The stables
Outside the monastery, approximately 50 metres from the western door, are located the former stables of the monastery. They were constructed in 1714 by the hegumen Neophytos Drossas, which can be seen from the inscription over the door.

The building is 23.9 metres long and 17.2 metres wide. It is divided into three sections, each 4.3 metres. The internal and external walls are 1 metre wide. A staircase leads to the roof. The building sheltered the monastery's animals, but also was a room for the farm laborers. Traces of the battle in 1866 are still visible, particularly on the staircase and the window jambs on the eastern wall.

Memorial of the dead

Outside the monastery, about sixty metres to the west, there is a structure commemorating the sacrifice of the Cretans who died in 1866. This memorial, situated on the plateau that the monastery is located on, dominates the gorges.

The remains of the dead from the 1866 siege are stored in a glazed shelf. These bones clearly show battle scars and are pierced by bullets and swordcuts. An inscription commemorates the sacrifice of the fallen Cretans: "Nothing is more noble or glorious than dying for one's country."

Of an octagonal shape, this structure is the former windmill which was later transformed into a storage room. It served as a boneyard for a short time after the siege and acquired its current shape in 1910 at the initiative of Dionyssios, then the bishop of Rethymnon.

title: Arkadi Monastery