The Lost Great Caravanserai

The hoofs of the horses tore through the silence of the night on the muddy dirt road. Violently, the conductors pounded the hammer to get there before the big, heavy door closed. The khanijis (inn owner) or a trusted servant waited by the entrance. He arranged the animals (the camels always by the cistern) and the visitors and gave information about Giannis, Giorgos, Yusuf, the famous samarades, Vassilis the carpenter and a – his name unknown – converted to Islam owner of a small bath next door. In the small rooms, the travelers would open the bhochsa (bogos) and take out a blanket for the base and a quilt for covering. No need for pillow and bed. The night was difficult in the room which only had a fireplace and a window to the inner courtyard to see the animals.

Thessaloniki around 1500. In a city under Ottoman occupation, a large inn adorns its center and is a monument and reference point for the entire Balkans. The Great Caravanserai is no more and this is its story…

Chan, Khan, means home in Persian – The welcoming Thessaloniki

THE research by the associate professor of Byzantine and Islamic Archeology and Art at the Athens University, Paschalis Androudis, who offers us this beautiful story, showed that during the years of Ottoman occupation (1430-1912) Thessaloniki “was a prominent metropolitan center and capital of the Balkans. Amphitheatrically built and enclosed in an imposing Byzantine wall, the city presented an idyllic image from the sea.”

Naturally, after the fall of the city in 1430, the population shrank and in 1478 Thessaloniki was a sparsely populated city with about 10,000 inhabitants Christians and Muslims, while even during the 15th and 16th centuries, after the arrival of the Jews, the city did not recover the population it had before the conquest.

The Ottomans made sure to build large public buildings, among which was a special type, the caravan serai (kervansaray-the yard or caravan house), often called hani-chan, khan in Persian means house and the word owes its name to the founder of these accommodations, Ibrahim Khan.

“The buildings functioned as temporary accommodation and supply areas for travelers. Merchants who went to different cities to sell their wares stayed there. Inns became essential to city life and many acquired more than one. Yes, yes during the last period of Turkish rule, the data say that Thessaloniki had 87 inns“, says Mr. Androudis and continues: “these were massive, two-story, vaulted buildings that had rows of rooms regularly organized around open, central courtyards, which were surrounded by arched arcades. On the ground floor were the stables and storerooms and on the upper floor were the rooms.”

Most of them were built at the western entrance of Thessaloniki, along today’s Egnatia Street, near the market and the quay wall, around the Vardari gate.

Such inns were built in all the important Balkan cities of the Ottoman Empire, in the heart of commercial life and on important roads, such as in Prussia, Philippopolis, Constantinople, Belgrade, Nis, Skopje, Thessaloniki, Kavala.

The lost Great Caravanserai of Thessaloniki

One of the best examples of this type and one of the most famous buildings in Thessaloniki was the Great Caravanserai, which was built around 1500 and covered the city’s hospitality needs for at least 4 centuries.

“The Great Caravanserai –Büyük Kervansarayi– was one of the best examples of the type. It was built in the Hamza Bey quarterwhich used to be called Mahhale Ketafi, in the heart of the shopping center, at the junction of today’s Egnatia and Venizelos streets, in the space that later housed the old town hall of Thessaloniki. Near it were the Tahta Kale Hamam and the Tahta Kale Hani which are not preserved”, notes Mr. Androudis.

It was known throughout the Balkans and in it travelers who moved with their animals from east to west and vice versa, from north to south, even within Macedonia, found refuge.

The heavy wooden entrance door sealed at night, providing security for visitors, livestock and goods. Inside it had a huge courtyard paved to keep it from getting muddy and in the center was the cistern for watering the animals. A wooden or stone-paved staircase led to the first floor arcades where the guest rooms were. In some cases in the inns the hospitality was free, in others the guests paid a small fee for heating and lighting. The rooms were empty, they didn’t even have the essentials, such as e.g. water. A fireplace in one corner and a window overlooking the inner courtyard were all their equipment. Travelers carried blankets, quilts, towels and other sleeping necessities. Later, some such buildings also provided food, usually boiled meat, trakhana, afkon (a type of legume, the lathuri), bohurt (a porridge made of wheat and sour milk), rice and bread.

French and other travelers that in the 16th century, but also later, were found in Thessaloniki described the inns, but given that there were many buildings of this type around the covered market, the well-known bezesteni, it is difficult to identify the information with specific inns. However, when the descriptions refer to a large building with many rooms and a capacity for a large number of animals, they certainly refer to the Great Caravanserai. The building had 34 guest rooms and a large one above the entrance, possibly for the guard.

Carts were tied and goods were secured in its galleries. On the ground floor there were 29 shops facing the street and on its north side the stables, where the animals rested. The stables were ventilated and lit by 24 light windows in the north wall, while they were divided into two identical sections by 12 pesos.

The night passed calmly for the weary travelers and the animals, and in the morning before departure the necessary work was done. THE Evangelos HekimoglouPhD in Economics at the Athens University of Applied Sciences, who studied Ottoman tax code of about 1500recorded many saddlers in the area, such as Giannis, Ibrahim, Yusuf, Dimos, Thodoros and farriers such as Karagios, Mustafa, Hadar, while there was also a converted professional who kept a small bathhouse, a carpenter and a carpenter , Bill.

Shops worked around the clock to serve customers at the Great Caravan Serai “where all travelers to this great Eastern state came to rest, to lodge, to water horses, to mend damaged leather harnesses…”.

And the Little Caravan Serai…

Turkish geographers testify in their reports of two such buildings: the Büyük (Big) and the Küçük (Little) Kervansarayi. According to study by Vassilis Dimitriadis Topography of Thessaloniki during the Turkish occupation 1430-1912both existed buildings of Koca or Maktul Mustafa Pasha, who was a Beilerbey (commander of the province of Roumeli in the period 1498-1505) and later Grand Vizier of Beyazid II – son of Sultan Muhammad II the Conqueror and Mukrime Hatun, born in 1447 in Didymoteicho of Evros. The Ottoman vakuf notebooks kept in Constantinople mention that Kotza Pasha also built two well-known inns in the city, while the Great Caravanserai of Thessaloniki over the years was also known as Beyazit II’s.

End of an era for the majestic inn

“The Great Caravanserai was built with particular care and in order to maintain it, it should have been endowed – at least during the first years – from the income of various properties, such as baths, workshops, shops, etc. “, notes Professor Paschalis Androudis, adding that in 1837 the Great Hani (Kebir Hani), which housed 9 shops, was also witnessed near it.

He also notes that the building survived for over 400 yearsbut it is not known whether it was damaged by earthquakes and by the great fires of 1545, 1610 and 1620.

At the end of the 19th century, however, it presented an image of abandonment, while it functioned more as a commercial area with shops than as a place of hospitality. According to the research of Mr. Androudis, “merchants and travelers should have stayed in the inns and European-style hotels that at that time were being built in many parts of the city.”

The fire of 1917 damaged it irreparably. Many of his shops were reduced to ashes and the ruins remained for years causing reactions in the local community as well. The outline from the Caravan Serai appears on the Drainage Plan drawn up after the fire by the committee under the French architect-town-planner-archaeologist, Ernest Ebrardwhile in plans identified by Mr. Androudis in the Town Planning of Thessaloniki, it appears that the stable was not operating in 1921, when the demolition of the buildings that were about to collapse was planned.

In 1924 the building was bought by Ioannis Sapountzis, Nikolaos Koukouflis, Juza Varsanos and the brothers Lazaro and Evangelos Pantazievits. The building permit issued in 1932 provided for the demolition of the Caravan Serai and the construction of a new building. The new, high-rise building was designed to become a hotel, during the years of the civil war, however, it housed Macedonian residents and this gave the inspiration to Tassos Psarras to shoot the film “Caravan Sarai” in 1986.
Later and for 53 years, from 1958 to 2011, it was the Town Hall of Thessaloniki and housed the municipal services.

“The Great Caravan Serai, a building of 1500, was therefore a cultural and historical monument of the city’s economy. Philippoupoli had a larger caravanserai than that of Thessalonikiwhich was an important hub on the vital commercial artery of Istanbul-Central Europe, while that of Skopje was smaller”, says Mr. Androudis and concludes: “today, the only thing that reminds of the Great Caravan Serai is its name which is preserved, the compact massive building that occupies an entire building block, the inner courtyard with the underground car park and the southern entrance in the same place as the old one”.

The hoofs of the horses stopped, the smoke from the travelers’ hookahs died out, the galloping camels are no more, the noise of the tin barrows filled with rice and steaming trachana is not heard in the bustling Venizelou – Sabri Pașa Street during the Ottoman times.

* The old photos from the demolition of the building and the plan were provided by the professor, Paschalis Androudis