Kos Town, Kos - The Ottoman city

During the 390 years of Turkish occupation, the island underwent a Muslim immigration which remains today a large population of a thousand people, in fact after passing under Italian domination, the island of Kos was not concerned with the "population transfers" between Greece and Turkey under the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923.

Today, traces of Ottoman rule on Kos are still visible among the most important monuments of the past are Muslim Kos note: Defterdar mosque on the main square of the city (Place Eleftherias), the Mosque of Pasha Gazi Hassan and fountain of the eighteenth century, both located on Sycamore Square, the Turkish Anatolia and the Ottoman old town Haluvazia.

A fountain with inscriptions in Arabic was placed next to the tree by the old Turkish governor Gazi Hassan; these inscriptions indicate that this fountain is the "Water of Hippocrates."

This plane is very popular with tourists, was the scene of tragic events: March 25, 1821, the Greek people rose up against the occupying Turkish inhabitants of Kos rallied around to uplift their archbishop, who officiated in the direct authority of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The people of Kos payèrent dearly for their rallying July 11, 1821, the Turks hanged in retaliation, 90 Patriots, including a large number of priests, under the tree of Hippocrates. According to a written statement of the French traveler Pouqueville Turks beheaded total of 900 Christians Kos.

Patriarch Gregory V of Constantinople was also hanged in Istanbul, and his body thrown into the Bosphorus, a street Kos perpetuates his memory, Avenue Patriarch Gregory V(Λεωφόρος Πατριάρχου Γρηγορίου Πέμπτου), commonly known avenue Grigoriou.

Materials from Roman remains were used in the construction of this imposing mosque is believed that the mosque was built on the remains of the Byzantine basilica St. George. The mosque has two floors and an impressive minaret, and has a monumental character, and one of its remarkable features is the double row of windows typical of Islamic art.

The mosque is closed and unused Loggia, she still bears the scars of the bombing during the war, especially in the tracery of the upper windows. The ground floor is occupied by several shops.

Near the mosque is a park where there was a Muslim cemetery, as evidenced by two graves remaining, dating from the eighteenth century. Beside the plane of Hippocrates is the fountain of the mosque, a fountain Ottoman hexagonal and covered, built in white marble from ancient materials reused as a sarcophagus for basin and Corinthian. Until the earthquake of 1933, was near the mosque of the Loggia, the court canonical (Mahkemey Şeriye-i).

This is a two-storey mosque built in the late eighteenth century by the Grand Treasurer Ibrahim Efendi (İbrahim Efendi Defterdar Hacı). The mosque is a mosque defterdar imposing yet elegant, harmonious proportions and is the same style and approximately the same period as the Gazi Hassan Pasha Mosque . Next is the traditional fountain used for ritual ablutions.

The Haci Ibrahim Efendi was defterdar of the Ottoman Empire several times during the reign of Murad III and Mehmed III. The defterdar (literally content of the role of tax) was the equivalent of the Superintendent of Finance under the French monarchy. Hacı qualifier in its name means that it had made ​​the pilgrimage to Mecca (the equivalent of hadji in Arabic).

This area included the Muslim mosque of the Port (destroyed by the earthquake of 1933), Atik mosque, a mosque was renovated in the nineteenth century located Eleftherios Venizelos Avenue (Leoforos Venizelou Eleftheriou,Λεωφόρος Ελευθέριος Βενιζέλου), and an old mosque dating from the eighteenth century, located Diagoras Square, where he remains a minaret overlooking the archaeological area of the west .

Up the pedestrian street to Diagoras can see a fountain Ottoman dried with an inscription and is located at the intersection of the pedestrian Venizelos Avenue, but it is often masked by the stalls of trinkets. Another fountain protrudes from the wall of a hair salon on the corner of the street Christodoulou (Οδός Χριστοδούλου) and Passanikolaki street, next to Atik mosque, a mosque without a minaret, but still in service.

The district Kontopodi was long considered disreputable, but while all the houses crumbling city collapsed during the earthquake of 1933, the robust Kontopodi houses, built of stone, survived. Today, the area is full of tourist shops and cafes, but looking up you can see Turkish and Arabic inscriptions on the stones.

Another Muslim Quarter was small neighborhood goldsmiths, Haluvazià, located west of the district Kontopodi and between Rue Herodotus (οδός Ηροδότου) and the south-western end of the harbor. Along the coast were the exohes, high square houses surrounded by gardens, inhabited by wealthy residents of the island in the middle of the nineteenth century. The aim of all the rich people of Kos nineteenth century was to acquire a shop in tsarsi and exohe on this coast.

The small area of ​​Stavrou was an extension of the Chora, south side. A square stone mausoleum, surmounted by the stone sarcophagus of Pasha Gazi Hassan exists at the intersection of Boulevard Hippocrates (Leoforos Ippokratous / Λεωφόρος Ιπποκράτους) and Metropolis Street (Odos Mitropoleos / Οδός Μητροπόλεως). It is believed that tekke (monastery of dervishes) was also there. Finally, inside the archaeological site of the west , location of the baths north was abandoned Turkish bath dating back to the second half of the nineteenth century.

In the direction of Asclepieion the Kermedé quarter, inhabited largely by Muslims of Turkish origin, kept his face clean with typical wooden houses.

When the Knights Hospitaller of St. John conquered Kos in 1315, they expelled the Jews of the island, under the decree issued by the Grand Master Pierre d’Aubusson in 1502. Jews returned to Kos after 1522, after the Ottoman occupation. Jews prospered Kos then trade in textiles and export of raisins.

In 1747, Eliezer Tarsia supported the construction of a small synagogue that was destroyed in the earthquake of 1933. Immediately after the earthquake, a new synagogue, modernist style, was built close to the port, to the religious needs of the 140 members of the Jewish community.

During the Second World War German troops took control of the island in October 1943, the National Socialist German deported few dozen Jews from Kos to extermination camps.

Today, the building of the synagogue houses the Cultural Centre of the Municipality of Kos (4 Diakou Alexandrou Street).

Greco-Turkish cooking at moderate prices (about € 10).

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