Across the inlet, in stunning contrast
to the scruffy surroundings, rose the silver dome of Hagia Sophia, wreathed in
limestone and sandstone minarets.
Built as a Greek Orthodox basilica and opened
in A.D. 537 and converted into a mosque after the 1453 Islamic conquest of
Constantinople, it was secularized by Kemal Ataturk, modern Turkey’s founder,
and turned into a museum in 1935.
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