Tag: Russian

Few foreign cities have haunted the Russian imagination like Istanbul. For a thousand years Constantinople was the spiritual capital of Orthodox Christianity, the city Moscow once called “the Second Rome” and longed to inherit — and after 1917, it became the first refuge for tens of thousands of White Russian exiles whose grandchildren still run some of the city’s most beloved restaurants. This archive collects the long Russian thread woven through Istanbul. Trace the imperial obsession through every siege of Constantinople, including the ones the Tsars themselves attempted, and walk the city’s enduring Orthodox heart at the Ecumenical Patriarchate, still the highest seat of Eastern Orthodoxy. Spend a day with us on our Russian Istanbul Tour, threading empires, exiles, and incense through one perfect afternoon. Learn why diaspora communities have always thrived here — from the Jews who fled to the Ottomans in 1492 to the Armenians who shaped the city for centuries. Brush up on five mindblowing facts about Istanbul and the unspoken facts about Turkey, and — if you’re continuing east — let our Russian-speaking Cappadocia guide Mert show you the fairy chimneys in your own language.