The building had a number of restorations until today and was changed by the Turkish Cultural Service Foundation in 1989 into a tourist center with 15 classrooms/exhibition rooms, a big salon and a garden where traditional Turkish handicrafts such as calligraphy, ceramics, jewelry and so forth are taught, made and sold.There is also a restaurant inside that offers a variety of Turkish dishes.
The Street in the near, behind the Hagia Sophia, takes you back to the old days of the city. Soğukçeşme Sokağı (literally: Street of the Cold Fountain) is a small street with historic wooden houses in the Sultanahmet neighborhood, sandwiched in-between the Hagia Sophia and Topkapı Palace. The car-free zone street is named after the fountain situated at its end towards Gülhane Park.
From Wikipedia:
The wooden, two or three-storey Ottoman houses consisting of four to ten rooms date to the 19th to 20th century, and have been restored with the initiative of Çelik Gülersoy in 1985-1986.
Called "Ayasofya Konakları" (Hagia Sophia Mansions), nine of the houses are run as a hostel chain by the Touring and Automobile Club of Turkey (TTOK). The houses are named after the flower shrubs next to them as "Yaseminli Ev" (Jasmine House), "Mor Salkımlı Ev" (Wisteria sinensis House), "Hanımeli Ev" (Honeysuckle House) etc. The buildings are decorated in the 19th century style with furniture including such items as beds and consoles, silk curtains, velvet armchairs and gilded mirrors. Most notable guest of the hostel was Queen Sofía of Spain, who stayed in the spring of 2000 for four nights.
The birthplace of Turkey's 6th president Fahri Korutürk (1903–1987) is also situated in this street. One of the houses hosts the library "İstanbul Kitaplığı" with over 10,000 books about Istanbul owned by the Çelik Gülersoy Foundation.
On one end of the street towards Gülhane Park is a Byzantine cistern, which houses the "Sarnıç Restaurant" today.
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Congratulations ramso13 for FTF
