Süleymaniye Quarter (Old Gümüşhane)

Süleymaniye Quarter, set at 1,350 metres about 4 kilometres south-west of modern Gümüşhane, is "Old Gümüşhane" — the true origin of the city.

History & Origin of the Name

The wealth that named the province — Gümüşhane means "house of silver" — lay in the silver veins beneath these slopes: mines worked since Roman and Byzantine times entered their golden age after the region joined the Ottoman Empire in 1461. The quarter took its present form and its name when Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent (r. 1520-1566), during his Iranian and Baghdad campaigns, ordered the building of the Süleymaniye (Sultan Süleyman Han) Mosque and some fifty houses on a site closer to the richest silver seams. Evliya Çelebi counted nearly seventy silver pits here in the 17th century, and the town — its output recorded in imperial mint registers — grew into a multicultural centre of tens of thousands that fed the treasury.

Architecture & Heritage

Today more than thirty-five registered heritage assets survive: the Süleymaniye Mosque of rubble and cut stone with its single-balcony minaret (repaired in 1899, restored in 2004); abandoned Greek Orthodox churches and the Virgin Mary Church clinging to the hillsides; a stone bathhouse, fountains, bridges, shop ruins and two- and three-storey stone mansions. Long home to Turkish, Greek and Armenian communities, the quarter was declared an urban and natural conservation site in 2002 and has lately been revived for tourism through street rehabilitation and mansion restorations, some converted into boutique hotels.

Visiting, Access & Tips

Agencies favour Süleymaniye because it adds cultural depth to the Zigana-Torul-Karaca leg of Trabzon-based Black Sea tours — close to the centre yet highly photogenic. A visit averages 1.5-2 hours and is usually paired with pestil-köme shopping downtown. Nearby lie Canca Castle, the Krom Valley and İmera Monastery. The best photo spots are the mosque courtyard, the stone-mansion façades and the ruined churches on the slope. Access is a short drive from the centre; the square car park suits coaches, though the steep, narrow cobbled lanes limit wheelchair access. The best season is the green, mild weather of May to October; snow is atmospheric but turns the roads difficult. Summer is the peak.