Suluhan Çarşısı

About Suluhan Çarşısı

Suluhan is an early 16th-century Ottoman caravanserai in Ulus that now works as a bazaar, known locally as the Vakıf Suluhan Çarşısı. Its two storeys of small shops around an arcaded courtyard are packed with jewellery, hair accessories, wooden crafts, gifts and decorative souvenirs, and it is a favourite stop for people buying small presents in old Ankara. The han has no building inscription, but its endowment deed dates from 1508 with an addition in 1511, so it is thought to have been built between those years by Hasan Paşa, an administrator under Sultans Bayezid II and Selim I. Early records call it the Hasanpaşa Hanı; a record of 1688 first names it Suluhan, the "watered inn", and the fountain and small mosque in the first courtyard and the bath in the second are thought to date from after water was brought in. In Ottoman times coffee and yarn were traded here. The 1929 Balıkpazarı fire wrecked the building, and by the 1940s only the outer walls stood; for years it served as a small fruit and vegetable market. A plan in 1969 to replace it with an office block was dropped, and in 1984 the General Directorate of Foundations restored it in rubble and cut stone, faithful to the original. The layout is unusual: you enter from the north into a square first courtyard with two-storey arcades of shops and, in the centre, a fountain topped by a small raised mosque. A corridor leads to a second courtyard that once held stables, a plan Wikipedia compares with Bursa's Koza Han and the Rüstem Paşa caravanserai in Edirne. Suluhan is a short walk from Ulus Hali, Çıkrıkçılar Yokuşu and Samanpazarı.