Bomonti: A Walk Through Factory Memories and Hidden Communities

1. 01
   Culture

   Enter the Factory That Gave the Neighborhood Its Name

   Start at Bomontiada, the former Bomonti Beer Factory. The name Bomonti comes from the Swiss Bomonti brothers, who founded a brewery here in Feriköy in 1890. It was the first facility in Turkey to produce beer with modern brewing techniques. The site passed to the state in 1934, and production ended in 1964. Today, the surviving buildings form a culture and entertainment campus.

   Bomontiada, Istanbul, Turkey
2. 02
   History

   Find Istanbul’s Georgian Catholic Church

   Continue to the Bomonti Georgian Catholic Church, also known by its French name, Notre Dame de Lourdes. Built in 1861, it belongs to the Georgian Catholic community and is still used by them today. When people talk about the city’s many religious communities, Georgian Catholics are often left out; this church is one of their clearest surviving traces in Istanbul.

   Bomonti Georgian Catholic Church (Notre Dame de Lourdes), Istanbul, Turkey
3. 03
   History

   Find the Hungarian Who Founded the City’s Fire Brigade

   Walk on to the Feriköy (Pangaltı) Latin Catholic Cemetery. Buried here is Ödön Széchenyi, son of the Hungarian statesman István Széchenyi and the man who founded Istanbul’s first modern fire brigade. The cemetery also contains the graves of Hungarian soldiers who died at Gallipoli. This nineteenth-century cemetery is open to visitors.

   Feriköy (Pangaltı) Latin Catholic Cemetery, Istanbul, Turkey
4. 04
   Culture

   Close the Photographer’s Circle

   Finish at the Şişli Armenian Cemetery. This cemetery was opened after the 1865 cholera outbreak, when burials at Surp Agop Cemetery were banned. Ara Güler is buried here, while his museum stands back inside the factory you visited earlier. When Surp Agop was expropriated and destroyed in 1939, a few gravestones that could be saved were brought here and are now displayed within this cemetery.

   Şişli Armenian Cemetery, Istanbul, Turkey

Check opening hours before you go. Hours, access conditions and weather can change.