Beștepe
Tulcea County
About
Beştepe means Five Hills in Turkish.
Today it is a beautiful Tulcean commune. The name was given by ethnic Muslims hundreds of years ago and has survived over time. It was also called the Turkish Beştepeau, in order not to be confused with the Moldavian one, as Mahmudia (the neighboring locality) was called in the past.
The five hills guard the settlement imposingly... It is a land full of history and beautiful stories. The legend of the place says that the powerful Sultan Mahmud II (1808-1839) once passed by the village on his way to Tulcea. The master of the Ottoman Empire was impressed by these places and decided to build a strong fortress on the highest of the hills (n.r. maximum altitude 242 m), from where the entire area could be easily guarded. The fortification was immediately erected and for many years, from here, the Ottomans closely controlled the region. The story is a beautiful one, but no one has ever given a trace of the fortress from the legend.
At Beştepe, however, there are many fortifications and what is interesting, they are much older than the one in the story of Sultan Mahmud. 1 kilometer North-East of the village, in the area of Piatra lui Boboc, there are the ruins of a Getic temple dated more than 2300 years ago. Near Beştepe or even in the hearth of the village there are vestiges and settlements from the time of the Geti ancestors, from the time of the Romans or from the Roman-Byzantine era. No one has yet found a trace of Mahmud's fortress, but no legend appears without its grain of truth. Who knows, maybe she's hiding under the green hills, waiting for the right moment to tell her whole story...
Today it is a beautiful Tulcean commune. The name was given by ethnic Muslims hundreds of years ago and has survived over time. It was also called the Turkish Beştepeau, in order not to be confused with the Moldavian one, as Mahmudia (the neighboring locality) was called in the past.
The five hills guard the settlement imposingly... It is a land full of history and beautiful stories. The legend of the place says that the powerful Sultan Mahmud II (1808-1839) once passed by the village on his way to Tulcea. The master of the Ottoman Empire was impressed by these places and decided to build a strong fortress on the highest of the hills (n.r. maximum altitude 242 m), from where the entire area could be easily guarded. The fortification was immediately erected and for many years, from here, the Ottomans closely controlled the region. The story is a beautiful one, but no one has ever given a trace of the fortress from the legend.
At Beştepe, however, there are many fortifications and what is interesting, they are much older than the one in the story of Sultan Mahmud. 1 kilometer North-East of the village, in the area of Piatra lui Boboc, there are the ruins of a Getic temple dated more than 2300 years ago. Near Beştepe or even in the hearth of the village there are vestiges and settlements from the time of the Geti ancestors, from the time of the Romans or from the Roman-Byzantine era. No one has yet found a trace of Mahmud's fortress, but no legend appears without its grain of truth. Who knows, maybe she's hiding under the green hills, waiting for the right moment to tell her whole story...