Divrigi

I am happy to be the first to review the Great Mosque and Hospital of Divriği after restorations ended in May 2024. The complex lies uphill above the Old Town; if you arrive by car it is best to follow local signposting to “Ulu Cami” to avoid the worst of the town’s narrow streets. There’s plenty of parking near the building. I don’t know whether it was like this before, but there is a landscaped park at the foot of the hill, from where you can admire the full complex with its characteristic hexagonal dome.

The building is managed by the Ministry of Religious Affairs, this means that entry is free but also it has all kind of “dress appropriately” warnings. A few local women and I were followed around by a zealous security guy, who seemed to take a particular dislike to females and was always in the way. There were only 3 men praying in the large mosque, so I think they shouldn’t overestimate the religious importance of the place. There is hardly any interpretation on site and also the plaque(s) seem to have been removed.

Everybody, including the Turkish muslim visitors who comprise the far majority, comes here to see the carved portals. The WHS inscription dates from a time when it all was about monuments (architecture), so it goes on about vault construction and a dome with an oculus. The decorated portals however, are what make the building outstanding. They’re so exuberant that it …

I visited this WHS in Spring 2021 after a very long drive from Ani WHS. Having visited I'd rate it as a worth visiting site as much as the Ichan Pasha Palace tWHS but it can be disappointing if you invest so much time to get there solely for the one inscribed building housing the Great Mosque and Hospital of Divrigi, and not as part of a longer road trip as we did. That said, we really were glad that the major restoration works on the four ornate portals had been completed, as these were the highlights we were after and the main reason why we were eager to visit notwithstanding the long drive.

Divrigi was an important city as one of the transition points between Central Anatolia and the Euphrates basin. Although Erzincan was the most important center of the Mengujek's, it is noteworthy that the largest monument built by them is the Divrigi Great Mosque and Hospital which towers south of the Divrigi Castle and the west foothill of the Igimbat Hill. The construction of the Great Mosque of Divrigi was initiated in 1228-1229 on the order of Ahmet Shah, grandson of Mengucek Bey Sahinsah who also built the Kale Castle, and son of Suleyman Shah. The head architect of the monument was Hurremsah of Ahlat. In the southern side of the Great Mosque, there's the hospital constructed adjacent to the mosque. It is difficult to distinguish them at first glance as two separate buildings as they …

We visited the Divriği Great Mosque (Ulu Camii) and Hospital (Darüşşifası), an extraordinary example of Islamic art, twice in recent months. Once in spring amidst a deep green landscape coming by car from Sivas, which is about a three hour drive away. It is an important historical site in its own right with some of the most impressive Seljuk monuments like the Şifaiye Madrasah, an important medical school in the 13th century, and the Gök Madrasah and the Double Minaret Madrasah or the Subaşı Han, an Ottoman-period Caravanserai still used today as spice market. Sivas is also the place where the 1919 Congress was held, one of the stepping stones in establishing the Republic of Turkey. On the way to Divriği we passed through Kangal, the home of Turkey’s famous shepherd dogs. 

The second visit took place in February 2020. We had come overnight from Ankara on the fabulous (Doğu) Eastern Express Train via Kayseri and Sivas. We arrived at Divriği station in the early morning. The scene was winter wonderland with a good half meter of snow at minus 15°C. After a hearty breakfast close to the railway station we went up to the Great Mosque of Divriği passing several kumbets (small mausoleums with a pointed dome) and the citadel. The mosque and hospital complex is currently undergoing restoration work; there is a lot of scaffolding and a metal roof covering the building. The site is likely to reopen in the course of 2020 or 2021.   

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Divrigi is about 600 kilometers from Ankara, so it takes a little while to get there by car. I'm sure you can get there by bus, but it would be quite a long haul. The town of Divrigi is a small village perched on a hillside and the fall was the perfect time to go. I will say the signage to teh Mosque and hospital complex was a little lacking, but it is a small town, so we did find it. Using the word "complex", I expected a larger area then the one building that housed both of the facilities. The outside of the building is pretty non-descript until you get up close to the doors. There were so many carvings and it was so intricately done. They were gorgeous! The first part is the mental hospital, and going inside there are carved columns and a few tombs. Next door was the mosque and it is very much in use today, so it's best to stay away during prayer times. There was no cost to enter this site, but there was a small tea kiosk inside the walls. We felt obligated to buy a cup of tea and watch the visitors that came. There was only one other foreigner there, a European. I wouldn't say this was one of the most interesting World Heritage Sites in Turkey, but I probably would not have made the effort to go otherwise, and honestly that would have been dissappointing, because I had not …

I've been there in August 2008. A place really worth to visit (although finding accomodation in the town is somehow difficult) hosting valuable historical remains but also home to a beautiful natural landscape. I traveled there from Sivas by the morning train along a breathtaking river valley and I came back the same day by the local minibus in the late afternoon. The six hours that we spent there were quite enough to visit the Great Mosque & Hospital Complex (UNESCO World Heritage), to climb to the Kale (Citadel) Hill, to walk through the picturesque narrow streets of the city centre and to have a brief lunch but were insufficient to visit all the historical monuments (mosques, tombes, old houses) spread all around. I would reccomend a 1-2 full days visit.

I spent a day in Divrigi in May 2003 whilst making a trip from the west to east of Turkey. This place is a marvel and it is a shame that so few tourists come here. Of course the most famous attraction here is the Grand Mosque, but there are quite a few other archtectural remains from pre-Ottoman Turkish times: the ruined castle and the burial chambers (turbe) that bear testament to times when Divrigi was a major settlement. It was prized for its iron ore, which is still the major form of economic activity here today. However, for me as a fan of the genre the old Ottoman town houses were probably the greatest delight. These wonderful half-wood half-brick constructions have almost completely dissapeared from the urban regions of Turkey, their places taken by soulless apartment blocks. For me, Divrigi above all is a living museum of Ottoman architecture. I don't recall seeing a single ugly apartment block. You can roam for hours here through an unspoilt sea of twisting little lanes flanked by traditional Turkish town houses, and a lot of them have been kept in quite good condition. Then there is the natural beauty of the place. A fast flowing river passes just by the town, the railway follows this course. This river has cut a steep ravine in the mountains. Take the path up to the castle from the road leading from the town centre to the railway station and continue round from the castle for …