Vandalism is a sort of action that can never be accepted. Cultural vandalism is this sort of action for international sector. Generally tomb raiders and the autorities who don’t have any vision create this sort of vandalism.
Turkish authorities made a poor decision and an international monument lost its museum position. St.Sophia museum ( there is no need to explain the historical background of the monument) is starring in Turkey’s and Istanbul’s tourism assets. It is around 1500 years old. It has cultural and architectural secrets of centuries. Turning into mosque for St.Sophia is an action of the minds that have no cultural and scientific knowledge. For example, can Egypt make any arrangement for ancient Egypt monumets without any international consultant? It is the same thing. UNESCO has district rules for this subject. Those sight seeing places belong to all world and cultures.
Beside this event, many restoration faults were reported in Turkey. Modern designs were applied for ancient monuments. The excavations for ancient sites were interrupted due to the bugdet cuts.
As we can understand from those samples, Turkey has no tourism policy in order to develop the tourism potential of the country. Turkey requires more responsible and patriotic authorities. The scandalous decision will erase Turkey from the world tourism area. Especially after the Coronavirus pandemic process, tourism became more important to return our normal lifes. Domestic and international tourisms are the essential keys for economic concentration.
As a senior tourism staff, it is my mission to make this warning to everyone. Otherwise we all lose so much valuable things that we can’t replace. Turkey is a country of history and tourism. We have made our biggest foreign currency income from tourism sector for years but today we are losing it.
We are all in the same board, history belongs to all nations. Tourism is our common value. Tourism is the key tool for world peace. We had better keep it carefully.
I am very sorry to type this article as a Turk and history lover. I hope that everything gets better sooner.