Description of the attraction
Having conquered Alania in 1226 after a five-year siege, the Seljuk sultan Aladdin Keykubat built Kyzylkule - a watchtower to protect the city's harbor. Kyzylkule translated from Turkish means the Red Tower. The tower got its name from its distinctive red brick color used in its construction. This tower is the main attraction of the amazingly beautiful Turkish city of Alanya. It is located in the port of the city. The tower is a symbol of Alanya and is even depicted on the flag of the city.
The walls of this Byzantine fortress are about eight kilometers long. The tower has an octagonal shape. The diameter at its base is twenty-nine meters, and the height from the canopies between the loopholes to the barrage line reaches thirty-three meters. She still amazes with her power.
The construction was completed in 1226, and it took more than twelve years to build the fortress walls. Especially for the construction of this tower, Ebu Ali Reha el-Kettani, an architect from Aleppo, who is the author of the Sinop fortress, was invited. The name of the master builder and architect of the tower is indicated in the inscription engraved on the north side of the tower. On the opposite - southern side of the tower, in the inscription of seven lines, there is a panegyric appeal to the Sultan Aladdin Keykubat, in which he is praised as a wise ruler, ruler of all rulers, defender of justice, sultan of land and two seas, patron saint of Muslims.
The tower could accommodate up to two thousand people. It has five floors, not counting the upper ledges above the loopholes. These Loopholes are located across the entire surface of the tower. Like the observation windows, they were covered in front and were intended for pouring boiling water and hot tar onto the enemy.
One of the architectural features of the Red Tower is that the light that comes from the top of the tower reaches the very first floor.
You can get to Kyzylkul from the western facade, which is closely adjacent to the fortress walls, through a narrow, discreet, but high gate shaped like a corridor. A large underground reservoir in the center is connected to the upper part of the drainage channel.
For several centuries, the Kyzylkule tower reliably protected the port from all kinds of attacks from the sea. This building was built with such high quality that it is still one of the best examples of medieval military architecture. The tower was restored in the 1950s. But it was opened to visitors only in 1979. Every year it is visited by a very large number of tourists from all over the world.
Tourists can climb to the very top by stone steps, of which there are eighty-five in total. There is a reservoir in the center of the tower. A Turkish flag is hung over the battlements of the tower, in other words, as on most Turkish towers. The Ethnographic Museum was opened on the first floor of Kyzylkule in 1979.
