Dolmabahçe

Meet Dolmabahçe:

Dolmabahçe Palace has a very special status amongst the other palaces in Istanbul. Arguably, it signifies the transition from the old imperial past to the modern republican present as it was the home to the sultans of the late 19th century and also was the place that Atatürk spent his last years. The four-leaf clover symbolizes the heyday of the imperial past, each leaf representing geographical reach of the empire, from Europe to Caucasus, from North Africa to the Middle East. The black diamond in the middle is a testimony to both the imperial past and to the idea of the young republic of the 1920s.