Yassıada

Democracy and Freedom Island, historically known as Yassıada (meaning "Flat Island" in Turkish; Greek: Πλάτη (Plati)) is one of the Princes' Islands in the Sea of Marmara, to the southeast of Istanbul. The island, which has an area of 0.05 km², is officially a neighbourhood in the Adalar (meaning "Isles" in Turkish) district of Istanbul Province, Turkey.

Yassıada was used by the Byzantines for sending prominent figures into exile. One such person was the Armenian Patriarch (Catholicos) Narses who was first sent to this island before being imprisoned at Prinkipos in the 4th century AD. In the 11th century AD the Byzantines used the island for political prisoners. The remains of the 4 underground prison cells from this period can still be seen. The Byzantines also built a monastery and church on the island. Yassıada (Plati) was captured by the Latin Crusaders during the Fourth Crusade in 1204.

In 1857, Yassıada was purchased by the British ambassador Henry Bulwer, brother of novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who built himself a mansion and a number of other structures to live undisturbed on this distant island. Henry Bulwer also organized agricultural production on the island to self-sustain his little realm at least to a certain degree, but later sold Yassıada to the Khedive of Ottoman Egypt and Sudan, Ismail Pasha; who, however, didn't construct any new buildings and completely neglected the island.

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