Visitors must now fork out R500 to see Istanbul's most legendary landmark

Foreign tourists are now being charged an entrance fee to visit the historic Hagia Sophia in İstanbul. The €25 (about R500) fee came into play on January 15, in line with a recent decision from Turkey’s ministry of culture and tourism.

Completed in 537 CE, the Hagia Sophia was first a Greek Orthodox church — and the site of much slaughter when the Ottomans captured Constantinople in 1453. It was the city's main mosque until 1931 when Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Turkey's first president, had it turned into a museum. With its marble floors, frescoes, mosaics and lofty dome, it is one of the world's architectural gems and arguably the most famous attraction in Istanbul.

In a controversial decision, it was converted from a museum back into a mosque in July 2020 by the Turkish government. There were museum entrance fees in place at the time, but Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's said the fees would be abolished and that the cultural monument was open to all. 

In July 2023, Bünyamin Topçuoğlu, the imam of Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque, told the Turkish Daily Sabah newspaper the mosque had welcomed 6-million visitors between January and June of that year. 

Culture and tourism minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy announced the plans for the new charge in October, saying the goal was to improve the quality and security of visits to the Unesco world heritage site and to minimise visitor congestion. He said the revenue from entrance fees would be used for the maintenance and preservation of the building.

Under the new rules, there are now separate entrances for worshippers and tourists. Turkish citizens will continue to enter for free but it is not yet officially clear how the rules will affect non-Turkish Muslims who want to visit to pray.

Journalist Arthur Maghakian reported on X all foreigners would have to pay to enter, “to pray or just for tourism purposes — it doesn’t matter”.

Tourists are now being directed to a side entrance, where the fee must be paid, while Turkish visitors continue to use the main entrance.

Some have slammed the decision on social media, in particular the installation of a roll-up door marking the visitor's entrance.

Journalist İzzet Çapa posted a picture of it on Instagram, saying he does not understand the “mentality” behind the installation of such a structure at the 1,500 year-old architectural treasure. It would be more fitting as a “garage door, shop lock or shopping mall parking entrance,” he said. 

On X, Georg von Karajan called the new entrance a “monstrocity” [sic] and said the president had been missing the income after turning it from a museum into a mosque. “Now he wants both.”

Journalist Filippo Cicciù@filippocicciu pointed out the new fee coincides with the reopening of the upper floor to the public, where Byzantine mosaics have undergone years of restoration work. The fee was worth it, he said, to see the “really gorgeous” mosaics.