Ah, the delights of waterfront property. I bet the 19th century Ottoman dandy who built this beautiful mansion on the Bosphorus in Istanbul did not envision the abode would ever be under threat from an immense tanker ship.
The Vitaspirit, a 225-meter ship sailing under a Maltese flag from Saudi Arabia to Russia, lost control of its rudder while navigating the busy Bosphorus straight Sunday. It crashed into the 200-year-old Hekimbaşı Salih Efendi mansion, a formally charming house that hosts weddings and parties. Although now it doesn’t look like the house be open for business any time soon.
“It is a 200-year-old mansion. It is a building we have sustained fighting tooth and nail. The exterior parts can be repaired somehow but we have lost many valuable properties we had been trying to protect inside,” Aslı Zeynep Ertürer, one of the mansion’s owners, told Doğan News Agency.
No injuries or fatalities have been reported, though it appears the crash may have scared the staff at the restaurant half to death. The Hurriyet Daily News notes that the Bosphorus is one of the busiest waterways in the world, and safety is a constant concern. The Vitaspirit is currently anchored in the Marmara Sea pending an investigation.