The word kuzguncuk means “little raven” or “barred window of a prison door” in Turkish. The name is said to have come from a holy person named Kuzgun Baba, who lived in the area during the time of Sultan Mehmet II (Mehmed The Conqueror), or from the corruption of a previous name, Kozinitza.

During Byzantine times, this area may have been called Khrysokeramos (Hrisokeramos), meaning “golden tile”, because of a church here with a gilded roof. Around 553, Narses had a church built here dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

Jews, who were expelled from Spain and Portugal and accepted into the Ottoman Empire in the late 15th century -Sephardic Jews- were among the settlers in the neighborhood. As voluntary immigrants, they had more freedom concerning their place of residence, and many left the traditional Jewish quarters of Istanbul such as Balat for villages along the Bosphorus such as Kuzguncuk. The earliest evidence of Jewish presence in the neighborhood is a tombstone dated 1562. Also, the majority of the Jewish population in Turkey is of Sephardic origin coming from Spain and Portugal in the late 15th century.

Armenians began settling in Kuzguncuk in the 18th century and had become a sizable group by the 19th century. Ottoman records show an 1834 request that their nighttime religious services be allowed to continue without interference. In 1835, their first church was built.

Kuzguncuk is a very multicultural space in İstanbul. There are a lot of churches, synagogues, and mosques, some of which face each other on the same street. As a local tourist, Kuzguncuk is one of my favorite places in İstanbul. The bookstore you can see in the picture is one of the most famous bookstores in Istanbul. Nail Kitabevi, is a cozy bookstore offering a diverse selection, plus coffee & reading nooks in a 19th-century building.