Mustafapaşa (Sinasos) Historical Greek Houses and Aios Vasilios Church

History and General Information / Local Legends and Folklore Mustafapaşa (anciently known as Sinasos) is a unique open-air museum town known as the "City of the Sun", where rich Greek and Turkish merchants lived together in peace and prosperity during the Ottoman period. Wealthy merchants from Sinasos, who traded caviar and dried food in Istanbul until the 1924 Turkey-Greece Population Exchange, sent their earnings to their hometown and built monumental stone mansions resembling palaces, madrasahs, bridges and churches. Baroque and neoclassical stonework, arched wooden windows and root-painted ceiling frescoes on the crown doors of the mansions are masterpieces of Cappadocia stone architecture. The Aios Vasilios (St. Basil) Rock Church on the northern slope of the town is the most valuable temple of the town's multicultural past with its Byzantine-era frescoes of saints on its walls and rock-carved apses. Geographical Structure, Altitude and Natural Features Mustafapaşa is located in the south of Ürgüp, at an altitude of approximately 1,160 meters above sea level, in a green valley bowl where the Gömede and Monastir valleys open. The surrounding orchards, vineyards and tuff rocky slopes give the town a unique rural tranquility. Visiting Hours, Days and Entrance Fees