Ada Kaleh - The underwater city

In 1716 the city was known by the name of Carolina. Being alternativcely under the rule of the Tyurks and the Austrian-Hungarians, the city started losing its military importance towards the end of the l9th century. The city was Vauban type, with narrow streets and defence towers, built after the most modern European model of the time by the Austrians, because the city had been conceived as a stronghold, no residential districts had been provided for, Later on, in the 19th century, when the island was recaptured by the Turks, its 600 inhabitants took refuge in the city’s catacombs. Initially, the island’s population had consideted of military brought over from the entire Ottoman empire: Kirghiz, Arabs, Turks, Persoans, Kurds. When the military function was lost, they erected small houses and started up small businesses: the soldiers turned into fishers, ferrymen, confectioners or tobacconists. The Mosque building initially belonged to a community of Francioscan monks, In 1839 the Turks added a minaret to the Franciscan church, turning it into a mosque, After the Ottoman Empire broke up and Kemal Ataturk cam,e to power, Turkey losyt its influence over far away territories. After a plebiscite , in in 1922 the population of the Ada Kaleh island asked to go under the Romanian state’s administraytion in esxchanmge for a royal privilege granted by Ropmania’s King Carol the 2nd.
Realising the immense benefits he could draw following the introduction of tax exemption for imported goods, Ali Kadri, initially a ferryman, estabsihed a joint stock company named Musulmana. Little by little, all the products which made the island famous - the sweets, tobacoo, coffee, rose and fig jams, millet beer, the boats which brought tourists , all of them acquired the tradename of Ali Kadri - Ada Kaleh. Soon afterwards Ali Kadrihad an imposing palace built for himself. The Ada Kaleh sultan no longer wore shalwars but costumes ordered in paris. Nevertheless his empire collapsed following the nationalisation policy imposed by the communists in the mid 20th century.
The building of the Iron Gates dam at the end of the l960s required a huge storage lake. And because Ada Kaleh island was to be submerged, the population was given a choice: either to emigrate to Turkey or to settle elsewhere in romania. So, part of the citadel and the mosque were shifted on to a nearby isle, Simian. Unfortunately, the largest part of the inhabitants preferred to leave for Tyurkey. The Ada Kaleh community never revived. Just a few old Turks, selling sweets, tobacco and coffee made on sand can still be found today in the nearby towns of Orsove and Drobeta Turnu severin.