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Architectural AH

One for Istanbul/ Constantinople - have the old Sacred Palace by the cathedral of Hagia Sophia kept in a better condition under the later emperors rather than being largely abandoned for Blachernae up the Golden Horn. That would probably result only if the city was more of a flourishing trading centre in the later Byzantine period after its recapture in 1261 (or not sacked and occupied by the Crusaders in 1204) so the emperors could afford to repair or replace the the older buildings and more was standing in 1453. Perhaps a major diversion of the 'Silk Road' trade-route under the Mongols across Georgia and the Black Sea to avoid instability and banditry in Asia Minor? The last emperor, Constantine XI, spent the last night before the city's fall in the palace in OTL, but that was a one-off and most was in ruins by then.

Then the first Ottoman Sultan to occupy the city, Mehmed II, decides to keep the site of the old Byzantine Palace' as his main residence as self-declared 'heir to the Caesars' rather than build a separate new palace on the old Akropolis to the NE, ie the Topkapi palace. At least, he sets up an extant large Byzantine hall there as his main throne-room, using its mosaics to indicate that he is the successor of Constantine I and Justinian, and resides nearby . Perhaps the location of the Hippodrome next door (still used for polo by the Byzantines c. 1400) would be an attraction? That way, some of the medieval halls and pavilions built pre-1453 would still be standing now, as used for Ottoman ceremonies - though probably roofs would have to be repaired or replaced after earthquakes.


In the same vein, how about the older palace buildings and chapels in the Kremlin complex in Moscow surviving from the C15th, not just the Palace of Facets, and not being replaced by the Grand Kremlin Palace by Nicholas I in the 1840s? It seems fairly obscure what exactly was lost and it was probably small-scale and unimpressive compared to Byzantine and Ottoman palace complexes, but it would still have been interesting - especially if there had been more building of a larger complex of palaces under Ivan III , Vassily III and Ivan IV (1462 to 1584) or Alexei in the mid-C17th. Then Peter moving the capital could have left the largely abandoned medieval Kremlin as a 'preserved' site and this been intact as of 1917 (with no fire damage in 1812). The Bolsheviks would then have set themselves up in one quarter without touching the main complex and kept that as a national heritage site, as Mao did to the Forbidden City in Beijing.
 
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