Fresh from a controversial renovation, which changed its original outlook, the Potemkin Steps lead down from bul Prymorsky to the sea port. Pause at the top to admire the sweeping views of the harbour. You can avoid climbing back up by taking a funicular railway (3uah) that runs parallel. Or, having walked halfway up, you can sneak into a passage that now connects the steps with the reconstructed Istanbul Park.
In the film Battleship Potemkin, a woman yells at a tidy line of soldiers as they take aim. An officer commands: 'Fire!' It takes many painful seconds for her to collapse and release a pram with a baby inside, which starts slowly tumbling down the steps – these very steps. All of that never happened during the real battleship Potemkin mutiny, but the genius film director Sergei Eisenstein made the world believe it did.
