On November 14, 1914, the Turks blew up the shrine of the tomb of Russian soldiers on the outskirts of Constantinople.
This temple was built in San Stefano, as it was there that the peace treaty was signed at the end of the Russian-Turkish war in 1878.
The Turks gave permission to build a temple instead of a Russian hospital, and in 1898 the work was finished. 5,000 of our soldiers were buried in the dungeon of the temple, and the same number in the nearby cemetery.
In November 1914, Turkey joined the Germans in World War I. The Turks saw the tomb as a symbol of their military defeat and even shame, so they decided to destroy the temple.
They filmed the church bombing, and this film became the first in the history of Turkish cinema.