The Atatürk rooms
The second floor keeps Atatürk's personal belongings and War of Independence photographs, the real reason to come.
Dosseman — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Dosseman — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Dosseman — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Dosseman — CC BY-SA 4.0
One night in September 1924 was enough to turn a Rize merchant's house into a museum. Mustafa Kemal was crossing the country on what he called his 'Autumn Trip', reached Rize on the 17th of that month and slept here as the guest of Mehmet Mataracı, a local notable who had earned his trust through what he did during the War of Independence. The mansion was almost new at the time: built in 1920-21 in the inner-hall plan of a traditional Turkish house, three timber storeys over a basement that served as a store, with a broad garden running along its north side. The family kept the house for sixty years, then gave it to the province for the centenary of Atatürk's birth in 1981; the Ministry of Culture restored it and opened it as a museum on 27 December 1985. The ground floor holds inscriptions and old gravestones, the first floor traditional weaving tools and ethnographic pieces from the region's villages, and the second floor is the point of the visit: rooms of Atatürk's personal belongings and photographs from the independence years. The collection is thin and the labels are mostly Turkish, but the house itself, all timber, staircases and balconies, tells you how a wealthy family on this coast lived a century ago. Be honest with yourself: this is a small museum, thirty to forty-five minutes at most, and not worth cutting short a day on the plateaus for. It is, however, free, open every day from 08:00 to 17:00, and a few minutes' walk from the centre just east of the city stadium, which makes it the ideal answer to a wet day in Rize, a town that rains generously even in August. Do not confuse it with Rize Museum in the nearby Yellow House, which also carried the name Atatürk House from 1984 until 1998 before reopening as the city museum. For families: an old three-storey house with wooden stairs means no lift, and the pushchair stays at the door. Children lose interest after the first floor, though the north garden buys back a little goodwill. In winter, call ahead, since small state museums may trim their hours between November and April.
The second floor keeps Atatürk's personal belongings and War of Independence photographs, the real reason to come.
A three-storey timber house of 1921 with an inner hall, showing how a wealthy Black Sea family lived.
The first floor shows the region's looms and tools, and the broad north garden is a free breather between showers.
Müftü Mahallesi, Kirazlık Sokak No. 16, Rize
With only an hour in town, go to the Yellow House: it has the richer collection and the better picture of old domestic life, but it closes on Mondays. The Atatürk House is free, open daily and a short walk away, so the easy answer is both, in about two and a half hours.
The pushchair stays downstairs: three floors of wooden stairs and no lift. Under-tens tire of it fast, so treat it as a half-hour stop at most; the garden helps.
Sign in to write your review of this place.
No reviews yet — be the first.
