Rooms staged like theatre sets
Each room is lit and dressed as a stage by designer Ayhan Doğan, which is why children remember the place rather than the glass cases.
Warmice01 — CC BY-SA 3.0 · The original uploader was Derena at Turkish Wikipedia. — CC BY 2.5 · Warmice01 — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Warmice01 — CC BY-SA 3.0
A Turkish poet spent twenty years buying old toys from antique dealers and auctions in more than forty countries, then filled a creaking wooden mansion that had belonged to his family in Göztepe with them. That is the whole story of this museum, and it explains why it feels nothing like a standard children's museum. Sunay Akın and his wife Belgin opened the doors on 23 April 2005, Turkey's Children's Day, and inside are around 4,000 toys and miniatures on display from a collection of 7,000, the oldest a miniature violin made in France in 1817, more than two centuries ago: German tin toys, dolls from the 1820s, model trains, ships and space rockets, and a miniature German butcher's shop from around 1900. What lifts it is the staging. The interiors were laid out by the stage designer Ayhan Doğan, so rather than rows of glass cabinets each room is dressed like a theatre set with its own lighting and colour: stars glow overhead in the space-toy gallery, the model trains sit inside a real railway compartment, and you drift on among antique dolls that look a little too alive. On the first floor the facade of a famous Eyüp toy shop that closed in the 1950s has been rebuilt, and on many weekends there are children's activities and workshops, booked by phone in advance. It is a small house on four floors with narrow wooden stairs, so park the pushchair downstairs. One hour is genuinely enough, stretching a little if you have children between about four and ten, who are the real audience here. Adults without children will find it charming but not a reason to cross the Bosphorus on its own. The museum sits on the Asian side well off the tourist track: take the Marmaray to Erenköy and walk ten minutes, or a bus from Kadıköy. The sensible plan is to fold it into an afternoon on Bağdat Avenue for shopping or the cafes of Kadıköy. Tickets are sold at the door, 420 TL for foreign adults and 360 TL for foreign children over three and students, and the museum is closed on Mondays.
Each room is lit and dressed as a stage by designer Ayhan Doğan, which is why children remember the place rather than the glass cases.
The oldest piece is an 1817 French miniature violin, alongside 1820s dolls, a miniature German butcher's shop from around 1900, tin toys, trains and rockets.
Children's activities and workshops run on many weekends, but only with a phone reservation.
Ömerpaşa Caddesi, Dr. Zeki Zeren Sokak 17, Göztepe, Kadıköy
On its own, no. It is about an hour each way and the visit itself is an hour, so make it part of a day on the Asian side: Bağdat Avenue for shopping or the cafes of Kadıköy, then the museum. Without children under ten, skip it without regret.
The house has four floors of narrow wooden stairs, so the pushchair is best left downstairs. Under-3s get in free, but most pieces are behind glass and cannot be touched; the real enjoyment starts at about four years old.
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