Atatürk Museum

Atatürk Museum review

In northern Şişli, a short bus ride from Taksim Square, is a candy-pink Ottoman house in which Mustafa Kemal once stayed. It now contains three floors of memorabilia of the great Atatürk, from his astrakhan hat to his silk underwear. There's even a wine-stained tablecloth on which he bashed out the new Turkish alphabet over a picnic lunch in 1928. The top floor holds a large collection of propaganda paintings from the war of indepedence, depicting scenes of Greek brutality, with the flag of the perfidious British occasionally fluttering in the background. It's a wonder the Greek soldiers were ever taken seriously, as they advanced into battle in pleated mini skirts and scarlet slippers adorned with fluffy pom-poms.