Poor restoration work at Trabzon’s historic Atatürk Pavilion under investigation

TRABZON

An investigation has been launched over restoration of a historic chandelier in the Atatürk Pavilion in the Black Sea province of Trabzon, after photos of the shoddy job appeared in the media, the Trabzon Municipality said in a statement. 

“An official investigation about the practice seen in the photos showing the repair of a historic chandelier in the Atatürk Pavilion, one of Trabzon’s most important historical inheritances,” read the statement. 

Furniture, porcelain, and carpets from the 19th and 20th centuries, and ethnographic pieces including pictures and possessions of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, are exhibited in the pavilion, in which the founder of modern Turkey stayed when he visited the city on Sept. 15, 1924.

During his third and last visit to the pavilion on June 10, 1937, Atatürk decided to donate all his property there to the Turkish citizens and prepared a list of all his property, ordering the Prime Ministry at the time to handle the process.

“I’m living the happiest times of my life. It must be fate that I could finalize work that I dreamt of years ago here in Trabzon,” reads a sign quoting Atatürk displayed in the pavilion’s “Testament Room.” 

After Atatürk’s death in 1938, the local municipality decided to open the facility to the public as a museum.

Today, at the entrance of the pavilion, the full speech made by Atatürk on his first arrival to Trabzon is displayed. A small room was also set up containing various photographs taken during his life and during visits to Trabzon.