Turkey is a country with a history that has been influenced by a wide array of cultures from prehistory to the present day, but for those who want to know more about how the modern nation came to be, the Ataturk Mausoleum in Ankara is a must-see. Located in the heart of the city, it is very close to all the luxury hotels in the Turkish capital and is as impressive as its one resident was important. Known as the Anitkabir (monumental tomb), the complex is a huge square building with numerous pillars, looking slightly like an historic Greek or Roman civic building, but with lots of straight edges rather than cylindrical columns.
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was born in Salonika, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire but is now in Greece. Sent to military school in Istanbul, he saw action in the Dardanelles campaign in the First World War, before starting a nationalist revolution in 1919 in opposition to the peace settlement imposed on Turkey after the war. The eventual result was the abolition of the Treaty of Lausanne and the dissolution of the Ottoman Sultanate, with Ataturk becoming the first president of the newly independent Turkey in 1923. He only gained the title Ataturk in 1935, when surnames were first introduced in the country. It literally means “Father of the Turks”.
Ataturk died in 1938 and it was in the following few years that plans were made to build the mausoleum, with construction taking place between 1944 and 1953. Visitors will notice the distinctive architecture, with Seljuk and Ottoman influences, while the materials include white, red, black and yellow travertine, a kind of limestone that forms in hot springs. However, the sarcophagus stone that covers the tomb of Ataturk is made of marble, weighing 40 tonnes, this was one of the trickier elements to put in place. The mausoleum is a mightily impressive building with its spacious halls and high ceilings, and it is free to visit. The site opens each day at 09:00 and stays open to 17:00 most of the year, closing at 16:00 in winter.
