Bandırma Ship Museum: The 1919 Steamer in Samsun

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1. What is the Bandırma Ship Museum?
2. How do you get to the Bandırma Ship Museum?
3. When is the best time to visit the Bandırma Ship Museum?
4. What is the history of the Bandırma Ship Museum?
5. What is the Bandırma Ship Museum famous for?
6. What can you see at the Bandırma Ship Museum?
7. Common misconceptions about the Bandırma Ship Museum
8. Frequently asked questions about the Bandırma Ship Museum
9. What do the official records say about the Bandırma Ship Museum?

What is the Bandırma Ship Museum?

The Bandırma Ship Museum (Bandırma Gemi Müzesi) is a replica of the small steamer on which Mustafa Kemal Pasha and his staff sailed from Istanbul to Samsun between 16 and 19 May 1919. The landing at Samsun on the morning of 19 May is taken as the start of the Turkish War of Independence, so the ship carries a symbolic weight out of proportion to its size.

The replica is moored on dry land in Doğupark, on the eastern seafront, inside the National Struggle Park (Milli Mücadele Parkı), an open-air museum of monuments and reliefs that tells the story of the war.

How do you get to the Bandırma Ship Museum?

Doğupark is on the coast road east of the city centre, in Canik district. From the centre it is a short taxi ride or a walk along the seafront promenade; the coastal tram line also runs along this stretch towards Tekkeköy. There is parking at the park.

Opening hours change through the year, so check them before you visit. Groups need to book ahead.

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When is the best time to visit the Bandırma Ship Museum?

Any time of year works, as most of the visit is indoors. Weekday mornings are quietest. Around 19 May the museum is the focus of the national commemorations, with ceremonies, school groups and crowds; it is a memorable time to be there, but expect queues.

Combine the visit with a walk along the seafront and the Samsun Museum or the Gazi Museum in the centre.

What is the history of the Bandırma Ship Museum?

The original ship was built in 1878 in Paisley, Scotland, as an iron-hulled steam cargo-passenger ship named Trocadero. It changed owners and names several times, as Kymi and Panderma, before coming into Ottoman ownership in 1894 as the Bandırma. In August 1915, serving as a transport in the First World War, it survived a torpedo attack by the British submarine E14.

On 16 May 1919 it left Istanbul carrying Mustafa Kemal Pasha, 22 officers, 25 soldiers and eight administrative staff. The old steamer sailed along the Black Sea coast through heavy weather with a compass that did not work, and reached Samsun on the morning of 19 May. The ship was taken out of service in 1924, sold in 1925 and broken up in a Golden Horn shipyard within four months.

The replica was commissioned at the end of the 1990s by the governor of Samsun and built by Taşkınlar Shipbuilding between May 2000 and April 2001 to the original’s dimensions. It opened as a museum ship on 19 May 2003, and since 2005 Samsun Metropolitan Municipality has run it.

What is the Bandırma Ship Museum famous for?

• The 1919 voyage. It is the most visited reminder in Samsun of the journey that began the War of Independence.
• The cabin scenes. Figures of Mustafa Kemal and his companions are set in reconstructed cabins.
• Opening hours change through the year, so check them before you visit.
• The National Struggle Park. Ceramic and bronze reliefs and monuments around the ship.

What can you see at the Bandırma Ship Museum?

Opening hours change through the year, so check them before you visit.

The captain’s lounge. Figures of Captain İsmail Hakkı (Durusu) Bey, his deputy Üsküdarlı Tahsin Bey and the cipher clerk İsmail Bey, with the ship’s compass, speed control panel and clock.

The forward bedroom. Styled after the cabin on Atatürk’s yacht Savarona, with a wooden radio of the 1930s that he used.

The hold. An exhibition on Atatürk’s schooling, the National Struggle and the 1919 journey, including an original 1923 Ottoman-language printing of the Treaty of Lausanne, a Nagant pistol and documents on his death.

The park. The National Struggle Park covers about 35,000 m². Ceramic reliefs of 300 pieces, covering 70 m², depict the Gallipoli battles and the liberation of İzmir; the municipality describes them as the longest ceramic reliefs in Türkiye. Nine bronze reliefs by Ragıp Çeçen (2002) show the struggle after the 1919 landing, and the seven-figure National Liberation Monument by Tankut Öktem (2002) stands in the centre. A memorial inscription lists more than 1,200 people from Samsun who died in the War of Independence.

Common misconceptions about the Bandırma Ship Museum

Is this the original Bandırma?

What people often assume: That the ship in Doğupark is the steamer that carried Mustafa Kemal in 1919.

What the record says: The original was withdrawn in 1924 and broken up in Istanbul’s Golden Horn in 1925. The museum ship is a replica built in 2000–2001 to the original’s dimensions (Samsun Culture and Tourism Directorate).

Frequently asked questions about the Bandırma Ship Museum

What do the official records say about the Bandırma Ship Museum?

The 2002 inventory, written while the replica was being completed, records the city’s 1919 story through the building where Mustafa Kemal stayed after the Bandırma landed: when Atatürk came to Samsun on 19 May 1919 he stayed in this building, known as Mıntıka Palas, and during his Samsun journey of 20–24 September 1924 the building was presented to the Great Leader by the people of Samsun. On his visits to Samsun on 16 September 1928 and 22 November 1930 he again stayed in this building, given to him by the people of Samsun.

Today the building, used as a museum, also has a concert hall and a specialist library collecting books on Atatürk. (Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Samsun Provincial Tourism Inventory, 2002)