Atatürk came to this cut-stone building in Battalgazi on 13 February 1931. After the welcome at the station he walked part of the newly opened road with the townspeople and came here, where he received party members and representatives of the public and asked about the state of the province and above all its economy. Two rooms in the house had been prepared for him, and he used it again when he came to Malatya in 1937.
Few buildings in Malatya have been asked to be so many things. Square in plan, with a monumental doorway opening into a hall and the rooms around it, it served as the Türk Ocağı clubhouse until the Türk Ocakları were closed in April 1931. It then became the provincial headquarters of the Republican People's Party and a Halkevi — Malatya's was among the first to open, in February 1932, and the Fırat sports club began in 1934 as its sports branch. When the Halkevleri were closed in turn in 1951 the building passed to the treasury, then to education: an annexe of the Malatya lycée after 1953, later an adult education centre.
It was registered as a protected cultural property in 1976 and restored by the DSİ for the centenary of Atatürk's birth, reopening in 1981 as the Atatürk House, which at that stage meant a single Atatürk room. A fuller restoration by the governorship, the special provincial administration and the municipality ran from late 2008 to March 2009 and turned every part of the building over to museum use. Since 2014 it has been in the care of the Malatya Museum Directorate on behalf of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
The museum is laid out as one hall and six rooms. Among them are a conference hall, the room in which Atatürk sat, a room showing the objects he used when he came to Malatya, the Atatürk Library, a room of swords and rifles, photographs of the republican period, and spaces hung with carpets on the themes of Atatürk and the War of Independence. The building was damaged in the earthquake of 6 February 2023; the repairs were finished and it opened again on 13 February 2025, the anniversary of Atatürk's arrival in the city. It stands on Atatürk Caddesi and is reached by city transport.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Malatya as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from -0.2 °C in January to 27.2 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in April (55 mm) and lightest in August (4 mm). Long-term means for 1929-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
Visiting hours
- Hours
- 08:30 - 17:00
Getting there
- Access
- City transport reaches it.
