The building went up in 1926 as the first ministry building of the Republican period, and it now houses the rectorate of Ankara Social Sciences University. Inside it is the strongroom that Atatürk ordered built to hold the country's currency and gold reserves and other valuables safely — the Republic's first treasury vault.
That vault and the rooms around it have been restored and turned into the ASBÜ Treasury Museum. The restoration was deliberately conservative: the emphasis was on keeping the building as it stood.
What is displayed there are economic documents of the late Ottoman and early Republican periods, together with banknotes from other countries, which between them set out the economic history of the time.
The university announced the conversion in June 2021 and said the museum would open to visitors after a formal opening; a virtual tour is available at muze.asbu.edu.tr.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Ankara as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 0.4 °C in January to 23.6 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in May (52 mm) and lightest in August (13 mm). Long-term means for 1927-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
