Hisart is one man's collection turned into a museum. Nejat Cuhadaroglu founded it in 2014, and the museum states that every one of the thousands of objects in it was gathered by him personally over some thirty years, entirely at his own expense.
The period covered runs from the Seljuks through the conquest of İstanbul in 1453 to the declaration of the republic. What separates Hisart from a conventional military collection is how it is shown: close to four hundred mannequins in original uniform and equipment, staged in dioramas of the sieges of Vienna and Malta, the Crimean War, the defence of Plevna, the Balkan War, the First World War on the Çanakkale, Caucasus, Galicia and Middle East fronts, the War of Independence and the Second World War. The museum describes this as a departure from classical museum practice and as the first of its kind anywhere.
Around the dioramas are thousands of further objects: medals and orders, engravings, paintings and military equipment, along with personal belongings of notable figures and in particular of Ottoman sultans. The collection has also travelled, appearing in exhibitions elsewhere in Türkiye since the museum was founded.
Visiting hours
- Visiting hours
- 10:00–18:00, closed Tuesday
When to go
- Climate
- Across İstanbul as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 6.8 °C in January to 24.7 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in December (99 mm) and lightest in July (22 mm). Long-term means for 1950-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
