The fairy-tale museum in Yakacık, Kartal, is designed the way its subject deserves: the stage designer Ayhan Doğan laid it out as a pop-up book, so the rooms open around the visitor instead of lining up as cases. Kartal municipality set it up as the first museum of its kind in Turkey, meant for children and adults together and aimed partly at getting people reading.
The collection is built on toys gathered by Sunay Akın from collectors in Turkey and abroad, chosen for what they say about the history of Turkish and world folk tales, and shown alongside first editions by leading writers of Turkish and world literature. Sculpture is part of the visit rather than an afterthought, both indoors and in the garden: figures of many fairy-tale characters stand about the place, and the one the museum singles out is the statue of Hans Christian Andersen in the library section, said to be the first of him in the country. There is a café in the garden.
Entry is free and group visits need an appointment. The museum is closed on public holidays, and there is nowhere to eat inside.
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).
Visiting hours
- Hours
- 08:30 - 17:00, closed Monday
