The city history museum of Taşköprü is in a barracks, and the barracks explains itself. After Mahmud II abolished the janissary corps in 1826 and built a new army in its place, that army proved too small for the empire's borders; to provide security without pulling labour off the land, a part-time force was designed to support the regular army, and the Redif units were created in 1834.
This building went up in the 1890s as a Redif battalion building. When the Redif units were abolished after 1912 in the reorganisation of the Ottoman army, it continued in military use for a long period and was later turned into a Ministry of Health clinic. After the clinic closed, the building passed to Taşköprü municipality in 2007, was restored, and opened as the city museum in 2017.
Getting there
- Access
- Kastamonu to Taşköprü is forty-five kilometres, thirty to forty minutes. Dolmuş leave Kastamonu's Cevizli Park for Taşköprü every fifteen minutes. The museum is in the centre of Taşköprü.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Kastamonu as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from -0.9 °C in January to 20.2 °C in July; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in May (75 mm) and lightest in February (27 mm). Long-term means for 1930-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
