Malıköy is a settlement in the Polatlı district of Ankara on the Ankara–Eskişehir railway, and its station stood in the middle of the ground where the Battle of Sakarya was fought. After the command centre it was the most important base in the battle: everything the army needed came through it, the wounded received their first treatment here, and during the fighting it served as sick bay, ammunition and logistics centre, and military airstrip.
The museum is the station and what has been gathered around it. There is a memorial raised in the name of 5,713 dead, a statue of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in civilian dress, a German-built locomotive of 1897 and a German-built carriage of 1909 — both used during the Battle of Sakarya and restored by the Turkish State Railways — two aircraft built as faithful copies of the machines of the period, and the station building itself.
The sections holding the trains and the aircraft are walked through with the sounds of trains and planes playing, and the War of Independence is presented in sculpture and visual material, alongside a display of the railway equipment used at the time. The site is reached from the 30th kilometre of the Ankara–Eskişehir road, turning at the industrial zone exit and going six kilometres in.
Getting there
- Access
- At the thirtieth kilometre of the Ankara–Eskişehir road, turn off at the organised industrial zone and go six kilometres in.
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).
