Guide
The building that houses the Trabzon Museum is the Kostaki mansion on Zeytinlik Avenue in the Ortahisar district. It was built as a house between 1898 and 1913 by the banker Kostaki Theophylaktos. The names of its architects have not been established, though they are known to have been Italian, and much of the material used in the building was brought from Italy.
When Kostaki Theophylaktos's property was compulsorily taken over in 1917, this house was seized along with the rest of his estate, and the mansion was bought by the Nemlioğlu family.
On his first visit to Trabzon, between 15 and 17 September 1924, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was received in this house together with his wife Latife Hanım and the delegation travelling with him.
The house was expropriated for 25,000 lira in the time of the governor Ali Galip Bey. It served as the government building from 1927 to 1931 and as the offices of the inspectorate from 1931 to 1937.
In 1937 the building was allotted to the Ministry of National Education and served for fifty years as a girls' vocational high school. In 1987 it was allotted to the Ministry of Culture to be laid out as a museum. Restoration was completed between 1988 and 2001, and the house opened as the Trabzon Museum on 22 April 2001.
The mansion is among the notable examples of domestic architecture in Türkiye: apart from the basement, the walls of every floor are covered with painted decoration. The basement is given to the archaeological section, the ground floor to the display of the house itself, the first floor to the ethnographic section and the mezzanine to the administration.
