Tekirdağ Muratlı Atatürk House Museum

Muratlı, in Tekirdağ province, was created as a planned village in the mid-1930s to settle Turks who had migrated from Bulgaria, under the population-exchange provisions that trace back to the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. Streets were laid out at right angles north of the railway, and every house had a garden.

On 3 June 1936, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk came to see how the new homes were progressing. He was hosted by a migrant family in a house opposite the railway station and sat in its garden. The family's daughter served him coffee, and he was pleased with the neat, well-furnished house. Before leaving he wrote a short verse for the girl, urging the migrants never to forget that day.

That house, a mudbrick building with three rooms and a kitchen in the İstiklal quarter of Muratlı, was expropriated by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, restored to its original design and opened as a museum. Inside, you will find photographs of Atatürk's arrival, ethnographic objects from the region and documentaries about the War of Independence period. A monument in the garden records his visit.