A museum displaying ancient doors will debut in the İskilip district of Çorum. The first of its kind in Turkey, the doors are taken from the historical houses in the district.
The Central Anatolian province of Çorum will be home to Turkey’s first door museum. The museum will be established in the İskilip district, which is famous for its wooden houses, centuries old fountains and historic structures.
İskilip Mayor Numan Sezer said that restoration work began two years ago on historical structures in the district and all mansions, houses and Ottoman bazaars with historic value had been restored.
Sezer said the municipality’s restoration team received their education at Kastamonu University and established a restoration workshop within the body of the municipality. Restoration work first started with the shoe, saddle and copper bazaar, which is over 200 years old and still in operation. Two mansions in the district’s well-known Temenna area have also been restored and opened to tourism as the Çatalkara Culture and Arts House and the Yazmalı Mansion.
“We also restored one more mansion in this area and we plan to use it as the Ethnography Museum. The municipality will restore old structures that it has purchased in various districts as well. Our restoration atelier is working non-stop. We want to open the Scholars of İskilip Museum, where products from old artists will be displayed.”
The mayor said that life still continues in most of the historic mansions and structures of İskilip. “The doors of such structures have historic value and we have enumerated all these historic doors in the district to establish Turkey’s first door museum. Visitors will enter the district through a very big door as part of this project. They will go on a tour of the city according to a travel map that we have prepared. They will also visit already restored structures,” Sezer said, adding that they had also bought the structures in the historic İskilip Castle and that the castle would be restored and opened to tourism as well.
Project to draw tourists
Citing Turkish districts like Beypazarı and Safranbolu as models, Sezer said that the number of tourists visiting İskilip increased tenfold from the past and that their number would continue to increase with an increase in tourist accommodations.
“When our project is done, I estimate that we will be able to handle Beypazarı and Safranbolu over the next 10 years. Our activities are not only limited to historical and cultural structures. Our district is home to the graves of some scholars and people are flocking to these graves,” Sezer said.
