Writer: Ayça Olcaytu İşçen
April 2007

Visiting the Culture Museum built in Ortahisar with great effort by two young entrepreneurs from Ankara, brings your childhood memories to life. It fills you with happiness as if you have returned to those days especially if you grew up in a village. We visited Berrin Yıldız and Murat Sarıkaya in order to listen to the story of the museum where life-like models are used to illustrate the daily life scenes in Cappadocia and which has been visited by 12 thousand tourists.

During a trip when Murat Sarıkaya and Berrin Yıldız, who own a computer firm in Ankara, were exploring Cappadocia again, they got acquainted with uncle Ali Osman from Ortahisar. Companionable Ali Osman Uncle increased their interest by talking about the traditions of the Cappadocian people. After a lenght of time uncle Ali Osman passed away in 1999. When they were visiting his family to give their condolences, the idea of living in Cappadocia occured to them for the first time. Through contacts of their friends, they bought an old house overlooking Erciyes Mountain and Ortahisar Castle, without even viewing the interior of the building. Whenever they visited Cappadocia to oversee the restoration of the house, they got engaged in conversations about the local folklore. Finally they decided to rent a stone building dated 1956 in the center of Ortahisar in order to establish a folklore museum. This is when the real adventure began. Murat Sarıkaya summarizes this period:
“We thought that the traditions should be told to people. All the required investigations were done, preliminary studies were ready; the idea of using life-like models and staging of the scenarios belongs to Ms. Yıldız.  She wrote 48 scenarios. However since we have only 12 rooms in the museum, we had to reduce them to 12. We received assistance from the experts about making the models, lighting and set design; after working long and hard, we opened the museum.

The mother in law’s gaze at the bride
The museum gives information about Cappadocia’s general life by staging scenes such as; carving houses and churches into stone, agricultural life, a traditional kitchen, making grape molasses, spinnig cotton from wool, carpet and kilim weaving, printing techniques, a Turkish bath, an old village square, a village house room, an engagement meeting, a henna ceremony, and a bride’s room. The scenario and the life-like models are done so well that the mother in law’s gaze to the bride stays with you. Great attention was paid to the details of the materials which were mostly gathered from Ortahisar and extra care was taken to use real materials from the clothes, the coverings to the instruments used in agriculture. If they wish, the visitors can get their photos taken in front of a screen covered with old black material with Ortahisar Hatırası (memory of Ortahisar) written on it.

Some people get very touched
According to Berrin Yıldız 12 thousand tourists have visited the museum in the last two years and she summarised their interests and responses:
“We try to have a chat with every visitor and ask if they liked it and what else they would like to see. 90 percent of replies are positive. However the younger age group is not very interested. There are people who are in and out of the museum within 7 minutes while some stay for 1,5-2 hours. Elderly people are more interested, some of them get very touched, embracing us and crying. There are different responses locally. They find it interesting to have a museum in a small town of Turkey. I think, every region should have such a museum where the locals can express their identity. If we consider the standards in Turkey, we accomplished a miraculous achievement. Providing a presentation with this style especially in a touristic town like Nevşehir for the first time, brought a good response. We received some criticism from people who were expecting to see a traditional museum with all its antiques and materials from excavations. Some local people even accused us calling them ancient.

It has also a cafe-restaurant
Berrin Yıldız and Murat Sarıkaya saw the necessity of a good quality restaurant for the people visiting the museum and Ortahisar. The menu includes testi kebap (kebab cooked in an earthware pot), Ortahisar style saç kavurma (a savioury flat thin bread), sirloin steak wrapping, mushroom speciality and pumpkin dessert. The Uzbek tea that comes from Uzbekistan and drank with a ceremony is also interesting.

For further information: www.culturemuseum.com

Note: This article has been published in Peribacası Cappadocia Culture and Publicity Magazine, April 2007 issue. It is under protection of the copyrights of the magazine. No part of this article may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by electronic, mechanical or other means without prior permission from the owner. www.cappadociaexplorer.com