SS Bandırma and Independence War Museum

Bandırma Vapuru and the National Struggle Park Open Air Museum, a museum located in the Canik district of Samsun and opened on 18 May 2003 under the name Bandırma Vapuru Museum.

Construction phase

The museum project began on 13 November 1999 with the decision of the Samsun Governorship to rebuild the original Bandırma Vapuru faithfully to its dimensions. The construction phase that started in 2000 at Doğupark was undertaken by Taşkınlar Shipbuilding. The building of the ferry was completed on 15 April 2001, using the project of the original ferry, which emerged into daylight in 1960 and is now preserved in the Istanbul Maritime Museum, as a source. The museum, whose official opening was performed by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on 18 May 2003, had its interior work done by Abdi Güzel, and the site work was carried out by the Samsun Metropolitan Municipality in 2000 and 2001.

Also, the National Struggle Panorama consisting of ten reliefs depicting the War of Independence and its decrees, and the National Liberation Monument with seven figures representing Turkey’s seven regions, both added by the Samsun Metropolitan Municipality in 2002, were incorporated into the museum area.

Renovation phase

Renovation works were carried out at the museum and its surroundings between 2005 and 2008. Through these works, various additions and landscape arrangements were made on a 35,000 m² area around the museum, and the name Bandırma Vapuru and National Struggle Park Open Air Museum was given.

The ceramic relief wall depicting the Liberation of İzmir, consisting of three hundred pieces and spreading over a 70 m² area, added to the open air museum called National Struggle Park, is the longest relief in Turkey. The Martyrs Inscription, containing the names of 1,200 people from Samsun and its districts who participated in the War of Independence and fell as martyrs, was also added during the renovations.

Also all the wooden work, ropes and cables, scrapers and paints on the entire ferry have been renewed, the woods on the deck have been refurbished to be resistant to air resistance, new 13 wax statues have been placed, and various cabin arrangements have been made.

Museum rooms

The museum consists of six sections: the furnishing and bedroom, exhibition hall, captain's lodge, captain's cabin and kitchen. In the furnishing hall there are items such as a sailor's clock made in the 1870s, a telephone, a fire extinguisher, a measuring clock, and five wax statues including one of Mustafa Kemal. In the room designed as Mustafa Kemal's bedroom there is also an original radio belonging to Mustafa Kemal.

It is possible to enter and exit the exhibition hall from every side of the ferry, which before the renovation work was used as a warehouse. In the hall are displayed the ferry's original drawings and history, collection photographs belonging to Mustafa Kemal, an original Beylik weapon belonging to Mustafa Kemal, and copies of congress resolutions written in Mustafa Kemal's own handwriting. There is also a system that enables a cinevision presentation and seating groups.

In the captain's lodge there is a wax statue representing the ferry's captain İsmail Hakkı Durusu and a balance compass from 1887. No special items are placed in the captain's cabin. In the kitchen, which is the ferry's last section, there is a coal stove.