Historic lighthouse converted to Türkiye’s first lighthouse life museum

YALOVA

Dilburnu Lighthouse, located in Altınova, Yalova in Türkiye’s Marmara region, has become a museum where the story of a lighthouse is told for the first time in Türkiye.

The historical lighthouse, built by the French in 1863 during the Ottoman period, was put out of use with the construction of the Osmangazi Bridge. It was restored by the General Directorate of Coastal Safety and the Transportation Ministry, and turned into a museum by Altınova Municipality.

In the museum, the lighthouse life of the Gündoğdu family, which has been tending to the lighthouse for more than half a century, is told.

"This is the first museum in Türkiye that tells of the life in a lighthouse. We carry out excavations here in the Hersek Delta. We found the remains of a lighthouse dating back to the Roman period in front of this lighthouse. This has been recorded as one of the rare places where two lighthouses are found together," Mayor Metin Oral said.

The last lighthouse caretaker, Fethi Gündoğdu, stated that he started working at the lighthouse in the 1990s, using the right of passage from father to son after his father Ömer Gündoğdu’s 31-32 years of work.

Stating that his father, who was the headman of Hersek village at the time, started working after the lighthouse keeper left his job, Gündoğdu said, "I know this place ever since I was born. I came with my father, we came as a family and stayed here. My father used to come and stay in the winter in bad weather. There was no physical work, but we didn't have a vacation in case of any malfunction."

Gündoğdu stated that the area where the lighthouse is located was previously a forest and the family would commute by a footpath. "We used to plant pepper and tomatoes on the field and bring water from outside. It was something to keep ourselves busy with," he added.