Stove Museum exhibits the way people lived in the ancient history

ANTALYA

The Stove Museum includes many different style stoves and focuses on the history of how people have used stoves. DHA photos

A museum on the history of stoves might not seem like the likeliest candidate to displace the sun, sea and sand as Antalya’s main tourist draw, but the administrators who recently opened such a facility hope the center can go some way to convincing foreign visitors to seek out culture in the Mediterranean province rather than straight fun.

“We cannot get tourists to leave the hotels. We need to present ourselves more. We need tourists to go outside of the hotels and see the town and its environs,” Antalya Deputy Gov. Recep Yüksel said at the recent opening of the Stove Museum in the provincial center’s Balbey neighborhood.

The southern beach spot attracts 11 million foreign tourists a year, Yüksel said, but added that visitors might leave their all-inclusive hotels more often if there were more points of interest in the city.

“We are aiming to make the Antalya Castle and its environs a center of attraction. We have opened the Stove Museum, the Toy Museum and the Fikret Otyam Art Center. We will be opening an ethnography museum as well and make the area an attraction place for tourists,” he said.

Antalya Metropolitan Mayor Mustafa Akaydın said the museum would help transfer the culture of stoves to future generations. “There is a section for children at the museum. There are also historical lessons such as how humans found fire.”

The museum is displaying stoves constructed of different materials, as well as literary works written by Turkish writers and poets such as Nazım Hikmet, Jalaladdin Rumi, Yaşar Kemal, Cahit Külebi along with the stoves.

The museum also focuses on how the Turkish nation has used fire over the centuries. “When visiting the museum, people will remember many things from their past,” Akaydın said at the opening.

Reflecting civilizations

Antalya is a city of civilizations and the Stove Museum will focus on these characteristics of Antalya, he said, adding that with new, attractive shops in the province, craftspeople and shopkeepers would develop themselves and their shops.

“Stoves are a part of our culture, but they have lost their attraction. We would like to keep the value of stoves alive,” he said, adding that many museums around the world featured a stove section. “This will be the first stove museum of Turkey and it will make us remember our memories as a nation and how we used stoves throughout history.”

 Sunay Akın, a poet and writer that it also a consultant for the museum, also spoke about the new facility, saying: “The Stove Museum tells the story of fire and humans. Stoves mean fire and how humans have used fire. Stoves tell so much about our recent history.”

At the same time, the museum will also relate stories about artisans and their labor, Akın said.

Antalya is not just a holiday destination, said Akın, adding that the museum reflected how Antalya had become a city of civilizations.

The museum’s architecture was designed by architect Okan Kaloğlu, the design work was undertaken by Ayhan Hasan Doğan, while the texts were written by writer Ahmet Çağan.

Akın also said Turkey needed more museums and that everyone had to do their best to open more such venues.