Erzurum Kongre Binası

The Erzurum Congress Building is the historic building that hosted the Erzurum Congress, which met between 23 July and 7 August 1919. Today the building houses two museums together; the congress hall is devoted to memories of the congress and the national struggle, while the other sections belong to the Erzurum Painting and Sculpture Museum. The building stands on Kongre Caddesi in the northern part of the city centre. The Culture Portal writes that it was built in the 19th century by Mıgırdiç Sanasaryan and served as Sanasaryan College. Because sources give different dates for the founding of the school and the construction of the building, it can simply be described as a school building from the second half of the 19th century. According to the tourism guide of the Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, the congress met under the chairmanship of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. The guide notes that the congress went down in history as regional in terms of the reason it was convened and national in terms of the decisions it took. The same source stresses that the Erzurum Congress accelerated the process leading to the Sivas Congress and to the founding of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. According to the Culture Portal, 56 delegates from Trabzon, Erzurum, Sivas, Bitlis and Van attended the congress. The TDV Encyclopedia of Islam also traces the road to the congress step by step. In March 1919 the Erzurum branch of the Society for the Defence of the National Rights of the Eastern Provinces was opened, and Kazım Karabekir Paşa, appointed commander of the XV Corps, arrived in the city on 3 May 1919. Mustafa Kemal Paşa reached Erzurum on 3 July 1919 as inspector of the Third Army. During the congress Mustafa Kemal Paşa and his companions stayed in a mansion about a kilometre from this building, which today is the Atatürk House Museum. The building's life after the congress is a long history as a school. According to the Culture Portal, the building suffered a fire at the end of 1924 and its wooden section burned down completely. Once repaired, it opened in 1926 as Gazi Primary School and was later used as a fine arts high school and a social sciences high school. Wikipedia relates that in the intervening years the building also served as a building trades school and a science high school, and that the congress hall opened to visitors as a separate museum in 1960. Restored by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey between 2011 and 2013, the building was handed over at the end of 2014 to the General Directorate of Fine Arts of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The Erzurum Painting and Sculpture Museum has an older story of its own. The museum was founded in 1963 under the Ministry of National Education in the Public Education Centre building, was attached to the Ministry of Culture in 1976 and moved to a new cultural centre in 1986. According to the Culture Portal, the museum has been housed in the Congress Building since 2016. Its painting collection offers examples from different periods of Turkish painting, with works by artists such as Şeref Akdik, Bahattin Akay, Mustafa Aslıer, Halis Üstündağ and Hüseyin Yüce. Wikipedia states that the collection consists of 152 pieces, including 76 paintings. The most important part of the visit is the congress hall. According to the Culture Portal, the hall contains a copy of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's identity card, the chairman's seat he occupied and tables bearing the names of the delegates. Portraits on the walls tell the life stories of the delegates. When you enter the hall, we suggest looking first at the chairman's table and then following the names on the tables to see who came from which province. Afterwards you can spend time in the painting gallery on the walls devoted to painters of the Republican period. The wide lawn and square in front of the building leave enough distance to photograph the whole facade. The light-coloured plastered facade, the rows of round-arched windows and the dark stone pilasters at the corners are the features that make the building recognisable from outside. Kongre Caddesi is close to the city centre, and the building is easy to find on foot or by public transport passing through the centre. Visiting it on the same day as the Atatürk House Museum lets you see the two places of the congress together. Visiting days and hours may change, so check the current information on the Culture Portal or on the ministry page of the museum.