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Hasanoğlan Village Institute and the Mountain Air of Elmadağ
Cultural

Hasanoğlan Village Institute and the Mountain Air of Elmadağ

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About 34 kilometres east of Ankara, at 1,200 metres on the slopes of İdris Dağı, lies Hasanoğlan, today the most populous neighbourhood of the Elmadağ district.

Elmadağ, Ankara
Cultural
Radar Editör
September 30, 2026

About Trip

About 34 kilometres east of Ankara, at 1,200 metres on the slopes of İdris Dağı, lies Hasanoğlan, today the most populous neighbourhood of the Elmadağ district. The town's name is bound up with one of the most talked-about experiments in the history of Turkish education: the Hasanoğlan Village Institute, opened here in 1941, and the Higher Village Institute founded within it in 1942. The wide campus beside the railway, with its stone buildings raised by the students' own hands and one of the first open-air theatres in Anatolia, is the setting of a school that left its mark despite a short life. This trip is for those who want to spend the morning around that campus and the afternoon in the mountain air of Elmadağ.

Getting there

Hasanoğlan lies close to the highway that runs east from Ankara towards Kırıkkale and Samsun, northeast of the Elmadağ district centre. The Ankara Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism puts the Elmadağ centre 41 kilometres from Ankara; Hasanoğlan, according to Wikipedia, is 34 kilometres east of the city. The Ankara-Kars railway passes through the town, and Hasanoğlan Station, opened in 1925 by the Anatolian-Baghdad Railways, stands right next to the campus; the station, however, is out of use today and no passenger train stops here. The eastern terminus of the Başkentray commuter line is Kayaş; beyond that, check EGO's current list for bus and minibus routes from Ankara towards Elmadağ and Hasanoğlan. The campus is in the town's İstasyon neighbourhood; once you find the old station building, the institute's tree-lined grounds come into view.

The founding of a school

The Village Institutes were established by Law No. 3803 of 17 April 1940; the aim was to train teachers for village schools under the village's own conditions and in the midst of production. In the five-year programme half of the teaching went to general subjects, a quarter to agricultural work and a quarter to technical courses; the students built their own schools. According to the Turkish Encyclopaedia of Education (Türk Maarif Ansiklopedisi), the commission that searched for a site for Ankara's institute settled on the village of Hasanoğlan in Elmadağ, and the school opened in 1941. Wikipedia records it as the fifteenth village institute to open; the first student body was formed by 266 students who came from the Kepirtepe Village Institute in Kırklareli. Classes began provisionally on 23 May 1941 in the village's three-classroom primary school; according to the New Generation Village Institute Alumni Association, the foundations of the permanent campus were laid on 10 July of the same year and the first buildings were completed in 1942.

What set Hasanoğlan apart from the other institutes was the Higher Village Institute opened within it in the 1942-1943 academic year. This three-year upper level was designed to train teachers and inspectors for the other institutes, to give in-service training to institute staff and to serve as a centre for village studies. Students were divided into branches such as fine arts, building, mining, animal husbandry, poultry, village domestic work and crafts, field and garden agriculture, and farm management. The teaching staff came from the Faculty of Language, History and Geography, the Higher Agricultural Institute, the Gazi Institute of Education and the State Conservatory; the botanist Hikmet Birand, the historian Enver Ziya Karal and the musician Ruhi Su were among them. The folk poet Aşık Veysel is also counted among those who taught at the institute for a time. In 1944 a two-year health branch was added as well.

A campus built by students

The most striking feature of the campus is that most of its buildings were constructed by the students themselves. According to the Turkish Encyclopaedia of Education, a national architectural competition was held for the campus plan and the project by Kemal Ahmet Aru, Adnan Kuruyazıcı and Orhan Safa won. On the construction site, teams of thirty to forty teachers and students from the other village institutes worked in rotation. A study published in 2021 in the TÜBA Journal of Cultural Inventory records that the campus rose, from its first building to its last, through the labour of students and instructors from the fourteen institutes founded earlier, that local building techniques were used, and it examines the workshop, school, refectory and music buildings one by one. The young architect Mualla Eyüboğlu was in charge of the building works and in 1943 designed the campus's open-air theatre; the New Generation Village Institute Alumni Association describes this amphitheatre as the first open-air theatre built in Anatolia. By 1945 there were more than forty structures on the campus: dormitories, teachers' houses, a cinema hall, a music building, a bathhouse, workshops, stables and the amphitheatre among them. According to the association, the campus spread over some 600 dönüm of land; a good part of the infrastructure, from the water supply to the farmland, was the students' work too. Wikipedia notes that in 1945 the institute owned 259 mandolins and 55 violins; music was part of this school's daily life.

Closure and afterwards

The Higher Village Institute was closed in 1947; its students were transferred to other institutions. According to Wikipedia the school operated until 27 November 1947 and in that time produced 678 teachers, 774 health officers and 213 graduates of the higher section; the Turkish Encyclopaedia of Education confirms the figure of 213 graduates over the three cohorts between 1944 and 1947. The village institutes were converted into primary teacher training schools in 1954, and Hasanoğlan became one the same year. In the following decades the campus was used by various educational institutions, and part of it stood empty. According to the New Generation Village Institute Alumni Association, the grounds today hold a police vocational training centre, a police vocational college, a science high school, an imam hatip high school and a family health centre; the open-air theatre has been restored true to its original form and is still used for events. The protection and re-use of the campus has been on the agenda of public institutions in recent years; survey, restitution and restoration projects are under discussion.

What to see and how to visit

Because the campus is used by educational institutions today, entering it depends on their permission; plan your visit from the outside. From the İstasyon neighbourhood you can walk the roads that ring the campus and see the facades of the buildings, the groves within the wide grounds and the old station building. The association writes that the amphitheatre is still used for events; for the commemorations around 17 April, the anniversary of the founding of the Village Institutes, follow the announcements of the association and of Elmadağ Municipality, since on those days the theatre is open to visitors. Early morning is best for photographs; the sun comes from the east, over İdris Dağı. The town itself is worth seeing too: an old village that appears in 16th-century Ottoman records as Hasanoğlanı, it became a municipality in 1953 and in 2008, when its municipality was closed, it was attached to Elmadağ as a neighbourhood. Today it is a town of 18,000 people divided into six neighbourhoods; houses with gardens spread across the slopes and the railway curving below give the town its character.

Elmadağ and its nature

Set the afternoon aside for Elmadağ itself. The district takes its name from the mountain beside it: according to Wikipedia, Elmadağ rises to 1,862 metres and its neighbour İdris Dağı to 1,995 metres; the district centre stands at around 1,100 metres. According to the history published by Elmadağ Municipality, the settlement's name in 16th-century Ottoman records was Yozgat; it became Küçük Yozgat in 1928, took the mountain's name, Elmadağ, in 1941 and gained district status on 1 April 1960. The Ankara Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism writes that Phrygian and Lydian traces in the area continued until 547 BC, that Persian and Roman rule followed, and that Turkish settlement began from 1071 onwards; the same source counts carpet weaving, hand-woven kilims, saddlebags and bag making among the district's traditional crafts. The Kargalı stream, fed by snow and rain gathered from the mountains, flows north and joins the Kızılırmak. The climate is continental; winters are harsh and snow can lie on the ground from November to April.

On the mountain's northern slope facing Ankara, 17 kilometres southeast of the city, is the Elmadağ Ski Centre. The runs lie between 1,500 and 1,850 metres on open, treeless terrain; a 548-metre T-bar lift and 700 metres of piste in total serve skiers from January to March, and the snow depth in season is between 30 and 60 centimetres. The facilities are shared by the Provincial Directorate of Youth and Sports and the ski lodges of several universities. In spring and summer the same slopes are used for hiking; the facilities are kept open all year. To get from Hasanoğlan to the ski centre you need to head back towards Ankara and follow the mountain road; in winter chains and winter tyres are a must. Since the season and facility details can change, check the current situation in the announcements of the Ankara Provincial Directorate of Youth and Sports.

Season and time of day

Hasanoğlan stands at 1,200 metres; cold and snow rule in winter, the dry heat of the steppe in summer. Spring and autumn are the best times to see the campus and the town: the trees are green or yellow and the weather suits walking. Choose January to March for the ski centre and May to October for mountain walks. Touring the surroundings of the institute in the morning and the mountain in the afternoon is the order that makes the best use of daylight; on the way back, try to reach Ankara's traffic before the evening rush.

Practical notes

  • Entry to the campus depends on the permission of the institutions there; look from the outside, do not enter through the gates without permission and do not photograph the students.
  • Hasanoğlan Station is out of use; for public transport, check EGO's current route list.
  • The ski centre's season, piste and fee details change every year; check the official announcements before you go.
  • The mountain road ices over in winter; keep chains in the car and return before dark.
  • Bring sturdy shoes, a windbreaker and water for walking; there is little shade on the slopes.

Sources

Location - Hasanoğlan Village Institute and the Mountain Air of Elmadağ

Trip Info
CityElmadağ, Ankara
TypeCultural
DateSeptember 30, 2026
SourceRadar Editör
Radar TürkiyeAuthorRadar TürkiyeVisit SourceGet Directions