|
Rest Day: Visit to Dolmabahçe Palace |
|
Wednesday, 11 March 2009 |
On the first free day of the İş Bank Atatürk FIDE Women Grand Prix which was on Wednesday, the players visited Dolmabahçe Palace, the late-Ottomon monument in the heart of Bosphorus and Istanbul.
Dolmabahçe (Dolmabahche) Palace is the place the eminent founder and the first President of the Turkish Republic Mustafa Kemal Atatürk spent his last days and died in one of the chambers inside the palace.
The Dolmabahçe Palace (Turkish: Dolmabahçe Sarayı) in Istanbul, Turkey, located at the European side of the Bosporus, served as the main administrative center of the Ottoman Empire from 1853 to 1922, apart from a twenty-year interval (1889-1909) in which the Yıldız Palace was used.
The major part of the visit was to Atatürk's bedroom.
the founder and first president of the Republic of Turkey, also the founder of İş Bank, i.e. corporate sponsor of the Turkish Chess Federation and the first event of FIDE Women Grand Prix. Atatürk, spent his last days in the
palace as his health deteriorated. Atatürk died at 9:05 a.m. on
November 10, 1938, in a bedroom that is now part of the museum. All the
clocks in the palace were set to that time at 9:05 a.m. However, this
has changed recently and clocks are set on different times around the
palace. The clock in the room is still pointing to 9:05 a.m.
|
