Anitkabir
Mausoleum Of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Completed 1953; A National Monument With A Permanent Military Guard And A Large War Of Independence Museum · Ankara, Ankara
Ataturk died in 1938 and it took fifteen years to finish this. A competition was held, a hill above Ankara was chosen, and the result is a deliberately severe limestone complex approached along a road lined with twenty-four Hittite lions, which was a statement in itself - the new republic claiming an Anatolian ancestry older than the empire it replaced. At the top is a ceremonial plaza the size of a parade ground and a colonnaded hall holding a single forty-tonne marble block, with the actual grave in a chamber below it. Soldiers stand motionless at the entrances and change on the hour. Underneath the plaza runs a very large museum covering the War of Independence, with panoramic dioramas of Gallipoli and Sakarya that Turkish schoolchildren visit in their thousands. Entry is free. This is a national shrine, not a sight, and visitors who treat it as one are noticed. Entry, including the large museum, costs nothing.
Anittepe Mahallesi, Genclik Caddesi, Cankaya, Ankara, Ankara, Turkiye
Open daily and free, with longer summer hours and an earlier winter close. The changing of the guard takes place on the hour. On 10 November, the anniversary of Ataturk's death, the site is given over to national commemoration and is extraordinarily busy; the whole country stops at 09:05 that morning. Large school groups are constant during term.