Turks turn to home comforts of Atatürk's secular rule

A few weeks ago, Ozlem Karakus, her son Ali and cousin Cansu made the long drive from Ankara in Turkey to Thessaloniki in Greece.

- Helena Smith

Their threeday odyssey had a single goal: to get to the three-storey, Ottoman-style building on Apostolou Pavlou Street in the city where Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish republic, was born and spent his early years. "He is our father," Karakus said of the soldierstatesman who created the modern nation from the ruins of the Ottoman empire. "Atatürk is incredibly important to us. He is the best leader who ever came into this world."

For the 43-year-old tax inspector, it was a "dream come true" to visit the house. "It was wonderful even if I would have liked to have seen more from his childhood, a few more belongings, a few more personal effects."

Few places are as indicative of Atatürk's enduring appeal as the pink-walled abode where Turkey's first president is thought to have been born in the spring of 1881.

"Since January around 430,000 people have visited the house," said an official at the Turkish consulate general, which shares grounds with the museum and oversees its daily management. "There are days when up to 6,000 visitors arrive, many on special tours in buses from Turkey, and the queues are very big."