Mustafa Kemal Ataturk – the memorial museum is located at 1,200 meters a.s.l. over the karst countryside in village Kodzadzik (Коџаџик) in Municipality Centar Zupa (Центар Жупа). It’s was built in 2009 on the foundations of the family house of great Turkish reformer and statesman.
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk grandfather on his father’s side – Hafız Ahmet Efendi, was from Kocacık Yörüks (a nomadic shepherd tribe from Anatolia) that had come from Konya and Aydın and settled at Kocacık in Macedonia in the XIV – XV cent.
Hafız Ahmet Efendi settled in “Tshli Maala” (Ташли Маала, Tashli neighborhood) which means “stone neighborhood”.
House of Ataturk’s family, according its volume and characteristics, differed from all other houses in Tashli neighborhood. It was the largest and most beautiful, which indicates that Ataturk originated from a rich family.
The Family house of Kemal Ataturk in the 19th century was built by his grandfather Kazli Hafiz Ahmed (Казли Хафиз Ахмед), who in this area came as a Turkish soldier “dervendzhija” (soldiers that kept roads, bridges, and crossings where had passed the traders). He stayed here and founded the Turkish neighborhood over the flat part of the village, which lived under special customs.
Ataturk’s father Ali Riza Efendi, seeking for better life decided to move to Thessaloniki, and Ataturk was born in 1881 in the “Pink” house on Islahana street, in Thessaloniki district Kodja Kasim Pasha.
As it is told among villagers in Kodzadzik, Ataturk although yearned to visit his family home, he never came to Kodzadzik.
The reconstruction of the family houses of Ataturk was made on a base of an old photograph, which was in the possession of the last remaining female descendant living in Debar. On the location “Tashli neighborhood” are built two houses based on authentic base – one of Ali Riza Efendi, and the other, the family house.
The first is reconstructed as an ethnological house with furniture that captures the former setting. The family house, shows the history of Kodzadzik, with a section dedicated to the ancestors of Ataturk. In one of the rooms is represented Ataturk as a soldier and a statesman.
To Kodzadzik in Zupa municipality, you can arrive from the narrow mountain road, on which right side stretches view of Debar and Debar Lake. From the village center to Tashli neighborhood on the hill, leads a new asphalt road.
