Every year on November 10, Turkey celebrates Ataturk Memorial Day.
On this day in 1938, Türkiye lost its hero. The first president and founder of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal, fell into eternal sleep at his residence.
Since then, every year on November 10, at 9:5 a.m. (the exact time of his death), a minute of silence is declared. Cars, buses, trains, ships freeze for a moment, and even planes postpone their departure.
However, in fact, mourning events on the occasion of Kemal’s death continue for two days, November 9 and 10.
During these days, ceremonial ceremonies are held in educational institutions, rehearsals of which begin long before the specified date, and flowers are laid at the monuments to Mustafa Kemal and his grave in Ankara.
Also during this period, entertainment centers are closed, and television only shows programs about Ataturk’s activities. All Turkish citizens honor their hero. Portraits of Ataturk are found everywhere – from huge posters the size of a multi-storey building to his tiny images on the shelves of small traders.
Ataturk's historical role is not only that he united the people of the collapsed empire, carried out large-scale reforms in many areas of government in the shortest possible time, moved the capital from Istanbul to Ankara, introduced secularism in a traditional Islamic country, equalizing women's rights with men and giving them suffrage, but also in that, that in conditions of war and the deepest political crisis in the country, he was able to build a state with such a balanced system of checks and balances that Turkey has been successfully developing on the basis of the principles laid down by the first president for a hundred years.