Türkiye’s first thematic cheese museum is drawing tens of thousands of visitors to the eastern Turkish city of Kars, where centuries-old dairy traditions are showcased inside a historic military bastion.
The Kars Cheese Museum, opened in March 2022 inside the historic Cavalry Bastion, welcomed about 72,000 domestic and international visitors in the first seven months of 2026, according to museum director Yeşim Koç.
Koç said the museum expects to surpass 120,000 visitors by the end of the year.
“We are not actually just telling our visitors the story of cheese here,” Koç told Anadolu Agency (AA). “The museum is located inside a bastion with a completely historical texture. So we also take visitors back into the past. We tell them about both the history and the culture of Kars.”
Kars is known for its dairy production, particularly gruyere, string cheese and kashar. The city was designated as the world’s 18th cheese route in 2020 under the "Future is in Tourism" project, a partnership involving the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the United Nations Development Programme and Anadolu Efes.
