A 92-year-old retired public servant in Diyarbakır, southeastern Türkiye, has transformed one room of his home into a living archive, preserving more than six decades of professional memories through carefully cataloged gifts and collected items from across the country.
Kazım Ertaş, a father of 4 who served for many years under the General Directorate of Highways, worked in numerous provinces throughout Türkiye, including Batman, Mardin and Şırnak, all in southeastern Türkiye. During his assignments, Ertaş earned widespread respect within local communities, often receiving antique and commemorative items from colleagues and residents as tokens of appreciation.
Rather than treating the objects as ordinary keepsakes, Ertaş adopted a systematic approach to preservation. Beginning in 1965, he recorded the date and the name of the person who gifted each item, creating a personal archival method rooted in institutional memory and emotional continuity. Following his retirement, he settled in Diyarbakır in 2004, where he now displays the collection in a dedicated room of his three-bedroom home in the Sur district of Diyarbakır.
Ertaş said the practice of documentation was driven by respect rather than collection-building ambition. He noted that gifts carried personal value beyond their material worth and that writing details directly on the items ensured their stories would not be lost over time.
Ertaş added that much of his career was spent in Cizre, a district of Şırnak in southeastern Türkiye, where he received a significant number of the items now on display. Over time, his growing collection attracted the attention of friends and visitors, many of whom later contributed additional pieces after recognizing his commitment to preservation.
Describing the room as an informal museum, Ertaş said each object triggers memories of people and places from different stages of his life. Some evoke sadness, others gratitude, but all serve as reminders of human connection formed through public service.
Living alone while his wife stays with their daughter due to health reasons, Ertaş said he occasionally reflects on the future of the collection. Despite these concerns, he emphasized that the respect and affection shown by neighbors, visitors and family members outweigh any uncertainty about what comes next.
Ertaş said he continues to collect items of interest and hopes to further expand the room, reinforcing his belief that personal history, when preserved with care, can carry meaning well beyond a single lifetime.
