Şevket Dağ, “The Bosphorus”,
oil painting, 1933.

With a presence all over Turkey today and in its capacity as the only local financial services provider in some four hundred small towns, the contributions that Ziraat Bank makes to the community manifest themselves in many different ways. The Bank will continue to add value to the community and to take a multidimensional approach to supporting social development through activities capable of having a broad social impact.

Protecting cultural values
For a century and a half, Ziraat Bank has been consistently supporting culture and the arts through a spirit of social collaboration.

Supporting the arts is a Ziraat Bank tradition.
The support that Ziraat Bank has been giving to art and artists since the day it was founded is summed up in its slogan “In Art For Art”. The Bank continues to take part in and support artistic activities in a variety of ways.

In the 1990s Ziraat Bank began adding new links to the chain of its support for the arts by opening its Mithatpaşa, Kuğulu, Tünel, and Kızıltan Ulukavak art galleries and with the inauguration of the Ömer Nafi Güvenli Exhibition Hall. The 42 shows held at the Kuğulu and Mithatpaşa galleries in Ankara and at the Tünel gallery in İstanbul were visited by more than 40 thousand people during the 2012-2013 season.

Ziraat Bank sponsored the making of “The Butterfly’s Dream”, a feature-length movie released in 2013 that explores a socioculturally important period of Turkey’s history.

Turkey’s first museum devoted to banking
Located in the ceremonial hall of the Bank’s original headquarters building in the Ulus district of Ankara, the Ziraat Bank Museum opened its doors to the public on 20 November 1981. On display at this museum, the first in Turkey to be devoted entirely to banking, are artifacts representing the century and a half during which Ziraat Bank was a personal witness to momentous events in every stage of the history of the Turkish Republic.

The Ziraat Bank Museum offers a panoramic view of the commercial, economic, political, cultural, artistic, and educational transformations that the Turkish banking industry has undergone since the beginning down to the present day. On display for visitors to this historic setting are a host of objects and materials highlighting the progress and development of banking in Turkey.

Ziraat Bank plans to relocate the banking museum currently occupying the ceremonial hall of the Bank’s former headquarters in Ulus to new premises in the former Ankara Adakale nursery school, which is being redesigned in line with the latest museological concepts and practices. With its planned exhibition space of 710 m², the new museum will make it possible to show visitors a much bigger selection of Ziraat Bank’s rich art and artefact collection.

Once the museum has been relocated, the Ulus building’s ceremonial hall will be refitted once again in keeping with its erstwhile mission as it continues to bear witness to history.

Enhancing value to society: The Ziraat Bank Art Collection
Ever since its inception as Turkey’s first nationally-owned bank in the last quarter of the 19th century, Ziraat Bank has always included cultivation of the arts as an item on its developmental agenda.

From the day it first opened its doors, Ziraat Bank has been commissioning famous contemporary artists to produce sculptures and large-scale paintings for addition to its collection. Indeed Ziraat Bank was the first institution in Turkey to do so. Today the Bank’s art collection is tremendously important both for its intrinsic artistic value and as a panorama of the history of Turkish painting and sculpture.

The works that make up the Ziraat Bank Collection begin with examples from the early 19th century that bear the historical stamp of Ottoman-period society while embracing its progressive development. They continue with others that bear witness to the developmental changes that the arts have gone through ever since, right down to the present day. Indeed some of the works in the collection are the iconic hallmarks of the contemporary arts of their time.

The Ziraat Bank Art Collection is a vast treasure-trove of works ranging from Romantic landscapes to Impressionist and Symbolist interpretations, from Expressionist approaches to Cubist explorations, from the bold abstractions of the Paris School to Gestural and Geometrical Abstraction, and from compositions rooted in traditional values and social realities to avant-garde experimentation and the works of Modernist and Postmodern artists.

Beside serving as an exemplar of a conscientious art collector, Ziraat Bank’s commitment to being a pioneer in society’s cultural progress is shown by the way in which it shares the works in its collection with the public through the comprehensive exhibitions that it organizes and through a book that documents the implications and results of informed, proper, sound, and methodically- and systematically-supported collecting that is consistent with artistic criteria.

The Ziraat Bank art collection consists of more than 2,500 works, the majority of which are oil paintings but which also include watercolors, gouaches, pastels, prints, ceramics, and sculptures. The collection continues to be enriched through acquisitions from among works exhibited by artists at Ziraat Bank’s galleries.

A project is currently under way to restore a 19th-century building located in İstanbul’s Cağaloğlu district that is owned by the Bank. When completed, this venerable structure will serve as the Ziraat Bank Museum of Painting and Sculpture, a venue in which the Bank will continue to support culture and art by making the precious works in its collection accessible to art lovers.

Ziraat Bank is the owner and conserving protector of cultural-heritage buildings located in Ankara and İstanbul as well as many other cities that are landmarks in the history of Turkish architecture.

There are fifty-two listed and protected monuments belonging to the Bank that were erected after 1910 and are still in active use. Through maintenance and repair work that is faithful to these buildings’ original architectural spirit, Ziraat Bank plays a part in protecting the cultural heritage.

Ziraat Turkish Cup: Supporting sport
Recognizing the mass appeal of football in Turkey, Ziraat Bank has been the name sponsor of the Turkish Cup for five years since the 2009/2010 season. Undertaken by the Bank as a social responsibility project, this involvement in Turkish football is a step forward for society to have a healthy future to the betterment of the sport through such efforts as the “Ziraat Turkish Cup Football Machine” advertisement that seeks to combat the mounting tide of stadium hooliganism by promoting messages of good sportsmanship and amicability among fans.

Two first prizes for “Ziraat Turkish Cup Football Machine”
The “Ziraat Turkish Cup Football Machine” TV spot received two accolades in the “Sports Industry of the Year” series of awards in four categories and twelve branches. In an awards ceremony conducted during the Turkish Sports Industry Summit, whose theme was “Sport In Brand Perception” and which was hosted by Istanbul Commerce University, the advertisement received awards in the “Sports Communication Of The Year” and “Sports Communication Message Of The Year” categories.

Support for scholarly publications
Under the Yunus Emre Institute’s “100 Turkish Libraries” project, which was launched in 2012, Ziraat Bank makes an important contribution to scholarly research by supporting the establishment of one hundred Turkish libraries in different countries around the world.

“Kids On Vacation / School Under Repairs”
“Kids On Vacation / School Under Repairs” is a social responsibility project through which schools are being improved in government-designated “Priority Developments Regions”. Under this project, Ziraat Bank makes an important contribution to the future of the country by fixing up and fitting out its children’s schools.

Ziraat Bank was a gold sponsor of the First International Turkish Congress on Children and Media in 2013. On the occasion of this congress, a “Declaration on Children and Media” was prepared and published.

“Seyyah: Ulu Çınarın İzinde” Project
First introduced in the summer of 2012 with Ziraat Bank support to contribute to the personnel and social development of economically deprived children and youths by taking them on trips to interesting places around the country, the second season of the program took place in 2013.

Through the “Vocational Education Project for Women”, economically deprived girls and women are taught vocational skills.

Enhancing value to society: 2013 TRT Documentary Awards
Ziraat Bank acted as a name sponsor for the 2013 TRT Documentary Awards.

E-learning for children
Owing to diminishing natural resources, to economic hardships, and to environmental pollution and the problems it creates, thrift confronts us as an issue of increasingly greater importance.

Ziraat Bank has prepared a series of e-learning materials for children in order to make them aware of thrift while also itself investing in the future of a world that can be at peace with itself. These materials are accessible as interactive distance learning modules on the Bank’s website. Their aim is to help children everywhere to learn, gain awareness, and improve themselves while having fun.

Dubbed “Information Islands”, the series consists of individual learning modules called “Money & Bank Island”, “Thrift Island”, “Borrowing & Credit Card Island”, and “Budget Island”. As children play through these games, they learn about such things as the relationship between money and banks, how banks function, online and telephone banking, how to borrow and use credit cards wisely, and how to make economical use of all resources from money to electricity and water.

E-learning for farmers
In keeping with its mission to support agriculture, Ziraat Bank has prepared a series of e-learning materials for use by farmers.

By educating farmers about modern irrigation practices, the Bank introduces them to methods such as drip irrigation that are more efficient and cause less environmental harm while also informing them about which methods are suitable for which crops. This not only helps farmers reduce their costs but also ensures that water resources are used more effectively and that the environmental effects of uncontrolled and excessive irrigation are prevented.

By educating farmers about agricultural insurance and its importance, the Bank makes them aware of ways to manage the risks that confront them and how to continue their operations by ensuring that their losses are covered when such risks materialize.

Eco-awareness
The “Green Camera Short Film Festival” is organized by the Turkish Environmental Protection Foundation in order to draw university students’ attention to environmental issues and to inform the public at large about them. In keeping with its sense of social responsibility, Ziraat Bank supports this festival as well as the foundation’s other activities and publications, including a magazine.

Goals for the future:

• The Ziraat Bank Banking Museum will be relocated to new premises in the former Ankara Adakale nursery school, which is being redesigned in line with the latest museological concepts and practices so as to show visitors a much bigger selection of the Bank’s rich art and artefact collection.
• The Ziraat Bank Museum of Painting and Sculpture will be opened.