The fourth largest private yacht in the world, Savarona that belonged to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey , will soon become a floating museum . The Hurriyet newspaper reported that the Minister of Culture and Tourism turkish Omer Celik has met a few days ago, the owner of the boat , the entrepreneur Kahraman Sadikoglu , to discuss purchase. In September 2010, the boat was at the center of a scandal when police discovered that it worked aboard a tour of young prostitutes and pimps . Gendarmerie officers raided the Savarona and arrested 14 people, including Russian and Ukrainian girls , including minors , and foreign businessmen including the well-known Kazakh businessman Tevfik Arif , advisor to the government of Astana, who had rented the yacht for a week to $ 50,000 per day . The girls had been provided by imprecise modeling agencies . The yacht had been rented by Sadikoglu for cruises between Gocek , Antalya, Belek on the Aegean coast and Istanbul. Along with Arif were also arrested the Kazakh -Israeli billionaire Alexander Mashkevitch , founder of the Euro -Asian Jewish Congress and a member of the World Jewish Congress , and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan, Kanat Saudabayev .
The popular indignation aroused by the scandal prompted the government to decide to re-integrate into the yacht owned by the State, which in 1989 had contracted to Sadikoglu for a period of 49 years.
The Savarona was launched in 1931 by the shipyards of Hamburg at a cost of $ 4 million of the time for the U.S. heiress Emily Roebling Cadwalader , grandson of the engineer John A.
Roebling , the creator of the Brooklyn Bridge . With its 136 meters long , the yacht was the largest and the fastest of the time and the owner gave him the name of a species of swans Africans. In 1938 it was bought for $ 1.7 million by the turkish government , that offered a tribute to Ataturk Airport for " services rendered to the nation." The President summoned there turkish government meetings and hosted several world leaders until his death on 10 November of the same year .
The boat then passed to the Turkish Navy , who made a training ship for officers . Damaged by fire in 1979, the Savarona was abandoned for 10 years until it was given in concession to Sadikoglu , that in three years it completely renewed spending $ 25 million . Today it has 17 luxury suites between 41 and 180 square meters , each decorated in a different way , and contains 260 tons of marble , of which 65 are in the turkish bath ( hamam ) . In the last years cruises aboard the Savarona were guests , among others , Prince Rainier of Monaco , Prince Charles , Princess Diana , the Sultan of Brunei, King Juan Carlos of Spain , the fashion designer Valentino , actors Claudia Schiffer , Nicole Kidman , Sharon Stone , Hugh Grant , Tom Cruise and Gerard Depardieu .
