The presidential palace in Turkish capital Ankara is hosting an exhibition of hundreds of pairs of scissors President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has used in inauguration ceremonies since 2003.
There are more than 800 pairs on display, with corresponding ribbons, meant to symbolise what Erdoğan calls his ‘mega projects’, including roads, bridges and airports.
The collection includes scissors from Erdoğan’s terms as prime minister, and ceremonies he attended as the chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) as well, according to state-run Anadolu Agency.
The collection started in 2007, when Erdoğan told Binali Yıldırım, who later served as prime minister under his presidency, to keep safe a pair of scissors he used in the inauguration ceremony for student dormitories in Bolu, pro-government network 24TV said.
The oldest pair came from a ceremony in Rize, Erdoğan’s hometown, in 2003. Older pairs are donated by project administrators.
The pair used by a girl to cut the ribbon before Erdoğan in October is also included in the collection. The girl was on stage with Erdoğan during a ceremony for a public park in Ankara, and tried to cut the ribbon several more times, to be scolded by the president on national broadcast.
A younger boy in September was not as lucky – Erdoğan knocked the little boy on his head several times while telling him to wait.
Several Turkish social media users likened the exhibition to a viral image from 2010, where a hotel had put a pair of scissors Erdoğan used in the inauguration ceremony on display. The image was captioned, “Scissors Shareef (Noble)”, in reference to the sacred relics of Prophet Mohammed.
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