House of Sampoerna

Surabaya has been my hometown for nearly 30 years. There are many spots that you can visit if you have chance to visit this city. One of the best spot is House of Sampoerna. I love this place. This place has a lovely and warmth atmosphere. I do not smoke and I am against smoking habit.

Briefly about Sampoerna. Sampoerna is one of the biggest cigarette companies in Indonesia. It was founded in 1913 by Mr. Lim Seeng Tee. Before 2005, this company was owned by Sampoerna dynasty, then this family sold the company to Philip Moris International from Switzerland.

The House of Sampoerna is a unique museum. I have visited this museum three times, but only today I have chance to see the mass production of hand-made cigarettes. It is located at the 'old part' of Surabaya, Taman Sampoerna Street 6, Surabaya. The museum opens everyday from 9am-10pm and the visitors must be above 18 years old. The admission fee is FREE and you can have a tour guide there to explain to you in detail about what the museum is about. Oh, ... the guide is also free of charge and they are really nice and friendly.

The building of House of Sampoerna was bought by Mr. Lim in 1932 and since then, the cigarette production was carried out in that building until now. The cigarette production is taken place at the back of the building. The east
side of the building consists of a cafe, where you can order eastern or western food here, a merchandise store and an art gallery, where you can enjoy some paintings and art works from Indonesian artists. The meal is also good with reasonable price. The west side of the building is the official family residence.

The museum consists of 2 levels. Once you enter the museum, you smell the tobacco aroma. In the museum, you will see a miniature stall of the Sampoerna founder, his bikes, Kebaya and Sarung of the founder's wife, some family pictures of Sampoerna dynasty, old smoking equipment, first R&D development (burette, old weighing scale), a miniature of cigarette stall, Sampoerna marching band equipment, cloves, tobacco, etc. Then, after you have done with your visit at the 1st floor of the museum, go to the 2nd floor.

From the 2nd floor, you can see the hand-made cigarettes mass production. The cigarette production that takes place here is only the production of 'Dji Sam Soe (234)' cigarette. The other brands are produced by machines in other location. The workers (they are all women) hand-roll cigarettes using traditional equipment. They are very amazing. Their hands are very fast in hand-rolling the cigarettes. Their speed of hand-rolling is 325 sticks of cigarettes per hour. If you want to experience how to hand-roll the cigarette, you can do it here and it is FREE. You only can see the cigarettes production Monday-Saturday (except Sunday) during working hours (9 am - 3 pm; except Saturday from 9am - 12 noon). It is such a unique experience. I amazed by the worker's speed. As I mentioned above, I only got chance to see the production today, as my 2 visits previously were in the evening.

How to get there? You can take a cab to come to this place. There are several good cabs in Surabaya, such as Blue Bird, Zebra or Silver taxi. Public transports, like bus or 'bemo' here are not reliable and safe. Most of the time, it is not advised for tourists to travel by bus or 'bemo' here.

This place is highly recommended by me as I love it. Enjoy your visit...