Seeing The House of Sampoerna, Surabaya

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Situated in old Surabaya, this stately Dutch colonial style compound was built in 1858 and is now a preserved as historical site. This building, was previously used as an orphanage that managed by the Dutch, it was purchased in 1932 by Liem Seeng Tee, the founder of Sampoerna, with the intent of it being used as Sampoerna's first major cigarette production facility. This complex consist of a wide central auditorium, two smaller buildings in east wing and occidental and some wide barns with one floor behind the central auditorium.

The buildings that stay in both auditorium wings is then turned into family house, whereas big barns looks like a warehouse exploited for tobacco and clove processing into marketed cigarette. Today, the compound is still functioning as a production plant for Indonesia's most prestigious cigarette, Dji Sam Soe. In commemoration of Sampoerna's 90th anniversary in 2003, the central complex has been painstakingly restored and is now open to public.

[cantik8]

One of the top attractions in Surabaya is the House of Sampoerna Cigarette Factory which is something of a misnomer as there is factory here as well as an adjacent museum and a charming little coffee shop. Sampoerna is a well known brand of cigarettes in Indonesia called kretek which are made from a blend of cloves.


At the factory you can learn the history of the brand including how the cigarettes are made and the background of how cloves are said to have medicinal properties in Indonesia. Whatever you think about the tobacco industry, this factory and museum make a fascinating place to visit. The building itself is a wonderful 19th-century Dutch structure, originally an orphanage but later converted into a theatre (indeed, Charlie Chaplin once dropped by).


The former lobby is now the museum and is something of a shrine to the Sampoerna empire. It has exhibits on the use of cloves and the history of kretek in Indonesia, alongside uniforms and drums of the Sampoerna marching band and other quirky company curios. There's also an incredible collection of cigarette lighters, holders and cases, mainly from Europe, as well as some Ming dynasty china and a vintage Heidelberg printing press.


Upstairs there’s a bird’s-eye perspective of the factory’s shop floor, where hundreds of women hand roll, trim and pack the Dji Sam Soe brand (banned from most countries as the tar content is so strong). The fastest rollers here churn out 4000 cigarettes a day, their fingers a blur of motion. Because air-conditioning can affect the tobacco (and fans would blow it around) it's a steamy, humid workplace.