Visiting Kars in Northeastern Turkey

Kars, the capital city of Kars province in far northeastern Turkey, does not strike me as a destination in-itself, except for those seeking to follow the footsteps of Orhan Pamuk and Ka, the poet protagonist of Pamuks novel Kar (Snow), written in 1999-2001. Kars is the gateway to the ruins of the Armenian metropolis of Ani, which is just inside the borders of Turkey now, and Ani is a destination, especially for Armenians'"who must enter Turkey a bit further to the north, through Georgia, since there are no licit border crossings between current Armenia and Turkey.

The whole area is quite poor. Shanties cover most of the old city and in the countryside sod)-roofed) houses are common. There is no firewood; dried sheep dung is the primary heating material. There are piles of it within the city as well as in all the rural compounds. About half of the adult male population lacks employment, frequenting teahouses or staying home watching tv all day most every day.

Snow is plentiful (we were snowed on in early April) and Kars is widely regarded as the coldest city in Turkey. The average low temperature is 27F, the average high 52.

Along with recently constructed brutalist concrete apartment buildings and shacks are some mansions and public buildings made of large stones in "the Batlic style," dating from Russian (czarist) occupation (1891-1918 with most construction before WWI began late in 1914).

The 13^th-century citadel fortress (Kars Kalesi) is not open to the public, being occupied by the army.

The major site for visitors is Surb Arak'elots, the Armenian Church of the Twelve Apostles, completed during the 940s, seemingly modeled on the mid 7^th-century Armenian church of St. John in Mastara. There are low-relief figures of the spostles just below the conical roof, though I was unable to distinguish one from the other. It was converted into a mosque in 1579 and again in 1998, and is only open for prayers, though there is another mosque just up the hill from the church, which as , transformed into Russian Orthodox church in the 1880, was a warehouse from the 1930s until nbecominga museum during the 1960s ad 70s, standing empty, then standing empty for about two decades.

There is an Ottoman stone bridge (Tashokpru--with umlauts on the last two vowels) , ca. 1725 across the Kars river, near a no-longer functioning Turking bathhouse (hamam) and an empty Russian orthodox church. There are some ruins of wooden Ottoman-era houses along the river, too.

We stayed in the toasty, comfortable Sim-Er Hotel. The first photo was taken from our room across the morning snowscape.