20 Facts About Kars

Kars is a city in northeast Turkey and the capital of Kars Province.

Kars was the capital of Bagratid Kingdom of Armenia between 929 and 961.

In 963, shortly after the Bagratuni seat was transferred to Ani, Kars became the capital of a separate independent kingdom, again called Vanand.

In 1064, just after the capture of Ani by Alp Arslan, the Armenian king of Kars, Gagik-Abas, paid homage to the victorious Turks so that they would not lay siege to his city.

The Kars emirate was a vassal of the Saltukids in Erzurum, whose forces were effective in opposing Georgian attempts at seizing Kars.

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In 1807 Kars successfully resisted an attack by the Russian Empire.

However, by then Kars was under the effective control of Armenian and non-Bolshevik Russian forces.

In May 1919 Kars came under the full administration of the Armenian Republic and became the capital of its Vanand province.

Kars had been fortified to withstand a lengthy siege but, to the astonishment of all, was taken with little resistance by Turkish forces on 30 October 1920, in what some modern scholars have called one of the worst military fiascoes in Armenian history.

The Treaty of Kars established peaceful relations between the two nations, but as early as 1939, some British diplomats noted indications that the Soviet Union was not satisfied with the established border.

The Treaty of Kars, signed in 1921 by the Government of the Grand National Assembly and by the Soviet republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, established the current north-eastern boundaries of Turkey.

Kars was replaced by the governor of Kars Province, Eyup Tepe, as a government-appointed trustee.

Today, Kars has a mixed population of Azerbaijanis, Kurds and Turks.

Ethnic make-up of Kars is reflected in politics, with the Turks and Azerbaijanis often voting for the nationalist MHP and the Kurds often voting for the pro-Kurdish HDP.

Kars is served by a main highway from Erzurum, and lesser roads run north to Ardahan and south to Igdir.

Kars is served by a station on the Turkish Railways that links it to Erzurum.

Castle of Kars, known as the Citadel, sits at the top a rocky hill overlooking Kars.

Walls bear crosses in several places, including a Khachkar with a building inscription in Armenian on the easternmost tower, so the much repeated statement that Kars castle was built by Ottoman Sultan Murad III during the war with Persia, at the close of the sixteenth century, is inaccurate.

Orhan Pamuk in the novel Snow, set in Kars, makes repeated references to "the Russian houses", built "in a Baltic style", whose like cannot be seen anywhere else in Turkey, and deplores the deteriorating condition of these houses.

Municipality of Kars has developed sister city relationships with following cities at home and abroad:.