Things to do
7-
Castle of Kars
The citadel above the Kars river, rebuilt in 1579 on Bagratid and Seljuk foundations and besieged repeatedly in the Russian wars. The walk up passes the Stone Bridge and the old baths.
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Kars Museum
The provincial collection, covering the Urartian and Armenian periods, the Russian town and the region's ethnography, with a section on the local goose husbandry. It is on the eastern edge of the grid.
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Lake Çıldır
A shallow high-altitude lake north of Kars that freezes solid enough in winter for horse-drawn sleighs and for fishermen to cut holes and net under the ice. In summer it is birdwatching country.
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Ani
A medieval Armenian capital of a hundred thousand people, abandoned after the Mongols and the 1319 earthquake, standing alone on a plateau above the gorge that is now the border. The churches and the cathedral of 1001 are among the great buildings of the middle ages.
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Cathedral of Kars
A tenth-century Armenian church of the Bagratid kingdom, converted to a mosque and back several times and now a mosque again, with the twelve apostles carved around its drum. It stands below the castle.
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Sarıkamış
A pine-forest ski resort at two thousand metres east of Kars, known for dry crystal snow, and the site of the Ottoman army's catastrophic winter offensive of 1914. The memorial and the pistes share the same slopes.
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Stone Bridge
A basalt bridge of 1725 over the Kars river below the castle, three arches on Seljuk foundations, still used on foot. It is a two-minute stop on the way up.