Kars Old Town

Kars sits at around eighteen hundred metres on a high plateau near the eastern border, and its centre looks unlike anywhere else in Turkey: a regular grid of wide streets lined with two- and three-storey buildings in dressed grey basalt, with pediments, cornices and iron balconies, put up during the period of Russian administration from 1878 to 1918 and reading much more like a provincial town in the Baltic or the Caucasus than an Anatolian one. Among them are the old governor's buildings, a former Russian church, and houses now occupied by cafés and shops. Above the town is the castle on its rock, rebuilt many times, and below it the twelfth-century Church of the Holy Apostles, now the Kümbet mosque, with its carved relief of the apostles round the drum. Kars is the setting of Orhan Pamuk's novel Snow, and it is genuinely snowbound for much of the winter. Its cheeses, honey and goose dishes are the local table.

Highlights

• The stone grid - Russian-era streets and facades.
• The castle - the fortress on the rock above the town.
• The Kümbet mosque - the twelfth-century church and its reliefs.
• The local table - Kars cheese, honey and goose.

When to go

June to September for the plateau in green; December to February for deep snow, when the town is at its most atmospheric and the Çıldır sleigh rides run.

Before you go

Winters are severe - well below freezing for months, with snow closing roads. Facilities are provincial. The Russian-era buildings are in mixed repair, some restored and some not.

Nearby

Lake Çıldır is north; Ani's ruins are 45 km east on the border and are the usual reason people come.