Kars Guide

KARS

The setting for Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk's shady novel Snow, kars is a rustic, refusing, and a grayish city set on a 5,740-foot plateau and permanently at the mercy of the winds. Not far from Turkey's edge with Armenia and Georgia, it looks like the frontier town it is; since 1064, Kars has been attacked over and over, by many sundry invaders from the Akkoyunlu to the Mongol warriors of Tamerlane. In the 19th century alone, it was besieged three times by Czarist armies from Russia who remained in power until 1920. The Russian influence is still evident in many buildings.

With its tree-lined streets and little European-style homes, Kars feels different from other Turkish cities. It can be surprisingly relaxed, has a status as a liberal and secular-minded outpost, and certainly has more bars and permitted restaurants than other towns in the traditional East. Attempts to develop a skiing activity and lifting restrictions on touring the ancient city of Ani—previously a restricted military zone—has meant that more travelers are coming through the area, giving locals the reason to upgrade what Kars has to offer.