Impressions of Northern Anatolia
Black Sea, North-East & Central Anatolia - Turkey
In our 'Impressions of Northern Turkey' we travel along the Black Sea from West to East, then dive along the borders with Georgia, Armenia and Iran into Central Anatolia, ending our loop in Ankara, Cappadocia and Konya. We thus highlight a variety of regions, which are not really off the beaten track, but are definitely not a prime destination of the traveller in Turkey either. Exception is to be made, of course, for the border areas with Georgia, Armenia and Iran, where we are indeed very much off the beaten track, far away from everything and certainly from culture and city lights. Historically we are at the cross-roads of the Argonauts and ancient Greek colonies on the Black Sea coast and the regional empires of Armenia and Georgia, in old days stretching well beyond the borders of the independent Republics as they emerged from the Soviet federation in 1991. We come across cities and monuments from the medieval Georgian and Armenian Kingdoms which reached well into current Eastern Anatolia, until Turkic people started moving West from their Central Asian steppes, Turkmen tribes, Seljuks, Mongols and Ottomans. Cross-roads as well with the ever ambitious Persian Empires which succeeded one another in the East, and with Russia, first the Tsars, later the Soviet Bolshevik governments, both with a keen strategic interest for the Southern coast of the Black Sea and the natural border of the Ararat mountains, which separate the traditional zones of influence and dominance. Ottoman-Persian wars in the 1820s and Ottoman-Russian wars in the 1870s are just illustrations of the geopolitical complexity here around.
All that does not prevent us from exploring these rather remote parts of Turkey: the Black Sea, certainly less glamorous than the Turkish Mediterranean riviera, but breathing a fascinating authenticity in its coastal villages, its towns of history and its rural landscapes of mountains, valleys and tea plantations; the North-Eastern and Central Anatolian inner land, with some surprising traces left behind by the Hittite Empire and medieval Georgian and Armenian kingdoms, not to mention the proto-Christian rock hewn churches nestled in the awesome lunar landscapes of Byzantine Cappadocia; we also meet the splendid architecture of mosques, medreses and tombs of a Seljuk Empire which brought the first massive wave of Turkic influences to Anatolia in the 11th and 12th centuries, later consolidated when the Ottoman Sultans of the 15th and next centuries conquered their way through Anatolia and the entire Eastern Mediterranean Sea towards an Empire of global significance.
'Impressions of Northern Turkey' takes you on a voyage through time, but also guides you on your travels to regions of sea, mountains and valleys, to facets of Turkey maybe less well known, and precisely therefore all the more fascinating.
* Scanned Slides, 1998-2001
Before visiting the place of your choice:
Doǧubeyazit is located at a distance of hardly 12 kilometres from the Iranian border. Originally known as the settlement of Daryunk, it already existed some 700 years BC, at the time of Urartu, the civilisation from which the Armenian nation eventually sprouted. In the early 9th century, the princes of the newly formed Armenian Bagratid Kingdom settled here, but Daryunk would still change hands several times, tossed around by Seljuks, Byzantines and Persians who took turns in occupying this access point to Iran, strategically important in the military sense, but also economically on the Oriental trade routes. In 1064 the first Turkic nomadic tribes arrived at Daryunk, followed by Mongols and eventually also the Ottomans, who renamed the place in the 16th century to Doǧubeyazit. Shortly afterwards, in 1685, the Ottoman general Işak Paşa, of Kurdish descent, had himself a large palace built and the entire settlement, mainly populated with Kurds and Yazidi Christians, was eventually also named after him. Not that much has been left of the settlement, because in 1930 the Turkish Army bombed it to oblivion, in reprisal for the 'Ararat rebellion' of 1927-1930, a revolt in which Kurdish fighters had tried to obtain independence from the young Turkish Republic and had actually proclaimed a short-lived Ararat Republic of their own. The only noteworthy edifice remaining at Doǧubeyazit is thus the Işak Paşa Palace, elegantly balancing on a ridge and majestically looking out over the Ararat summits.
