Kars İngilizce Tanıtım

However, skirmishes between Turkish revolutionaries and Armenian border troops in Oltu, led to an invasion of the DRA by four Turkish battalions under the command of General Kazım Karabekir, thus triggering the Turkish-Armenian War The Turkish-Armenian War led to the capture of Kars by Turkish forces on October 30, 1920 The terms of the Treaty of Alexandropol, signed by the representatives of Armenia and Turkey on December 2, 1920, forced the DRA to cede more than 50% of its pre-war territory and to give up all the territories granted to it at the Treaty of Sèvres However, with the Bolshevik invasion of Armenia, the Alexandropol treaty was superseded by the Treaty of Kars (October 23, 1921), signed between Turkey and the newly-established Soviet Union The treaty allowed for Soviet annexation of Adjara in exchange for Turkish control over the regions of Kars, Iğdır, and Ardahan The treaty 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 On more than one occasion, the Soviets attempted to renegotiate with Turkey to at least allow the Armenians access to the ancient ruins of Ani However, Ankara refused these attempts

After World War II, the Soviet Union attempted to annul the Kars treaty and regain its lost territory On June 7, 1945, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov told the Turkish ambassador in Moscow that the regions should be returned to the Soviet Union, in the name of both the Georgian and Armenian republics Turkey found itself in a difficult position: it wanted good relations with the Soviet Union but at the same time they refused to give up the territories Turkey itself was in no condition to fight a war with the Soviet Union which had emerged as a superpower after the second world war By the autumn of 1945, Soviet troops in the Caucasus were already assembling for a possible invasion of Turkey However opposition stemmed from British leader Winston Churchill who objected to these territorial claims as additional areas of where the Soviet government could exert its influence while President Harry S Truman of the United States felt that matter shouldn’t concern other parties The Cold War was just beginning

Since the Nagorno-Karabakh War, the borders between Armenia and Turkey have been closed Kars Mayor Naif Alibeyoğlu, believes that the border should be opened again and that there should be no nationalist sentiment against the Armenians

Kars Citadel

Kars Castle (Kars Kalesi) also known as the Kars citadel) sits at the top a rocky hill overlooking Kars Its walls date back to the Bagratid Armenian period (there is surviving masonry on the north side of the castle) but it probably took on its present form during the 13th century when Kars was ruled by the Zakarid dynasty The 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 kastle was built by Ottoman Sultan Murad III during the war with Persia, at the close of the 16th century, is false However, Sultan Murad probably did reconstruct much of the city walls (they are similar to those that the Ottoman army constructed at Ardahan)

Other Historical Structures

The church of the Apostles, built in the 9th centuryBelow the castle is an Armenian church known as the St Arak’elos Cathedral, the Church of the Apostles Built in the 10th century, it constitutes a domed tetraconch atop a square base with four apses The drum of the dome features bas relief depictions of The Twelve Apostles and the dome itself is covered by a conical roof It housed a small museum in the 1960s and 1970s, then stood derelict for about two decades until its conversion into a mosque in 1998

As a settlement at the juncture of Armenian, Caucasian, Russian, and Turkish cultures, the buildings of Kars come in a variety of architectural styles

Kars in popular culture

The philosopher and mystic G I Gurdjieff grew up in Kars

The Armenian poet Yeghishe Charents was born in Kars

Kars is the setting of the novel Kar (Snow) by Orhan Pamuk

Anna Zimmerman, maternal grandmother of American folk singer Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman) grew up in the area around Kars

The actress Hülya Avşar has a familial relation with Kars

The actor Tamer Karadağlı was born in Kars

Transport

Kars is served by a station on the Turkish Railways (TCDD) The line continues into Armenia However the actual border crossing has been closed since 1993 There is a proposal to construct a branch that will connect Kars with Akhalkalaki in Georgia, and thence to Tbilisi, and Baku in Azerbaijan