Kars

Kars spent forty years as a Russian provincial capital between 1878 and 1918, and the town still shows it. The centre is laid out on a grid of broad streets lined with grey basalt buildings that would not look out of place in the Caucasus, because that is effectively where they came from.

The castle above the town has been rebuilt many times over a thousand years of contested frontier. Below it stands the Church of the Twelve Apostles, built by the Bagratid kings in the tenth century and now a mosque, its drum carved with the apostles in relief.

Kars is known across Türkiye for its dairy: Swiss-trained herders introduced gruyère-style cheese in the nineteenth century, and kaşar from here commands a premium. The town also owes much of its fame to Orhan Pamuk's novel Snow, set in its long winter.