1.
Ardahan
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Ardahan is a city in northeastern Turkey, near the Georgian border. In 12th century BC region was part of newly formed tribal confederacy of Dieuchi, the first surviving record about this region is attributed to Strabo, who calls it Gogarene and mentions that it was a part of the Kingdom of Armenia, taken away from the Kingdom of Iberia. From the ninth to eleventh centuries, Ardahan served as an important transit point for goods arriving from the Abbasid Caliphate and departing to the regions around the Black Sea. During the eighth to ten centuries the city was in the hands of the Bagrationi princes of Tao and Klarjeti, After the liberation from Arab rule, according to the Arab historian Yahya of Antioch, the Byzantines razed Ardahan and slaughtered its population in 1021. The Mongols took hold of the city in the 1230s but the Georgian princes of Samtskhe-Saatabago were able to recapture it in 1266, the principality of Samtskhe-Saatabago was annexed by the Ottoman Empire in 1555 and Ardahan was included into the sanjak of Ardahan. The Ottomans constructed a fortress at Ardahan. The Turkish traveler Evliya Chelebi visited Ardahan in the 1640s and gave the following description and it is square-shaped and sturdy. This fortress has a cold climate and, because of this, there are no gardens or orchards. Fruits arrive from the fortress at Ajara and Tortum, before 1829 Ardahan was recorded to have had 400 households, the great majority of them Armenian. Many of them immigrated to the Russian Empire. During the Russo-Turkish War it was an important road connecting the border fortress of Akhaltsikhe to the Kars-Erzerum road. The town passed into the hands of Russia following the 1877-1878 Russo-Turkish War and was made a part of the Kars Oblast. The majority of the town was made up of Armenians, while other groups included Georgians, Pontic Greeks, Caucasus Jews, Russians, Kurds, Ossetians. The town flourished economically under Russian rule, exporting fruits, smoked meat, wheat. New roads were constructed, linking Ardahan to Akhalkalak, Kars, on December 25,1914, in the early months of the First World War, the Ottoman army occupied Ardahan and massacred many of its Armenians, Pontic Greeks, and Georgians. The Russians, with the help of Armenian and Pontic Greek militias, captured the town on January 3,1915, as Russian forces withdrew from the front following the October Revolution, a small Armenian volunteer force took up positions to defend the town from the approaching Ottoman Army. On March 6,1918 the Ottoman army, along with the help of the towns Muslims, overwhelmed Ardahans Armenian garrison, the British occupied Ardahan after the end of the First World War and eventually handed control over it to the Democratic Republic of Georgia. When the Turkish Nationalists captured Ardahan in November 1920, the towns remaining Armenians, Pontic Greeks, and Georgians fled to Armenia, northern Greece, the Treaty of Moscow, signed the following year between the Soviets and the Turks, confirmed Ardahan as a part of Turkish territory. In 1986 a brief description of the fortress was published, the original late antique/medieval walls of Ardahan Kalesi were extensively rebuilt several times and in the 19th they were adapted to accommodate small cannons
2.
Provinces of Turkey
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Turkey is divided into 81 provinces. Each province is divided into a number of different districts, the provincial government is seated in the central district. The central area usually bears the name of the province, there are only two exceptions to this naming scheme, Antakya of Hatay province İzmit of Kocaeli province A province is administered by an appointed governor from the ministry of interior. Below is a list of the 81 provinces of Turkey, sorted according to their license plate code, after Zonguldak the ordering is not alphabetical but in the order of the creation of provinces, as these provinces were created more recently and thus their plate numbers were assigned thereafter. The numbers of the ISO code, the first two digits of the registration plates of Turkey and the first digits of the postal codes in Turkey are the same
3.
Turkey
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Turkey, officially the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country in Eurasia, mainly in Anatolia in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. Turkey is a democratic, secular, unitary, parliamentary republic with a cultural heritage. The country is encircled by seas on three sides, the Aegean Sea is to the west, the Black Sea to the north, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. The Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles, Ankara is the capital while Istanbul is the countrys largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Approximately 70-80% of the countrys citizens identify themselves as ethnic Turks, other ethnic groups include legally recognised and unrecognised minorities. Kurds are the largest ethnic minority group, making up approximately 20% of the population, the area of Turkey has been inhabited since the Paleolithic by various ancient Anatolian civilisations, as well as Assyrians, Greeks, Thracians, Phrygians, Urartians and Armenians. After Alexander the Greats conquest, the area was Hellenized, a process continued under the Roman Empire. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, the empire reached the peak of its power in the 16th century, especially during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. During the war, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian, Assyrian, following the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states. Turkey is a member of the UN, an early member of NATO. Turkeys growing economy and diplomatic initiatives have led to its recognition as a regional power while her location has given it geopolitical, the name of Turkey is based on the ethnonym Türk. The first recorded use of the term Türk or Türük as an autonym is contained in the Old Turkic inscriptions of the Göktürks of Central Asia, the English name Turkey first appeared in the late 14th century and is derived from Medieval Latin Turchia. Similarly, the medieval Khazar Empire, a Turkic state on the shores of the Black. The medieval Arabs referred to the Mamluk Sultanate as al-Dawla al-Turkiyya, the Ottoman Empire was sometimes referred to as Turkey or the Turkish Empire among its European contemporaries. The Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world, various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period. Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family, in fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated. The European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has also been inhabited since at least forty years ago. It is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic site found to date, the settlement of Troy started in the Neolithic Age and continued into the Iron Age
4.
NUTS statistical regions of Turkey
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As a candidate country of the European Union, Turkey is included in the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics. Interactive map of statistics indicators by NUTS levels
5.
Electoral system of Turkey
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The Electoral system of Turkey varies for general, presidential and local elections that take place in Turkey every four years, five years and five years respectively. Turkey has been a multi-party democracy since 1950, with the first democratic election held on 14 May 1950 leading to the end of the single-party rule established in 1923. The current electoral system for electing Members of Parliament to the Grand National Assembly has a 10% election threshold, the highest of any country. Presidential elections, A Two-round system, with the top two contesting a run-off election two weeks after the initial election should no candidate win at least 50%+1 of the popular vote. Turkey elects 550 Members of Parliament to the Grand National Assembly using the DHondt method, E. g. in the 2002 general election the AKP won 34. 28% of the vote but won nearly two-thirds of the seats. This was the case in the 2007 and 2011 general election, where the Kurdish Democratic Society Party, the main criticism of the current system is the high 10% threshold necessary to gain seats. Under these proposals, the threshold would fall from 10% to either 7 or 8% while Turkey would be split into 129 electoral districts rather than the existing 85, İstanbul itself would have been split into 17 or 20 districts. The two main opposition parties CHP and MHP do not have a number of electoral strongholds. The AKPs proposals for reform have raised concerns about gerrymandering, Turkey is split into 85 electoral districts, which elect a certain number of Members to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. The Grand National Assembly has a total of 550 seats, which each district allocated a certain number of MPs in proportion to their population. The Supreme Electoral Council of Turkey conducts population reviews of each district before the election, in all but three cases, electoral districts share the same name and borders of the 81 Provinces of Turkey. The exceptions are İzmir, İstanbul and Ankara, Provinces electing between 19 and 36 MPs are split into two electoral districts, while any province electing above 36 MPs are divided into three. As the countrys three largest provinces, İzmir and Ankara are divided into two subdistricts while İstanbul is divided into three, the distribution of elected MPs per electoral district is shown below. A total of eight districts had their number of MPs adjusted since the 2011 general election by the electoral council. The two electoral districts of Ankara also had their boundaries changed, the number of voters in each province was announced on 17 May 2015. In total, there are 53,741,838 voters in the provinces, however, because of the electoral system, this was not distributed equally to the provinces. In İzmir, where voters per MP was the highest,118,669 votes corresponded to an MP, two factors caused this more than fourfold disparity. Namely, the electoral law favours provinces smaller in size, which caused İzmir, İstanbul and Ankara, Turkeys largest cities and provinces, to have the least representation per voter
6.
Vehicle registration plate
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A vehicle registration plate, also known as a number plate or a license plate, is metal or plastic plate attached to a motor vehicle or trailer for official identification purposes. The registration identifier is a numeric or alphanumeric ID that uniquely identifies the owner within the issuing regions database. The first two letters indicate the state to which the vehicle is registered, the next two digit numbers are the sequential number of a district. Due to heavy volume of vehicle registration, the numbers were given to the RTO offices of registration as well, the third part indicates the year of registration of the vehicle and is a 4 digit number unique to each plate. In some countries, the identifier is unique within the entire country, whether the identifier is associated with a vehicle or a person also varies by issuing agency. In the vast majority of jurisdictions, the government holds a monopoly on the manufacturing of vehicle registration plates for that jurisdiction. Thus, it is illegal for private citizens to make and affix their own plates. Alternately, the government will merely assign plate numbers, and it is the owners responsibility to find an approved private supplier to make a plate with that number. In some jurisdictions, plates will be assigned to that particular vehicle for its lifetime. If the vehicle is destroyed or exported to a different country. Other jurisdictions follow a policy, meaning that when a vehicle is sold the seller removes the current plate from the vehicle. Buyers must either obtain new plates or attach plates they already hold, as well as register their vehicles under the buyers name, a person who sells a car and then purchases a new one can apply to have the old plates put onto the new car. One who sells a car and does not buy a new one may, depending on the laws involved, have to turn the old plates in or destroy them. Some jurisdictions permit the registration of the vehicle with personal plates, in some jurisdictions, plates require periodic replacement, often associated with a design change of the plate itself. Vehicle owners may or may not have the option to keep their original plate number, alternately, or additionally, vehicle owners have to replace a small decal on the plate or use a decal on the windshield to indicate the expiration date of the vehicle registration. Plates are usually fixed directly to a vehicle or to a frame that is fixed to the vehicle. Sometimes, the plate frames contain advertisements inserted by the service centre or the dealership from which the vehicle was purchased. Vehicle owners can also purchase customized frames to replace the original frames, in some jurisdictions licence plate frames are illegal
7.
Turkish language
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Outside of Turkey, significant smaller groups of speakers exist in Germany, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Northern Cyprus, Greece, the Caucasus, and other parts of Europe and Central Asia. Cyprus has requested that the European Union add Turkish as an official EU language, in 1928, as one of Atatürks Reforms in the early years of the Republic of Turkey, the Ottoman Turkish alphabet was replaced with a Latin alphabet. The distinctive characteristics of Turkish are vowel harmony and extensive agglutination, the basic word order of Turkish is subject–object–verb. Turkish has no classes or grammatical gender. Turkish has a strong T–V distinction and usage of honorifics, Turkish uses second-person pronouns that distinguish varying levels of politeness, social distance, age, courtesy or familiarity toward the addressee. The plural second-person pronoun and verb forms are used referring to a person out of respect. Turkic languages belong to the Altaic language group, the Turkic family comprises some 30 living languages spoken across Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Siberia. Turkish is a member of the Oghuz group of languages, a subgroup of the Turkic language family, there is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Turkish and the other Oghuz Turkic languages, including Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Qashqai, Gagauz, and Balkan Gagauz Turkish. The earliest known Old Turkic inscriptions are the three monumental Orkhon inscriptions found in modern Mongolia, erected in honour of the prince Kul Tigin and his brother Emperor Bilge Khagan, these date back to the second Turk Kaghanate. The Seljuqs of the Oghuz Turks, in particular, brought their language, following the adoption of Islam c. Turkish literature during the Ottoman period, particularly Divan poetry, was influenced by Persian, including the adoption of poetic meters. One of the tasks of the newly established association was to initiate a reform to replace loanwords of Arabic. By banning the usage of imported words in the press, the association succeeded in removing several hundred words from the language. While most of the words introduced to the language by the TDK were newly derived from Turkic roots, owing to this sudden change in the language, older and younger people in Turkey started to differ in their vocabularies. While the generations born before the 1940s tend to use the terms of Arabic or Persian origin. The past few decades have seen the work of the TDK to coin new Turkish words to express new concepts and technologies as they enter the language. Many of these new words, particularly information technology terms, have received widespread acceptance, however, the TDK is occasionally criticized for coining words which sound contrived and artificial. Some earlier changes—such as bölem to replace fırka, political party—also failed to meet with popular approval, some words restored from Old Turkic have taken on specialized meanings, for example betik is now used to mean script in computer science
8.
Georgia (country)
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Georgia is a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. The capital and largest city is Tbilisi, Georgia covers a territory of 69,700 square kilometres, and its 2016 population is about 3.72 million. Georgia is a unitary, semi-presidential republic, with the government elected through a representative democracy, during the classical era, several independent kingdoms became established in what is now Georgia. The kingdoms of Colchis and Iberia adopted Christianity in the early 4th century, a unified Kingdom of Georgia reached the peak of its political and economic strength during the reign of King David IV and Queen Tamar in the 12th and early 13th centuries. Thereafter the kingdom declined and eventually disintegrated under hegemony of various powers, including the Mongols, the Ottoman Empire. Russian rule over Georgia was eventually acknowledged in various treaties with Iran. Since the establishment of the modern Georgian republic in April 1991, post-communist Georgia suffered from civil, the countrys Western orientation soon led to the worsening of relations with Russia, culminating in the brief Russo-Georgian War in August 2008. Georgia is a member of the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and it contains two de facto independent regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which gained limited international recognition after the 2008 Russo-Georgian War. Georgia and a part of the international community consider the regions to be part of Georgias sovereign territory under Russian military occupation. Georgia probably stems from the Persian designation of the Georgians – gurğān, in the 11th and 12th centuries adapted via Syriac gurz-ān/gurz-iyān, starting with the Persian word gurğ/gurğān, the word was later adopted in numerous other languages, including Slavic and West European languages. This term itself might have established through the ancient Iranian appellation of the near-Caspian region. The self-designation used by ethnic Georgians is Kartvelebi, the medieval Georgian Chronicles present an eponymous ancestor of the Kartvelians, Kartlos, a great-grandson of Japheth. However, scholars agree that the word is derived from the Karts, the name Sakartvelo consists of two parts. Its root, kartvel-i, specifies an inhabitant of the core central-eastern Georgian region of Kartli, ancient Greeks and Romans referred to early western Georgians as Colchians and eastern Georgians as Iberians. Today the full, official name of the country is Georgia, before the 1995 constitution came into force the countrys name was the Republic of Georgia. The territory of modern-day Georgia was inhabited by Homo erectus since the Paleolithic Era, the proto-Georgian tribes first appear in written history in the 12th century BC. The earliest evidence of wine to date has found in Georgia. In fact, early metallurgy started in Georgia during the 6th millennium BC, the classical period saw the rise of a number of early Georgian states, the principal of which was Colchis in the west and Iberia in the east
9.
Armenia
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Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a sovereign state in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia. The Republic of Armenia constitutes only one-tenth of historical Armenia, Armenia is a unitary, multi-party, democratic nation-state with an ancient cultural heritage. Urartu was established in 860 BC and by the 6th century BC it was replaced by the Satrapy of Armenia, in the 1st century BC the Kingdom of Armenia reached its height under Tigranes the Great. Armenia became the first state in the world to adopt Christianity as its official religion, in between the late 3rd century to early years of the 4th century, the state became the first Christian nation. The official date of adoption of Christianity is 301 AD. The ancient Armenian kingdom was split between the Byzantine and Sasanian Empires around the early 5th century, under the Bagratuni dynasty, the Bagratid Kingdom of Armenia was restored in the 9th century. Declining due to the wars against the Byzantines, the fell in 1045. An Armenian principality and later a kingdom Cilician Armenia was located on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea between the 11th and 14th centuries. By the 19th century, Eastern Armenia had been conquered by the Russian Empire, during World War I, Armenians living in their ancestral lands in the Ottoman Empire were systematically exterminated in the Armenian Genocide. By 1920, the state was incorporated into the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, in 1936, the Transcaucasian state was dissolved, transforming its constituent states, including the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, into full Union republics. The modern Republic of Armenia became independent in 1991 during the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Republic of Armenia recognises the Armenian Apostolic Church, the worlds oldest national church, as the countrys primary religious establishment. The unique Armenian alphabet was invented by Mesrop Mashtots in 405 AD, Armenia is a member of the Eurasian Economic Union, the Council of Europe and the Collective Security Treaty Organization. Armenia supports the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, which was proclaimed in 1991, the native Armenian name for the country is Հայք. The name in the Middle Ages was extended to Հայաստան, by addition of the Persian suffix -stan, the further origin of the name is uncertain. It is also postulated that the name Hay comes from one of the two confederated, Hittite vassal states—the Ḫayaša-Azzi. The exonym Armenia is attested in the Old Persian Behistun Inscription as Armina, the ancient Greek terms Ἀρμενία and Ἀρμένιοι are first mentioned by Hecataeus of Miletus. Xenophon, a Greek general serving in some of the Persian expeditions, describes many aspects of Armenian village life and he relates that the people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like the language of the Persians. According to the histories of both Moses of Chorene and Michael Chamchian, Armenia derives from the name of Aram, a descendant of Hayk
10.
Eastern Anatolia Region
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The Eastern Anatolia Region is a geographical region of Turkey. The region and the name Doğu Anadolu Bölgesi were first defined at the First Geography Congress in 1941 and it has the highest average altitude, largest geographical area, and lowest population density of all regions of Turkey. Prior to getting its current name by the Turkish state, most of the region was part of the Six Armenian provinces in the known as the Armenian Highlands. After the Armenian Genocide, the geopolitical term Eastern Anatolia was created to replace what had historically been known as Western Armenia, starting from 1880 the name Armenia was forbidden to be used in official Ottoman documents. The government of Sultan Abdul Hamid II replaced the name Armenia with such terms as Kurdistan or Anatolia, the Sublime Porte was trying to cover up the Armenian Question, if there was no Armenia, then there was no Armenian Question. The process of “nationalization” of toponyms was continued by the Kemalists, who were the successors of the Young Turks. Starting from 1923 the entire territory of Western Armenia was officially renamed “Eastern Anatolia”, in the 17th century when the Armenian Question was not as yet included into the international diplomacy agenda, the terms Anatolia or Eastern Anatolia were never used to indicate Armenia. Furthermore, the Islamic World Map of the 16th century and other Ottoman maps of the 18th and 19th centuries have clearly indicated Armenia on a territory as well as its cities. Armenia, together with its boundaries, was mentioned in the works of earlier Ottoman historians. Kâtip Çelebi, a famous Ottoman chronicler of the 17th century, had a chapter titled “About the Country Called Armenia” in his book Jihan Numa. When, however, this book was republished in 1957, its modern Turkish editor H. Selen changed this title into “Eastern Anatolia”. Osman Nuri, a historian of the half of the 19th century, mentions Armenia repeatedly in his three-volume Abdul Hamid. The word Anatolia means “sunrise” or “east” in Greek and this name was given to the Asia Minor peninsula approximately in the 5th or 4th centuries B. C. During the Ottoman era, the term Anadolou included the vilayets of Asia Minor with Kyotahia as its center. The numerous European, Ottoman, Armenian, Russian, Persian, Arabic and this testifies, inter alia, to the fact that even after the loss of its statehood the Armenian nation still constituted a majority in its homeland, which was recognized by Ottoman occupiers as well. The area of the region is 146,330 km², which comprises 18. 7% of the area of Turkey. The total population of the region is 6,100,000 and 5,906,565, the region has the second most rural population of Turkey after the Black Sea region. The migration level is high and population density is lower than the average for Turkey, the migration toward other Turkeys regions and toward foreign countries is higher than the natural population increase, a fact which is leading to a slight decline of the Regions population
11.
Kars Province
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Kars Province is a province of Turkey, located in the northeastern part of the country. It shares part of its border with the Republic of Armenia. The provincial capital is the city of Kars, the provinces of Ardahan and Iğdır were until the 1990s part of Kars Province. In ancient times, Kars was part of the province of Ararat in the Kingdom of Armenia, the first known people were the followers of Vanand, for whom Kars was their main settlement and fortress. In 928, Kars became the capital of Armenia, in 968, the capital of Armenia was moved to Ani, but Kars remained the capital of the feudal principality of Vanand. Later on, in 1209, Georgian army commanded by David Soslan and brothers Ivane, as a result of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 to 1878, the province of Kars was incorporated into the Russian Empire as part of the militarily administered Kars Oblast and remained so until 1918. It was seen as a province of a Russian Empire which was seeking to expand yet further by the conquest of more territory belonging to the Ottoman Empire. Many from the non-Russian Christian Orthodox communities had fought in or collaborated with the Russian Imperial army to capture Kars province from the Muslim Ottomans. They saw this as a means of fulfilling their own ambitions to recapture Christian territory on the back of the Russian imperial enterprise, turkish and Caucasian peoples make up the majority of the provinces population. It is suggested that about 20% of the population is Kurdish, Kars province is divided into 8 districts, each named after the administrative center of the district, There are 383 villages in Kars. Kars has a wealth of wildlife that is being documented by the Kars-Igdir Biodiversity Project run by the KuzeyDoga Society, the project has recorded 323 of Turkeys 468 bird species in the region. At least 223 of these occur at Lake Kuyucuk, that is the most important wetland in the region. Sarikamis Forests in the south harbor Indian wolves, Syrian brown bear, Caucasian lynx and other animals, Aras River Bird Research and Education Center at Yukari Ciyrikli village has recorded 228 bird species at this single location alone. The economy of Kars Province is dominated by agriculture, livestock breeding, 85% of the active population in Kars Province are farmers or herders. 60% of the domestic income is received from those sectors. Industry, tourism and commerce is developing, the climate limits the cultivation of plants in the region. In Kağızman and Tuzluca, cotton, sugar beet, beans, vegetable gardening and orchards are not very developed. Wheat, barley, cotton and in small quantity tobacco are grown in the province, livestock breeding in the region is more important than agriculture
12.
Samtskhe-Javakheti
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Samtskhe-Javakheti, is a region formed in the 1995 in southern Georgia from the historical provinces of Meskheti, Javakheti and Tori. The region comprises six districts, Akhaltsikhe, Adigeni, Aspindza, Borjomi, Akhalkalaki. There are 5 town,6 townlets,67 community and village sakrebulos, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, the South Caucasus natural gas pipeline, and the Kars–Tbilisi–Baku railway pass through the region. The current division of Georgia into regions was introduced by the Shevardnadze government in the mid-1990s, partly as a response to the secession of Abkhazia, Samtskhe-Javakheti was basically formed by combining the two traditional provinces of Samtskhe and Javakheti. The ancient tribes of Meskhi and Mosiniks are the first known inhabitants of the area, some scholars credit the Mosiniks with the invention of iron metallurgy. From the 10th to the 15th century it was part of the united Georgian Kingdom, in the 16th century Meskheti was integrated into the Safavid Empire, followed by the Ottoman Empire. After independence from the USSR Meskheti was reinstalled as a province of Georgia, in early sources, the region was recorded as Zabakha in 785 BC owned by the king Argishti I of Urartu as a conquered land. In the 1st century AD king of Kartli Parsman I managed to take Javakheti, in the 5th century during the rule of Vakhtang V Javakheti was a province of Iberia, and after his death his second wife the Byzantinian princess settled in Tsunda. Javakheti was an important part of the Kingdom of Kartli, in the 11th century Akhalkalaki became the center of upper Javakheti, and Tmogvi the center of lower Javakheti. Under the Georgian Kingdom, Javakheti bridges, churches, monasteries, from the 13th century, Javakheti included the territories of Palakatsio and part of Meskheti. In the 15th century, Javakheti was governed by Samtskhe-Saatabago, in the 16th century, it became part of the Safavid Empire, followed by the Ottomans and the Persian against after. The Georgian population of Javakheti was displaced to inner regions of Georgia - part to the Imereti and those who remained in the place became Muslims. As a result of the struggles of the Russian Empire with the Ottomans, Russian authorities settled Christian Armenians, Armenian refugees from the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire came in the early 20th century. Also a large number of Russian Doukhobor sect members settled the region, meskhetian Turks are the former Muslim inhabitants of Meskheti in Georgia, along the border with Turkey. Today, many are still dispersed across those countries, of the 100,000 forcibly deported, a total of 10,000 perished. The Georgian census of 2014 officially recorded 160,504 inhabitants in the region, the most densely populated districts are the Akhaltsikhe and Akhalkalaki municipalities. According to the 2014 census, 93% of the inhabitants of Akhalkalaki municipality, the major tourist attractions are the cave monasteries of Vardzia, Vanis Kvabebi, Rabati Castle and Khertvisi fortress. Also, among national visitors is very popular 10th century Sapara Monastery, Tmogvi fortress, and 8th century Zarzma monastery
13.
Posof
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Posof is a district of Ardahan Province of Turkey, in the far east of the country,75 km from the city of Ardahan. It has a crossing with neighboring Georgia at Türkgözü. Posof is well known for its handicrafts particularly its ornate silver belts, Posof is high in the mountains near the source of the River Çoruh, much of the district is pine forest. During the First World War and the Turkish War of Independence in the 1920s Posof was the scene of fighting between Turkey and Russia, today this is an impoverished rural area that has seen many of its residents migrate to jobs abroad. One source of income is beekeeping
14.
Humid continental climate
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Precipitation is usually well distributed through the year. Some climatologists prefer to use the 0 °C isotherm as it is commonly used. In addition, the location in question must not be semi-arid or arid, humid continental climates tend to be found between latitudes 40° N and 60° N, within the central and northeastern portions of North America, Europe, and Asia. They are much less commonly found in the Southern Hemisphere due to the ocean area at that latitude. More extreme humid continental climates found in southern Siberia and the American Midwest combine hotter summer maxima, climatological averages are used to determine which locations are within a certain climate regime. The World Meteorological Organization has defined this average as through a 30 year period, the version from 1936 utilized a mean temperature of the coldest month of below −3 °C and there must be at least four months whose mean temperatures are at or above 10 °C. In Europe, the −3 °C average temperature isotherm was near the extent of winter snowpack. Many climatologists in the U. S. prefer to use 0 °C as the standard because they feel it better reflects consistency in regional landscapes, the 10 °C average temperature was found to be the minimum temperature necessary for the tree growth. Large temperature ranges are common within this climate zone, in addition, the location in question must not be semi-arid or arid. This is from an update to the climate regime definition introduced by Trewartha & Horn in 1980, despite the 1980 update, climate regimes are essentially the same within the Southern Hemisphere. The largest changes are seen in North America, Europe, under Köppen, the following variants of this climate are possible. The climate regime uses a three letter code, beginning with the letter D. Otherwise, The second letter f , s , A dry summer — the driest summer month has at most 30 millimetres of rainfall and has at most 1⁄3 the precipitation of the wettest winter month. W , A dry winter — the driest winter month has at most one‑tenth of the found in the wettest summer month. The third letter a , Warmest month averages above 22 °C b , Does not meet the requirements for a, within North America, moisture within this climate regime is supplied by the Gulf of Mexico and adjacent western subtropical Atlantic. Snowfall occurs in all areas with a continental climate and in many such places is more common than rain during the height of winter. In places with sufficient wintertime precipitation, the cover is often deep. Most summer rainfall occurs during thunderstorms, and in North America, though humidity levels are often high in locations with humid continental climates, the humid designation means that the climate is not dry enough to be classified as semi-arid or arid. By definition, forests thrive within this climate, biomes within this climate regime include temperate woodlands, temperate grasslands, temperate deciduous, temperature evergreen forests, and coniferous forests
15.
Subarctic climate
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The subarctic climate is a climate characterised by long, usually very cold winters, and short, cool to mild summers. It is found on large landmasses, away from the effects of an ocean. These climates represent Köppen climate classification Dfc, Dwc, Dsc, Dfd, Dwd and Dsd. This type of climate offers some of the most extreme seasonal temperature variations found on the planet, in winter, temperatures can drop to −40 °C and in summer, record low temperatures can be as cold as −60 °C. With 5–7 consecutive months where the temperature is below freezing. Summer warmth is insufficient to thaw more than a few surface feet, seasonal thaw penetrates from 2 to 14 ft, depending on latitude, aspect, and type of ground. Some northern areas with subarctic climates located near oceans, have milder winters and no permafrost, the frost-free season is very short, varying from about 45 to 100 days at most, and a freeze can occur during any month in many areas. Most subarctic climates have very little precipitation, typically no more than 380 mm over an entire year, a notable exception to this pattern is that subarctic climates occurring at high altitudes in otherwise temperate regions have extremely high precipitation due to orographic lift. Mount Washington, with temperatures typical of a climate, receives an average rain-equivalent of 101.91 inches of precipitation per year.5 metres that does not melt until June. Vegetation in regions with subarctic climates is generally of low diversity, as only hardy species can survive the long winters, trees are mostly limited to conifers, as few broadleaved trees are able to survive the very low temperatures in winter. This type of forest is known as taiga, a term which is sometimes applied to the climate found therein as well. Even though the diversity may be low, numbers are high, the process by which plants become acclimated to cold temperatures is called hardening. In some areas, ice has scoured rock surfaces bare, entirely stripping off the overburden, elsewhere rock basins have been formed and stream courses dammed, creating countless lakes. The Tatra Mountains in Poland, above 800m, the Eastern Anatolia, between 1,600 and 2,100 meters – Turkey. The Pyrenees, between 1,600 and 2,100 meters – Andorra, France and Spain, further north in Siberia, continentality increases so much that winters can be exceptionally severe, averaging below −38 °C, even though the hottest month still averages more than 10 °C. This creates Dfd, Dwd and Dsd climates, one example is parts of the Snowy Mountains in Australia, although theyre more alpine than true subarctic. In China and Mongolia, as one moves southwestwards or towards lower altitudes, temperatures increase, Boreal ecology Boreal forest Plants of continental subarctic climate Köppen climate classification Subantarctic
16.
Climate
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Climate is the statistics of weather, usually over a 30-year interval. Climate differs from weather, in that weather only describes the conditions of these variables in a given region. A regions climate is generated by the system, which has five components, atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, lithosphere. The climate of a location is affected by its latitude, terrain, climates can be classified according to the average and the typical ranges of different variables, most commonly temperature and precipitation. The most commonly used classification scheme was the Köppen climate classification, the Bergeron and Spatial Synoptic Classification systems focus on the origin of air masses that define the climate of a region. Paleoclimatology is the study of ancient climates, Climate models are mathematical models of past, present and future climates. Climate change may occur long and short timescales from a variety of factors. For example, a 3°C change in mean annual temperature corresponds to a shift in isotherms of approximately 300–400 km in latitude or 500 m in elevation, therefore, species are expected to move upwards in elevation or towards the poles in latitude in response to shifting climate zones. Climate is commonly defined as the weather averaged over a long period, the standard averaging period is 30 years, but other periods may be used depending on the purpose. Climate also includes statistics other than the average, such as the magnitudes of day-to-day or year-to-year variations, the classical period is 30 years, as defined by the World Meteorological Organization. These quantities are most often surface variables such as temperature, precipitation, Climate in a wider sense is the state, including a statistical description, of the climate system. The World Meteorological Organization describes climate normals as reference points used by climatologists to compare current climatological trends to that of the past or what is considered normal, a Normal is defined as the arithmetic average of a climate element over a 30-year period. A30 year period is used, as it is enough to filter out any interannual variation or anomalies. The WMO originated from the International Meteorological Organization which set up a commission for climatology in 1929. At its 1934 Wiesbaden meeting the commission designated the thirty-year period from 1901 to 1930 as the reference time frame for climatological standard normals. In 1982 the WMO agreed to update climate normals, and in these were completed on the basis of climate data from 1 January 1961 to 31 December 1990. The difference between climate and weather is usefully summarized by the popular phrase Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get. Over historical time spans there are a number of nearly constant variables that determine climate, including latitude, altitude, proportion of land to water and these change only over periods of millions of years due to processes such as plate tectonics
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Turkish people
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Turkish people, or the Turks, also known as Anatolian Turks, are a Turkic ethnic group and nation living mainly in Turkey and speaking Turkish, the most widely spoken Turkic language. They are the largest ethnic group in Turkey, as well as by far the largest ethnic group among the speakers of Turkic languages, ethnic Turkish minorities exist in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire. In addition, a Turkish diaspora has been established with modern migration, the ethnonym Turk may be first discerned in Herodotus reference to Targitas, first king of the Scythians, furthermore, during the first century AD. Pomponius Mela refers to the Turcae in the north of the Sea of Azov. The first definite references to the Turks come mainly from Chinese sources in the sixth century, in these sources, Turk appears as Tujue, which referred to the Göktürks. Although Turk refers to Turkish people, it may sometimes refer to the wider language group of Turkic peoples. In the 19th century, the word Türk only referred to Anatolian villagers, the Ottoman ruling class identified themselves as Ottomans, not usually as Turks. In the late 19th century, as the Ottoman upper classes adopted European ideas of nationalism the term Türk took on a more positive connotation. The Turkish-speakers of Anatolia were the most loyal supporters of Ottoman rule, Turkish Jews, Christians, or even Alevis may be considered non-Turks. On the other hand, Kurdish Arab followers of the Sunni branch of Islam who live in eastern Anatolia are sometimes considered Turks, article 66 of the Turkish Constitution defines a Turk as anyone who is bound to the Turkish state through the bond of citizenship. Anatolia was first inhabited by hunter-gatherers during the Paleolithic era, most of the Turkic peoples were followers of Tengriism, sharing the cult of the sky god Tengri, although there were also adherents of Manichaeism, Nestorian Christianity and Buddhism. However, during the Muslim conquests, the Turks entered the Muslim world proper as servants, during the booty of Arab raids, the Turks began converting to Islam after Muslim conquest of Transoxiana through the efforts of missionaries, Sufis, and merchants. Although initiated by the Arabs, the conversion of the Turks to Islam was filtered through Persian, under the Umayyads, most were domestic servants, whilst under the Abbasids, increasing numbers were trained as soldiers. By the ninth century, Turkish commanders were leading the caliphs’ Turkish troops into battle, as the Abbasid caliphate declined, Turkish officers assumed more military and political power taking over or establishing provincial dynasties with their own corps of Turkish troops. During the 11th century the Seljuk Turks who were admirers of the Persian civilization grew in number and were able to occupy the province of the Abbasid Empire. By 1055, the Seljuk Empire captured Baghdad and began to make their first incursions into the edges of Anatolia, when the Seljuk Turks won the Battle of Manzikert against the Byzantine Empire in 1071, it opened the gates of Anatolia to them. Although ethnically Turkish, the Seljuk Turks appreciated and became the purveyors of the Persian culture rather than the Turkish culture, in dire straits, the Byzantine Empire turned to the West for help setting in motion the pleas that led to the First Crusade. Once the Crusaders took Iznik, the Seljuk Turks established the Sultanate of Rum from their new capital, Konya, by the 12th century the Europeans had begun to call the Anatolian region Turchia or Turkey, meaning the land of the Turks
18.
Georgians
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The Georgians or Kartvelians are a nation and ethnic group who constitute a majority of the population in Georgia. Large Georgian communities are present throughout Russia, Turkey, Greece, Iran, Ukraine, United States. Georgians arose from the ancient Colchian and Iberian civilizations, there are also small Georgian Catholic and Muslim communities in Tbilisi and Adjara, as well as a significant number of irreligious Georgians. By the early 11th century they formed a unified Kingdom of Georgia and inaugurated the Georgian Golden Age and this lasted until being weakened by Mongol invasions, as well as internal divisions following the death of George V the Brilliant, the last of the great kings of Georgia. To ensure Georgias survival, in 1783 Heraclius II of Georgia forged an alliance with the Russian Empire, the Russo-Georgian alliance, however, backfired as Russia was unwilling to fulfill the terms of the treaty, proceeding to annex the troubled kingdom in 1801. Georgians briefly reasserted their independence from Russia under the First Georgian Republic from 1918-1921, Georgians call themselves Kartvelebi, their land Sakartvelo, and their language Kartuli. According to The Georgian Chronicles, the ancestor of the Kartvelian people was Kartlos, however, scholars agree that the word is derived from the Karts, the latter being one of the proto-Georgian tribes that emerged as a dominant group in ancient times. Ancient Greeks and Romans referred to western Georgians as Colchians and eastern Georgians as Iberians, the term Georgians is derived from the country of Georgia. Starting with the Persian word gurğ/gurğān, the word was adopted in numerous other languages, including Slavic. This term itself might have established through the ancient Iranian appellation of the near-Caspian region. Scholars usually refer to them as Proto-Kartvelian tribes, the Georgian people in antiquity have been known to the ancient Greeks and Romans as Colchians and Iberians. East Georgian tribes of Tibarenians-Iberians formed their kingdom in 7th century BCE, however, western Georgian tribes established the first Georgian state of Colchis before the foundation of the Iberian Kingdom in the east. According to the scholars of Georgia, the formations of these two early Georgian kingdoms of Colchis and Iberia, resulted in the consolidation and uniformity of the Georgian nation. The ancient Jewish chronicle by Josephus mentions Georgians as Iberes who were also called Thobel, diauehi in Assyrian sources and Taochi in Greek lived in the northeastern part of Anatolia, a region that was part of Georgia. This ancient tribe is considered by scholars as ancestors of the Georgians. Modern Georgians still refer to this region, which now belongs to present-day Turkey, as Tao-Klarjeti, some people there still speak the Georgian language. Colchians in the ancient western Georgian Kingdom of Colchis were another proto-Georgian tribed and they are first mentioned in the Assyrian annals of Tiglath-Pileser I and in the annals of Urartian king Sarduri II, and are also included western Georgian tribe of the Meskhetians. Iberians, also known as Tiberians or Tiberanians, lived in the eastern Georgian Kingdom of Iberia, both Colchians and Iberians played an important role in the ethnic and cultural formation of the modern Georgian nation
19.
Azerbaijanis
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Azerbaijanis or Azeris, also known as Azerbaijani Turks, are a Turkic ethnic group in the Caucasus living mainly in Iranian Azerbaijan and the independent Republic of Azerbaijan. They are the second-most numerous ethnic group among the Turkic peoples after Anatolian Turks and they are predominantly Shii Muslims, and have a mixed cultural heritage, including Turkic, Iranian, and Caucasian elements. They comprise the largest ethnic group in Republic of Azerbaijan and by far the second-largest ethnic group in neighboring Iran, the worlds largest number of ethnic Azerbaijanis live in Iran, followed by Azerbaijan. The formation of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918 established the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan, despite living on two sides of an international border, the Azeris form a single ethnic group. However, northerners and southerners due to nearly two centuries of separate social evolution of Iranian Azerbaijanis and Azerbaijanis in Russian/Soviet-influenced Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan is believed to be named after Atropates, a Persian satrap who ruled in Atropatene circa 321 B. C. The name Atropates is the Hellenistic form of Aturpat which means guardian of fire, itself a compound of ātūr fire + -pat suffix for -guardian, -lord, present-day name Azerbaijan is the Arabicized form of Azarbaigān. The latter is derived from Ādurbādagān, itself ultimately from Āturpātakān meaning the land associated with Aturpat, the Russian Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, written in the 1890s, also referred to Tatars in Azerbaijan as Aderbeijans, but noted that the term had not been adopted widely. In Azerbaijani language publications, the expression Azerbaijani nation referring to those who were known as Tatars of the Caucasus first appeared in the newspaper Kashkul in 1880, Ancient residents of the area spoke the Old Azeri, which belonged to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. In the 11th century AD with Seljukid conquests, Oghuz Turkic tribes started moving across the Iranian plateau into the Caucasus, the influx of the Oghuz and other Turkmen tribes was further accentuated by the Mongol invasion. Today, this Turkic-speaking population is known as Azerbaijani, caucasian-speaking Albanian tribes are believed to be the earliest inhabitants of the region where the modern-day Republic of Azerbaijan is located. Early Iranian settlements included the Scythians in the ninth century BC, following the Scythians, the Medes came to dominate the area to the south of the Aras River. Ancient Iranian people of the Medes forged a vast empire between 900 and 700 BC, which the Achaemenids integrated into their own empire around 550 BC, during this period, Zoroastrianism spread in the Caucasus and in Atropatene. Alexander the Great defeated the Achaemenids in 330 BC, but allowed the Median satrap Atropates to remain in power, following the decline of the Seleucids in Persia in 247 BC, an Armenian Kingdom exercised control over parts of Caucasian Albania. Caucasian Albanians established a kingdom in the first century BC and largely remained independent until the Persian Sassanids made their kingdom a vassal state in 252 AD, sassanid control ended with their defeat by Muslim Arabs in 642 AD, through the Muslim conquest of Persia. Muslim Arabs defeated the Sassanids and Byzantines as they marched into the Caucasus region, the Arabs made Caucasian Albania a vassal state after the Christian resistance, led by Prince Javanshir, surrendered in 667. Between the ninth and tenth centuries, Arab authors began to refer to the region between the Kura and Aras rivers as Arran, during this time, Arabs from Basra and Kufa came to Azerbaijan and seized lands that indigenous peoples had abandoned, the Arabs became a land-owning elite. Conversion to Islam was slow as local resistance persisted for centuries and resentment grew as small groups of Arabs began migrating to cities such as Tabriz and this influx sparked a major rebellion in Iranian Azerbaijan from 816–837, led by a local Zoroastrian commoner named Bābak
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Kars Oblast
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Kars Oblast was one of the Transcaucasian oblasts of the Russian Empire between 1878 and 1917. Its capital was the city of Kars, presently in the Republic of Turkey, the governorate bordered with the Ottoman Empire, Batum Oblast, Tiflis Governorate, Erivan Governorate, and from 1883 to 1903 the Kutaisi Governorate. It covered all of Turkeys present provinces of Kars and Ardahan and the northeastern part of Erzurum Province as well as a small part of Armenia. According to the Russian Empire Census of 1897, the Oblast was populated with 25. 3% Armenians,21. 9% Turks,14. 8% Kurds,11. 2% Caucasus Greeks,10. 3% Karapapaks, and 7. 7% Russians. Kars Oblast was created in 1878 from some of the lands conquered by Russia from the Ottoman Empire, the lands of the Oblast had previously belonged to the Ottoman Kars Eyalet and Samtskhe Province before 1845 and Erzurum Eyalet after 1845. With the incorporation of the region into Russian Empire, a portion of the local Muslim population left for Ottoman territory. Many of these Christian Orthodox communities had fought in or collaborated with the Russian imperial army as a means of recapturing territory from the Muslim Ottomans for Christian Orthodoxy, the first ruler of the oblast held the title of nachalnik, later the title became military governor. Nachalniks were Ivan Popko between 01.11.1877 and 08.06.1878, and Viktor Frankini, the first military governor of was Viktor Frankini. In any event Turkish forces soon invaded the area, forming an unrecognized puppet government, incorporation of most of the lands of the former Kars Oblast into Turkey was confirmed by the Treaty of Kars, signed by the unrecognized Turkish state and the Soviet Union. Since 1881, Kars Oblast consisted of four okrugs, Kars Ardahan Kaghzvan Oltu Two more okrugs, Zarushat, in 1892, the population of Kars Oblast was estimated as 200,868. This number may perhaps imply that the 200,868 estimate for 1892 given by Brockhaus is too low, viz. among the 27,856 speakers of Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian,19,910 men and 7,946 women were recorded. The Polish, and Lithuanian speakers were almost exclusively male as well, Germans and this preponderance of males in the European ethnic groups may indicate presence of a large numbers of soldiers or exiled persons in the region. Ethnic groups in Kars Oblast according to 1897 Russian census Russian Armenia First Republic of Armenia
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Armenians
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Armenians are an ethnic group native to the Armenian Highlands. Armenians constitute the population of Armenia and the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. There is a diaspora of around 5 million people of full or partial Armenian ancestry living outside of modern Armenia. The largest Armenian populations today exist in Russia, the United States, France, Georgia, Iran, Germany, Ukraine, Lebanon, Brazil and Syria. With the exceptions of Iran and the former Soviet states, the present-day Armenian diaspora was formed mainly as a result of the Armenian Genocide, most Armenians adhere to the Armenian Apostolic Church, a non-Chalcedonian church, which is also the worlds oldest national church. Christianity began to spread in Armenia soon after Jesus death, due to the efforts of two of his apostles, St. Thaddeus and St. Bartholomew, in the early 4th century, the Kingdom of Armenia became the first state to adopt Christianity as a state religion. The unique Armenian alphabet was invented in 405 AD by Mesrop Mashtots, historically, the name Armenian has come to internationally designate this group of people. It was first used by neighbouring countries of ancient Armenia, the earliest attestations of the exonym Armenia date around the 6th century BC. In his trilingual Behistun Inscription dated to 517 BC, Darius I the Great of Persia refers to Urashtu as Armina (in Old Persian, Armina and Harminuya. In Greek, Αρμένιοι Armenians is attested from about the same time, xenophon, a Greek general serving in some of the Persian expeditions, describes many aspects of Armenian village life and hospitality in around 401 BC. He relates that the people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like the language of the Persians and it is also further postulated that the name Hay comes from one of the two confederated, Hittite vassal states—the Ḫayaša-Azzi. Movses Khorenatsi, the important early medieval Armenian historian, wrote that the word Armenian originated from the name Armenak or Aram, the Armenian Highland lies in the highlands surrounding Mount Ararat, the highest peak of the region. In the Bronze Age, several states flourished in the area of Greater Armenia, including the Hittite Empire, Mitanni, soon after Hayasa-Azzi were Arme-Shupria, the Nairi and the Kingdom of Urartu, who successively established their sovereignty over the Armenian Highland. Each of the nations and tribes participated in the ethnogenesis of the Armenian people. Under Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian empire reached the Caucasus Mountains, yerevan, the modern capital of Armenia, was founded in 782 BC by king Argishti I. T. Gamkrelidze and V. Ivanov proposed the Indo-European homeland around the Armenian Highland, eric P. Hamp in his 2012 Indo-European family tree, groups the Armenian language along with Greek and Ancient Macedonian in the Pontic Indo-European subgroup. In Hamps view the homeland of this subgroup is the northeast coast of the Black Sea and he assumes that they migrated from there southeast through the Caucasus with the Armenians remaining after Batumi while the pre-Greeks proceeded westwards along the southern coast of the Black Sea. However, fresh genetics studies explain Armenian diversity by several mixtures of Eurasian populations that occurred between ~3,000 and ~2,000 b. c
22.
Caucasus Greeks
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One notable example of such pre-modern Caucasus Greeks is the 7th-century Greek Bishop Cyrus of Alexandria, originally from Phasis in present-day Georgia. Even the son of King David of Trebizonds son George had fled there with his retinue, many of their descendants survive in Georgia’s Marneuli district, although most immigrated to Greece, and particularly Thessaloniki in Greek Macedonia in the mid-1990s. In the war of 1828-29 many north-eastern Anatolia Greeks welcomed, collaborated with, or fought in the Russian Army that occupied Erzurum, Gümüşhane, Erzinjan, most of their descendants settled in Georgia, the Russian Trans-Caucasus, and other parts of southern Russia. A large number of Caucasus Greeks who settled in Georgia became referred to as Urum and speak a Turkish dialect with an admixture of Pontic Greek, Georgian. Selim I had been based in the Trebizond region before he became Sultan in 1512 and they were subsequently resettled by the Russian Imperial government in the Ukraine and other parts of southern Russia, but also especially Georgia and Kars Oblast. These same areas now in Georgia also had pockets of Muslims of Turkish and non-Turkish ethnic origin - though the latter had generally become Turkish in speech. A smaller but still significant number did, however, work outside the agricultural, in particular, many pursued careers as regular soldiers and officers in the Russian Imperial Army, in the regional police force, as clergymen, or even within the provincial Russian administration. Unlike the Pontic Greeks of the Black Sea coastal cities like Trebizond, however, Caucasus Greeks were often multilingual, able to speak, read, and write Greek and Russian and speak Eastern Anatolian Turkish, and sometimes also basic Georgian and Armenian. The Caucasus Greeks had close links with the Greek Orthodox Russian settlers of Kars Oblast through worshiping in each others churches as well as marrying partners of RuCaucasus. Most Caucasus Greeks left Kars Oblast following the cession of the back to the Ottoman Empire in 1917. These Greeks were based mainly in Stavropol Krai, in the foothills of the North Caucasus, Caucasus Greeks have generally assimilated well into modern Greek society, being successful within a broad range of trades and professions. They are generally conflated by other Greeks with the Pontic Greeks of Pontus proper, whom many in Greece see as socially conservative, clan-like. The Caucasus Greeks and Pontic Greeks of Greek Macedonia have still managed to some of their unique traditions and have also established many cultural. Although precise figures are difficult to verify it is likely a total of around 56,350 Greeks lived within Kars Oblast until 1919, the following is a list of the towns and villages in which they lived, given in both Greek and English transliteration. A1) Villages and settlements with purely Caucasus Greek population in BATUM OBLAST’, a2) Towns, villages and settlements with part Greek population in BATUM OBLAST’, ARTVIN. B1) Villages and settlements with purely or majority Caucasus Greek population in KARS OBLAST’, Abul’vart ~ village in the Khorosan sub-district of Kagyzman, nowadaysKurbançayır köyü. Official Greek, Ἀμπουλβὰρτ Ampoulvàrt, written in monotonic versions ―for example, Αμπουλβάρ, Αμπουλβάρτ, Αμπουλμπάρτ, Απουλβάρτ, Απουλπάτ. Ali-Sofi of the Hellenes ~ village in the Soganli sub-district of Kars, old Russian, Али-Софи греческій Ali-Sofi grečeskiy, to avoid confusion with the not-far Али-Софи туркменскій Ali-Sofi turmenskiy inhabited by Alevi Turcomans
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Russians
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Russians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Eastern Europe. The majority of Russians inhabit the state of Russia, while notable minorities exist in Ukraine, Kazakhstan. A large Russian diaspora exists all over the world, with numbers in the United States, Germany, Israel. Russians are the most numerous group in Europe. They are predominantly Orthodox Christians by religion, the Russian language is official in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, and also spoken as a secondary language in many former Soviet states. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians. One is русские, which most often means ethnic Russians, another is россияне, which means citizens of Russia. The former word refers to ethnic Russians, regardless of what country they live in, under certain circumstances this term may or may not extend to denote members of other Russian-speaking ethnic groups from Russia, or from the former Soviet Union. The latter word refers to all people holding citizenship of Russia, regardless of their ethnicity, translations into other languages often do not distinguish these two groups. The name of the Russians derives from the Rus people, the name Rus would then have the same origin as the Finnish and Estonian names for Sweden, Ruotsi and Rootsi. According to other theories the name Rus is derived from Proto-Slavic *roud-s-ь, the modern Russians formed from two groups of East Slavic tribes, Northern and Southern. The tribes involved included the Krivichs, Ilmen Slavs, Radimichs, Vyatiches, genetic studies show that modern Russians do not differ significantly from Belarusians and Ukrainians. Some ethnographers, like Zelenin, affirm that Russians are more similar to Belarusians, such Uralic peoples included the Merya and the Muromians. Outside archaeological remains, little is known about the predecessors to Russians in general prior to 859 AD when the Primary Chronicle starts its records and it is thought that by 600 AD, the Slavs had split linguistically into southern, western, and eastern branches. Later, both Belarusians and South Russians formed on this ethnic linguistic ground, the same Slavic ethnic population also settled the present-day Tver Oblast and the region of Beloozero. With the Uralic substratum, they formed the tribes of the Krivichs, in 2010, the worlds Russian population was 129 million people of which 86% were in Russia,11. 5% in the CIS and Baltic countries, with a further 2. 5% living in other countries. Roughly 111 million ethnic Russians live in Russia, 80% of whom live in the European part of Russia, ethnic Russians historically migrated throughout the area of former Russian Empire and Soviet Union, sometimes encouraged to re-settle in borderlands by the Tsarist and later Soviet government. On some occasions ethnic Russian communities, such as Lipovans who settled in the Danube delta or Doukhobors in Canada, after the Russian Revolution and Russian Civil War starting in 1917, many Russians were forced to leave their homeland fleeing the Bolshevik regime, and millions became refugees
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Scythians
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The Scythian languages belonged to the Eastern branch of the Iranian languages. Ancient Greek historians spoke of Scythians who lived north of the Black Sea, Persians used the term Saka, for approximately the same people who lived further east. Although the ancients did not clearly distinguish the two terms, modern scholars usually use Saka to refer to Iranian-speaking tribes who inhabited the central steppe, the Chinese used the term Sai, for Sakas who had moved into the Tarim Basin. Assyrian sources speak of Iskuzai or Askuzai south of the Caucasus who were probably Scythians, the relationships between the peoples living in these widely separated regions remains unclear. Their westernmost territories during the Iron Age were known to classical Greek sources as Scythia, the Scythians were among the earliest peoples to master mounted warfare. In the 8th century BC they possibly raided Zhou China, soon after they expanded westwards and dislodged the Cimmerians from power on the Pontic Steppe. Based in what is modern-day Ukraine, Southern European Russia, and Crimea, the Scythians established and controlled a vast trade network connecting Greece, Persia, India and China, perhaps contributing to the contemporary flourishing of those civilizations. Settled metalworkers made portable decorative objects for the Scythians and these objects survive mainly in metal, forming a distinctive Scythian art. In the 7th century BC the Scythians crossed the Caucasus and frequently raided the Middle East along with the Cimmerians, around 650–630 BC, Scythians briefly dominated the Medes of the western Iranian Plateau, stretching their power all the way to the borders of Egypt. After losing control over Media the Scythians continued intervening in Middle Eastern affairs, the Scythians subsequently engaged in frequent conflicts with the Achaemenid Empire. The western Scythians suffered a defeat against Macedonia in the 4th century BC, and were subsequently gradually conquered by the Sarmatians. In Eastern Europe, by the early Medieval Ages, the Scythians, Scythians kept herds of horses, cattle, and sheep, lived in tent-covered wagons, and fought with bows and arrows on horseback. They developed a culture characterized by opulent tombs, fine metalwork. Sulimirski views the Histories of Herodotus as the most important literary source relating to ancient Scyths, Herodotus provides a depiction that can be related to the results of archaeological research, but apparently knew little of the eastern part of Scythia. He did say that the ancient Persians called all the Scyths Σάκαι and their principal tribe, the Royal Scyths, ruled the vast lands occupied by the nation as a whole, calling themselves Σκώλοτοι. The restored Scythian name is *Skuda, which among the Pontic or Royal Scythians became *Skula, in which the d has been regularly replaced by an l. Saka, on the hand, Szemerényi relates to an Iranian verbal root, sak-, go, roam. The name does appear somewhat further east than the Achaemenid Empire, whether they adopted the Achaemenid name, or Saka came to be an endonym, it is not clear
25.
Caucasus
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The Caucasus /ˈkɔːkəsəs/ or Caucasia /kɔːˈkeɪʒə/ is a region at the border of Europe and Asia, situated between the Black and the Caspian seas. It is home to the Caucasus Mountains, which contain Europes highest mountain, politically, the Caucasus region is separated between northern and southern parts. The southern parts consist of independent sovereign states, and the parts are under the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation. The region is known for its diversity, aside from Indo-European and Turkic languages, the Kartvelian, Northwest Caucasian. Pliny the Elders Natural History derives the name of the Caucasus from Scythian kroy-khasis, German linguist Paul Kretschmer notes that the Latvian word Kruvesis also means ice. According to German philologists Otto Schrader and Alfons A. Nehring, the South Caucasus region and southern Dagestan were the furthest points of Persian expansions, with areas to the north of Caucasus Mountains practically impregnable. The mythological mountain of Qaf, the worlds highest mountain that ancient lore shrouded in mystery, was said to be situated in this region, therefore, the Caucasus might be associated with the legendary mountain. The Ciscaucasus contains the majority of the Greater Caucasus Mountain range. It includes Southwestern Russia and northern parts of Georgia and Azerbaijan, the Transcaucasus is bordered on the north by Russia, on the west by the Black Sea and Turkey, on the east by the Caspian Sea, and on the south by Iran. It includes the Caucasus Mountains and surrounding lowlands, all of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are in South Caucasus. The main Greater Caucasus range is generally perceived to be the line between Asia and Europe. The highest peak in the Caucasus is Mount Elbrus in the western Ciscaucasus in Russia, the Caucasus is one of the most linguistically and culturally diverse regions on Earth. The nation states that comprise the Caucasus today are the post-Soviet states Georgia, Armenia, three territories in the region claim independence but are recognized as such by only a handful or by no independent states, Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Abkhazia and South Ossetia are recognised by the majority of independent states as part of Georgia, the Russian divisions include Krasnodar Krai, Stavropol Krai, and the autonomous republics of Adygea, Karachay–Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia, Ingushetia, Chechnya, and Dagestan. The region has many different languages and language families, there are more than 50 ethnic groups living in the region. Russian is used as a common language, today the peoples of the Northern and Southern Caucasus tend to be either Eastern Orthodox Christians, Oriental Orthodox Christians, or Sunni Muslims. Shia Islam has had many adherents historically in Azerbaijan, located in the part of the region. Located on the peripheries of Turkey, Iran, and Russia, the region has been an arena for political, military, religious, throughout its history, the Caucasus was usually incorporated into the Iranian world
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Urartu
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Urartu, also known as Kingdom of Van, was an Iron Age kingdom centred on Lake Van in the Armenian Highlands. It corresponds to the biblical Kingdom of Ararat, the language appears in cuneiform inscriptions. It is argued on linguistic evidence that came in contact with Urartian at an early date. That a distinction should be made between the geographical and the entity was already pointed out by König. The landscape corresponds to the plateau between Anatolia, Mesopotamia, the Iranian Plateau, and the Caucasus Mountains, later known as the Armenian Highlands. The kingdom rose to power in the mid-ninth century BC, the heirs of Urartu are the Armenians and their successive kingdoms. The name Urartu comes from Assyrian sources, Shalmaneser I recorded a campaign in which he subdued the entire territory of Uruatri, the Shalmaneser text uses the name Urartu to refer to a geographical region, not a kingdom, and names eight lands contained within Urartu. Urartu is cognate with the Biblical Ararat, Akkadian Urashtu and Armenian Ayrarat, the Urartian toponym Biainili was adopted in the Old Armenian as Van, Վան. Hence the names Kingdom of Van or Vannic Kingdom, scholars such as Carl Ferdinand Friedrich Lehmann-Haupt believed that the people of Urartu called themselves Khaldini after the god Ḫaldi. Boris Piotrovsky wrote that the Urartians first appear in history in the 13th century BC as a league of tribes or countries which did not yet constitute a unitary state. In the Assyrian annals the term Uruatri as a name for this league was superseded during a period of years by the term land of Nairi. Scholars believe that Urartu is an Akkadian variation of Ararat of the Old Testament, indeed, Mount Ararat is located in ancient Urartian territory, approximately 120 kilometres north of its former capital. In addition to referring to the famous Biblical mountain, Ararat also appears as the name of a kingdom in Jeremiah 51,27, mentioned together with Minni, in the early sixth century BC, Urartu was replaced by the Armenian Orontid Dynasty. Shupria was part of the Urartu confederation, later, there is reference to a district in the area called Arme or Urme, which some scholars have linked to the name of Armenia. At its apogee, Urartu stretched from the borders of northern Mesopotamia to the southern Caucasus, including present-day Armenia, archaeological sites within its boundaries include Altintepe, Toprakkale, Patnos and Haykaberd. Urartu fortresses included Erebuni, Van Fortress, Argishtihinili, Anzaf, Haykaberd, schulz discovered and copied numerous cuneiform inscriptions, partly in Assyrian and partly in a hitherto unknown language. Schulz also re-discovered the Kelishin stele, bearing an Assyrian-Urartian bilingual inscription, a summary account of his initial discoveries was published in 1828. Schulz and four of his servants were murdered by Kurds in 1829 near Başkale and his notes were later recovered and published in Paris in 1840
27.
Lake Van
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Lake Van, the largest lake in Turkey, lies in the far east of that country in the provinces of Van and Bitlis. It is a soda lake, receiving water from numerous small streams that descend from the surrounding mountains. Lake Van is one of the worlds largest endorheic lakes - a volcanic eruption blocked the outlet from the basin in ancient times. Although Lake Van has an altitude of 1,640 m in a region with harsh winters, its high salinity prevents most of it from freezing, and even the shallow northern section freezes only rarely. Lake Van is 119 kilometres across at its widest point, averaging a depth of 171 metres with a recorded depth of 451 metres. The lake surface lies 1,640 metres above sea level, Lake Van has an area of 3,755 km2 and a volume of 607 cubic kilometres. The western portion of the lake is deepest, with a large basin deeper than 400 m lying northeast of Tatvan, the eastern arms of the lake are shallower. The Van-Ahtamar portion shelves gradually, with a depth of about 250 m on its northwest side where it joins the rest of the lake. The Erciş arm is much shallower, mostly less than 50 m, the lake water is strongly alkaline and rich in sodium carbonate and other salts, which are extracted by evaporation and used as detergents. The lakes outlet was blocked at some time during the Pleistocene, now dormant, Nemrut Dağı is close to the western shore of the lake, and another dormant stratovolcano, Süphan Dağı dominates the northern side of the lake. The water level of the lake has often altered dramatically, near Tatvan, investigation by Degens and others in the early 1980s determined that the highest lake levels had been during the last ice age, about 18,000 years ago. Approximately 9,500 years ago there was a drop to more than 300 metres below the present level. This was followed by an equally-dramatic rise around 6,500 years ago, similar-but-smaller fluctuations have been seen recently. The level of the rose by at least three metres during the 1990s, drowning much agricultural land, and seems to be rising again. The level rose approximately two meters in the ten years prior to 2004. As a deep lake with no outlet, Lake Van has accumulated great amounts of sediment washed in from surrounding plains and valleys, and occasionally deposited as ash from eruptions of nearby volcanoes. This layer of sediment is estimated to be up to 400 metres thick in places, in 1989 and 1990, an international team of geologists led by Dr. Stephan Kempe from the University of Hamburg retrieved ten sediment cores from depths up to 446 m. Although these cores only penetrated the first few meters of sediment, litt expects to find that Lake Van stores the climate history of the last 800,000 years—an incomparable treasure house of data which we want to tap for at least the last 500,000 years
28.
Persian people
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The Persians are an Iranian ethnic group that make up over half the population of Iran. They share a cultural system and are native speakers of the Persian language. The ancient Persians were originally a branch of the ancient Iranian population who entered modern-day Iran by the early 10th century BC. The English term Persian derives from Latin Persia, itself deriving from Greek Persís, in the Bible, it is referred to as Parás —sometimes Paras uMadai —within the books of Esther, Daniel, Ezra and Nehemya. Although Persis was originally one of the provinces of ancient Iran, varieties of this term were adopted through Greek sources, thus, in the Western world, the term Persian came to refer to all inhabitants of the country. 10th-century Iraqi historian Al-Masudi refers to Pahlavi, Dari and Azari as dialects of the Persian language, in 1333, medieval Moroccan traveler and scholar Ibn Battuta, referred to the people of Kabul as a specific sub-tribe of Persians. Lady Mary Sheil, in her observation of Iran during the Qajar era, describes Persians, Kurds and Leks to identify themselves as descendants of the ancient Persians. On March 21,1935, the king of Iran, Reza Shah Pahlavi, issued a decree asking the international community to use the term Iran. However, the term Persian is still used to designate the predominant population of the Iranian peoples living in the Iranian cultural continent. The earliest known written record attributed to the Persians is from the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, the inscription mentions Parsua as a tribal chiefdom in modern-day western Iran. The ancient Persians were originally a branch of the Iranian population that, in the early 10th century BC. They were initially dominated by the Assyrians for much of the first three centuries after arriving in the region, however, they played a role in the downfall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The Medes, another branch of population, founded the unified empire of Media as the regions dominant cultural and political power in c.625 BC. Meanwhile, the Persian dynasty of the Achaemenids formed a state to the central Median power. In c.552 BC, the Achaemenids began a revolution which led to the conquest of the empire by Cyrus II in c.550 BC. They spread their influence to the rest of what is called the Iranian Plateau, at its greatest extent, the Achaemenid Empire stretched from parts of Eastern Europe in the west, to the Indus Valley in the east, making it the largest empire the world had yet seen. The Achaemenids developed the infrastructure to support their growing influence, including the creation of Pasargadae and its legacy and impact on the kingdom of Macedon was also notably huge, even for centuries after the withdrawal of the Persians from Europe following the Greco-Persian Wars. The empire collapsed in 330 BC following the conquests of Alexander the Great, until the Parthian era, the Iranian identity had an ethnic, linguistic, and religious value, however, it did not yet have a political import
29.
Alexander the Great
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Alexander III of Macedon, commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon and a member of the Argead dynasty. He was born in Pella in 356 BC and succeeded his father Philip II to the throne at the age of twenty and he was undefeated in battle and is widely considered one of historys most successful military commanders. During his youth, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle until the age of 16, after Philips assassination in 336 BC, he succeeded his father to the throne and inherited a strong kingdom and an experienced army. Alexander was awarded the generalship of Greece and used this authority to launch his fathers Panhellenic project to lead the Greeks in the conquest of Persia, in 334 BC, he invaded the Achaemenid Empire and began a series of campaigns that lasted ten years. Following the conquest of Anatolia, Alexander broke the power of Persia in a series of battles, most notably the battles of Issus. He subsequently overthrew Persian King Darius III and conquered the Achaemenid Empire in its entirety, at that point, his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River. He sought to reach the ends of the world and the Great Outer Sea and invaded India in 326 BC and he eventually turned back at the demand of his homesick troops. Alexander died in Babylon in 323 BC, the city that he planned to establish as his capital, without executing a series of planned campaigns that would have begun with an invasion of Arabia. In the years following his death, a series of civil wars tore his empire apart, resulting in the establishment of several states ruled by the Diadochi, Alexanders surviving generals, Alexanders legacy includes the cultural diffusion which his conquests engendered, such as Greco-Buddhism. He founded some twenty cities that bore his name, most notably Alexandria in Egypt, Alexander became legendary as a classical hero in the mold of Achilles, and he features prominently in the history and mythic traditions of both Greek and non-Greek cultures. He became the measure against which military leaders compared themselves, and he is often ranked among the most influential people in human history. He was the son of the king of Macedon, Philip II, and his wife, Olympias. Although Philip had seven or eight wives, Olympias was his wife for some time. Several legends surround Alexanders birth and childhood, sometime after the wedding, Philip is said to have seen himself, in a dream, securing his wifes womb with a seal engraved with a lions image. Plutarch offered a variety of interpretations of dreams, that Olympias was pregnant before her marriage, indicated by the sealing of her womb. On the day Alexander was born, Philip was preparing a siege on the city of Potidea on the peninsula of Chalcidice. That same day, Philip received news that his general Parmenion had defeated the combined Illyrian and Paeonian armies, and it was also said that on this day, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, burnt down. This led Hegesias of Magnesia to say that it had burnt down because Artemis was away, such legends may have emerged when Alexander was king, and possibly at his own instigation, to show that he was superhuman and destined for greatness from conception
30.
Kingdom of Georgia
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The Kingdom of Georgia, also known as the Georgian Empire, was a medieval monarchy which emerged in circa 1008 AD. It reached its Golden Age of political and economic strength during the reign of King David IV, a predominantly Christian, Georgian-speaking realm, it was the principal historical precursor of present-day Georgia. Lasting for several centuries, the fell to the Mongol invasions in the 13th century. The Kingdoms geopolitical situation further worsened after the Fall of Constantinople, as a result of these processes, by the end of the 15th century Georgia turned into an isolated, fractured Christian enclave, surrounded by hostile Turco-Iranic neighbors. The ascendancy of the Bagrationi dynasty can be traced to the 8th century, the restoration of the Georgian kingship begins in AD888, when Adarnase IV of Iberia took the title of King of Georgians. The United Kingdom of Georgia was established in 1008, in this year, Bagrat III, son of Gurgen II, became the ruler of the Kingdom of Western Georgia, including the Principalities of Imereti, Samegrelo, Abkhazeti, Guria and Svaneti. Bagrats mother was Queen Gurandukht, a daughter of George II of Abkhazia, the first decades of the 9th century saw the rise of a new Georgian state in Tao-Klarjeti. Ashot Courapalate of the family of Bagrationi liberated from the Arabs the territories of former southern Iberia. In practice, however, the region functioned as an independent country with its capital in Artanuji. The hereditary title of Curopalates was kept by the Bagrationi family, the first united Georgian monarchy was formed at the end of the 10th century when Curopalate David invaded the Earldom of Kartli-Iberia. Three years later, after the death of his uncle Theodosius the Blind, King of Egrisi-Abkhazia, in 1001 Bagrat added Tao-Klarjeti to his domain as a result of Davids death. In 1008–1010, Bagrat annexed Kakheti and Hereti, thus becoming the first king of a united Georgia in both the east and west, in 1071, the Seljuq army destroyed the united Byzantine-Armenian and Georgian forces in the Battle of Manzikert. By 1081, all of Armenia, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Syria, in Georgia, only the mountainous areas of Abkhazia, Svaneti, Racha, and Khevi–Khevsureti remained out of Seljuq control and served as a relatively safe havens for numerous refugees. The rest of the country was dominated by the conquerors who destroyed the cities and fortresses, looted the villages, in fact, by the end of the 1080s, Georgians were outnumbered in the region by the invaders. The Golden Age began with the reign of David IV, the son of George II and Queen Helena, in 1121, he decisively defeated much larger Turkish armies during the Battle of Didgori, with fleeing Seljuq Turks being run down by pursuing Georgian cavalry for several days. A huge amount of booty and prisoners were captured by Davids army, David IV made particular emphasis on removing the vestiges of unwanted eastern influences, which the Georgians considered forced, in favor of the traditional Christian and Byzantine overtones. As part of this effort he founded the Gelati Monastery, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, David also played a personal role in reviving Georgian religious hymnography, composing the Hymns of Repentance, a sequence of eight free-verse psalms. In this emotional repentance of his sins, David sees himself as reincarnating the Biblical David, with a relationship to God
31.
Samtskhe-Saatabago
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The Principality of Meskheti or Principality of Samtskhe was a Georgian feudal principality existing between 1268 and 1628. Its territory consisted of modern Meskheti and the region of Tao-Klarjeti. Samtskhe-Saatabago was established after the expansion of the dukedom of Samtskhe, dukes of Samstkhe were always distinguished by their longing for higher autonomy from the king of Georgia. Samtskhe-Saatabago managed to remain a culturally developed part of Georgia as well as maintaining territorial integrity, Samtskhe-Saatabago, which was fully independent at a time, was again incorporated in the Georgian Kingdom by George V of Georgia, who claimed maternal descent from the House of Jaqeli. George V made Samtskhe-Saatabago an integral part of Georgia once again, at the end of the 14th century, Timurs forces invaded Samtskhe-Saatabago several times. After the weakening of Georgian monarchy, the rulers of Samtskhe turned to separatism once more, in 1500, Shah Ismail inveigled the atabeg of Samtskhe, king Constantine II and king Alexander II of Imereti to attack Ottoman possessions nearby Tabriz. As a precaution, Ismail had Aleksander send his son Demetre to the conquered region of Shirvan. Ismail promised Constantine, once Tabriz was captured, to cancel the tribute he still paid the Ak Koyunlu Turcomans, each Georgian ruler contributed 3,000 men to the existing Ismails own 7,000. By 1503 they enabled him to recapture Nakhchivan from the Ottomans, but Ismail broke his promise, and made Kartli and Kakheti his vassals
32.
Akhaltsikhe
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Akhaltsikhe is a small city in Georgias southwestern region of Samtskhe-Javakheti. It is situated on the banks of a small river Potskhovi, which separates the city to the old city in the north. The city is first mentioned in the chronicles in the 12th century, in the 12th–13th centuries it was the seat of the Akhaltsikhelis, dukes of Samtskhe, whose two most illustrious representatives were Shalva and Ivane Akhaltsikheli. From the 13th up to the 17th century the city and Samtkhe were governed by the family of the Jaqelis. In 1576 the Ottomans took it and from 1628 the city became the centre of the Samtskhe Eyalet of the Ottoman Empire as Ahıska. In the old part of the city one can see an old fortress, castle and mosque, the old fortress of the Jakelis, the hills nearby the city harbour the Sapara Monastery. In the late 1980s the city was host to the Soviet Armys 10th Guards Motor Rifle Division, in 2002, the population consisted of 28,473 Georgians and 16,879 Armenians. According to the 2014 Census, the population with the many surrounding villages was 46,134. The city proper is currently 17,903, in 2014 the majority were ethnic Georgians, with minority of Armenians. This includes the alluvial flood-plain of the Kura River, and all the way to the high grasslands, human occupation is attested already in the Early Bronze Age and later. The Roman and medieval periods artifacts are also represented in the area. On the northeastern outskirts of Akhaltsikhe is an important archaeological site of Amiranis Gora, the earliest carbon date for Amiranis Gora is 3790-3373 cal BC. Amiranis Gora is an important reference point for the study of the Early Bronze Age Kura-Araxes culture, the many references include the architecture, burial practices, material culture and metallurgy. Amiranis Gora is one of the best sites with fixed stratigraphy of the Kura-Araxes culture, the carbon date for the Kura-Araxes material at Amiranis Gora is 3630-3048 cal B. C. which is very early. Battle of Akhalzic Akhaltsikhe Museum Akhaltsikhe district
33.
Ottoman Empire
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After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe, and with the conquest of the Balkans the Ottoman Beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror, at the beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states. Some of these were later absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries. With Constantinople as its capital and control of lands around the Mediterranean basin, while the empire was once thought to have entered a period of decline following the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, this view is no longer supported by the majority of academic historians. The empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society, however, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind that of their European rivals, the Habsburg and Russian Empires. While the Empire was able to hold its own during the conflict, it was struggling with internal dissent. Starting before World War I, but growing increasingly common and violent during it, major atrocities were committed by the Ottoman government against the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks. The word Ottoman is an anglicisation of the name of Osman I. Osmans name in turn was the Turkish form of the Arabic name ʿUthmān, in Ottoman Turkish, the empire was referred to as Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿOsmānīye, or alternatively ʿOsmānlı Devleti. In Modern Turkish, it is known as Osmanlı İmparatorluğu or Osmanlı Devleti, the Turkish word for Ottoman originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in the fourteenth century, and subsequently came to be used to refer to the empires military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term Turk was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population, the term Rūmī was also used to refer to Turkish-speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond. In Western Europe, the two names Ottoman Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favored both in formal and informal situations and this dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–23, when the newly established Ankara-based Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name. Most scholarly historians avoid the terms Turkey, Turks, and Turkish when referring to the Ottomans, as the power of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as the Anatolian Beyliks. One of these beyliks, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish tribal leader Osman, osmans early followers consisted both of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, many but not all converts to Islam. Osman extended the control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along the Sakarya River and it is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbours, due to the scarcity of the sources which survive from this period. One school of thought which was popular during the twentieth century argued that the Ottomans achieved success by rallying religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam, in the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans. Osmans son, Orhan, captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326 and this conquest meant the loss of Byzantine control over northwestern Anatolia. The important city of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387, the Ottoman victory at Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe
34.
Russian Empire
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The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until it was overthrown by the short-lived February Revolution in 1917. One of the largest empires in history, stretching over three continents, the Russian Empire was surpassed in landmass only by the British and Mongol empires. The rise of the Russian Empire happened in association with the decline of neighboring powers, the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Persia. It played a role in 1812–14 in defeating Napoleons ambitions to control Europe. The House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762, and its German-descended cadet branch, with 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third-largest population in the world at the time, after Qing China and India. Like all empires, it included a large disparity in terms of economics, ethnicity, there were numerous dissident elements, who launched numerous rebellions and assassination attempts, they were closely watched by the secret police, with thousands exiled to Siberia. Economically, the empire had an agricultural base, with low productivity on large estates worked by serfs. The economy slowly industrialized with the help of foreign investments in railways, the land was ruled by a nobility from the 10th through the 17th centuries, and subsequently by an emperor. Tsar Ivan III laid the groundwork for the empire that later emerged and he tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde, renovated the Moscow Kremlin, and laid the foundations of the Russian state. Tsar Peter the Great fought numerous wars and expanded an already huge empire into a major European power, Catherine the Great presided over a golden age. She expanded the state by conquest, colonization and diplomacy, continuing Peter the Greats policy of modernisation along West European lines, Tsar Alexander II promoted numerous reforms, most dramatically the emancipation of all 23 million serfs in 1861. His policy in Eastern Europe involved protecting the Orthodox Christians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and that connection by 1914 led to Russias entry into the First World War on the side of France, Britain, and Serbia, against the German, Austrian and Ottoman empires. The Russian Empire functioned as a monarchy until the Revolution of 1905. The empire collapsed during the February Revolution of 1917, largely as a result of failures in its participation in the First World War. Perhaps the latter was done to make Europe recognize Russia as more of a European country, Poland was divided in the 1790-1815 era, with much of the land and population going to Russia. Most of the 19th century growth came from adding territory in Asia, Peter I the Great introduced autocracy in Russia and played a major role in introducing his country to the European state system. However, this vast land had a population of 14 million, grain yields trailed behind those of agriculture in the West, compelling nearly the entire population to farm. Only a small percentage lived in towns, the class of kholops, close to the one of slavery, remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter I converted household kholops into house serfs, thus including them in poll taxation
35.
Democratic Republic of Georgia
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The Democratic Republic of Georgia existed from May 1918 to February 1921 and was the first modern establishment of a Republic of Georgia. The DRG was created after the collapse of the Russian Empire that began with the Russian Revolution of 1917 and it had a total land area of roughly 107,600 km², and a population of 2.5 million. The republics capital was Tbilisi, and its language was Georgian. Proclaimed on May 26,1918, on the break-up of the Transcaucasian Federation, after the February Revolution of 1917 and collapse of the tsarist administration in the Caucasus, most power was held by the Special Transcaucasian Committee of the Russian Provisional Government. All of the soviets in Georgia were firmly controlled by the Georgian Social Democratic Party, the Bolshevist October Revolution changed the situation drastically. The Caucasian soviets refused to recognize Vladimir Lenins regime, many Georgians, influenced by the ideas of Ilia Chavchavadze and other intellectuals from the late 19th century, insisted on national independence. A cultural national awakening was further strengthened by the restoration of the autocephaly of the Georgian Orthodox Church, in contrast, the Georgian Mensheviks regarded independence from Russia as a temporary step against the Bolshevik revolution and considered calls for Georgias independence chauvinistic and separatist. The union of Transcaucasus was short-lived though, Noe Ramishvili formed the first government of Democratic Republic of Georgia. Georgia was immediately recognized by Germany and the Ottoman Empire, the young state had to place itself under German protection and to cede its largely Muslim-inhabited regions to the Ottoman government. However, German support enabled the Georgians to repel the Bolshevik threat from Abkhazia, German forces were almost certainly under the command of Friedrich Freiherr Kress von Kressenstein. Following the German defeat in the First World War, British occupation forces arrived in the country, Relations between the British and the local population were more strained than they had been with the Germans. British-held Batum, remained out of Georgias control until 1920, on December 25,1918, a British force was deployed in Tbilisi too. Georgias relations with its neighbours were uneasy, territorial disputes with Armenia, Denikins White Russian government and Azerbaijan led to armed conflicts in the first two cases. A British military mission attempted to mediate these conflicts in order to consolidate all anti-Bolshevik forces in the region, the threat of invasion by Denikins forces, notwithstanding the British position, brought Georgia and Azerbaijan together in a mutual defense alliance on June 16,1919. On February 14,1919, Georgia held parliamentary elections won by the Social Democratic Party of Georgia with 81. 5% of the vote. On March 21, Noe Zhordania formed the government, which had to deal with armed peasants revolts incited by local Bolshevik activists. These became more troublesome when carried out by ethnic minorities such as Abkhazians and Ossetians, in 1919, reforms in judicial system and local self-governance were carried out. Nevertheless, ethnic issues continued to trouble the country, especially on the part of the Ossetians, some contemporaries also observed increasing nationalism among the Social Democratic Party of Georgia leaders
36.
Treaty of Kars
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The Treaty of Kars was a peace treaty that established the common borders between Turkey and the three Transcaucasian republics of the Soviet Union. The treaty was signed in the city of Kars on October 13,1921, the treaty was the successor treaty to the earlier Treaty of Moscow of March 1921. Most of the territories ceded to Turkey in the treaty were acquired by Imperial Russia from the Ottoman Empire during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878. The only exception was the Surmali region, which had part of the Erivan Khanate of Iran before it was annexed by Russia in the Treaty of Turkmenchay after the last Russo-Persian war. The Treaty of Kars reaffirmed the terms of the earlier Treaty of Moscow concluded in 1921 between the Grand National Assembly of Turkey and the Russian SFSR and it defined the boundaries between the new Turkish Republic and all three Transcaucasian republics. The Kars treaty provided for the territory of the former Imperial Russian Batum Oblast of the Kutais Governorate to be divided, the southern half of the former oblast, largely correspondent to the Artvinsky Okrug with the city of Artvin, would be annexed to Turkey. The northern half, largely correspondent to the Batumsky Okrug with the port city of Batum. The treaty required that the region be granted political autonomy due to the largely Muslim local population, the treaty created a new boundary between Turkey and Soviet Armenia, defined by the Akhurian and Aras Rivers. Turkey obtained the territory of the former Kars Oblast of the Russian Empire, including the cities of Kars, Ardahan, and Olti, Lake Childir, and the ruins of Ani. Ganetsky emphasized the historical and scientific value of Ani for the Armenians. However, Turkey refused to renegotiate the terms agreed upon in the Moscow treaty, most of the Armenian territories ceded to Turkey had already been under Turkish military control since the Turkish–Armenian War. The treaty required Turkish troops to withdraw from an area corresponding to the western half of Armenias present-day Shirak Province. Article V of the treaty established the region of Nakhichevan as an exclave under the political jurisdiction of Soviet Azerbaijan. The new autonomous Nakhichevan territory comprised the former Nakhichevansky Uyezd and the Sharur part of the Sharur-Daralagezsky Uyezd of the former Erivan Governorate, in 1924, the area was officially declared the Nakhichevan ASSR subordinate to the Azerbaijan SSR. The creation of new autonomous republic allowed Azerbaijan to share a common 15-km boundary with the now-Turkish-controlled Aras corridor. The Kars treaty also impacted Turkish-Iranian relations, the annexation of Surmali and the Aras corridor now gave Turkey a slightly more extensive border with Iran. In the late 1920s, the Kurdish Ararat rebellion erupted in the vicinity of Mount Ararat. As Turkey attempted to quash the rebellion, the Kurdish rebels fled across the Iranian border to the flank of Lesser Ararat
37.
Damal
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Damal, formerly Petereke, is a town and district of Ardahan Province of Turkey, on the road from Kars to Posof. The region was controlled by Imperial Russia but later restored to Turkey after World War One. This part of a Turkey has a cold, hard climate, the rag dolls of Damal are renowned and have won prizes in craftwork festivals. Burmadere Dereköy Eskikılıç İkizdere Otağlı Seyitören Tepeköy Üçdere
