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
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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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Diauehi
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Diauehi or Diaokhi, Daiaeni was a coalition of tribes, or kingdoms, located in northeastern Anatolia, that was formed in the 12th century BC in the post-Hittite period. It is mentioned in the Urartian inscriptions and it is usually identified with Daiaeni of the Yonjalu inscription of the Assyria king Tiglath-Pileser I’s third year. Diauehi is a locus of proto-Kartvelian, it has been described as an important tribal formation of possible proto-Georgians by Ronald Grigor Suny. Most probably, the core of the Diauehi lands may have extended from the headwaters of the Euphrates into the valleys of Çoruh to Oltu. This federation was powerful enough to counter the Assyrian forays, although in 1112 BC its king and he was captured and later released on terms of vassalage. In 845 BC, Shalmaneser III finally subdued Diauehi and downgraded its king, Asia, king Asia of Diauehi was forced to submit to the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III in 845 BC, after the latter had overrun Urartu and made a foray into Diauehi. In the early 8th century, Diauehi became the target of the newly emerged regional power of Urartu, both Menua and Argishti I campaigned against the Diauehi king, Utupurshi, annexing his southernmost possessions and forcing him to pay tribute, which included copper, silver and gold. Diauehi was finally destroyed by Colchian incursions by about the 760s BC, antonio Sagona, Claudia Sagona, Archaeology At The North-east Anatolian Frontier, I, An Historical Geography And A Field Survey of the Bayburt Province, Peeters, ISBN 90-429-1390-8 Georgia. Retrieved February 14,2006, from Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service Kavtaradze, an Attempt to Interpret Some Anatolian and Caucasian Ethnonyms of the Classical Sources, Sprache und Kultur, #3. The Bulletin of Ancient History, vol, Ancient kingdoms of Anatolia Prehistoric Georgia
25.
Assyria
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Assyria was a major Mesopotamian East Semitic-speaking kingdom and empire of the ancient Near East and the Levant. Centered on the Tigris in Upper Mesopotamia, the Assyrians came to rule powerful empires at several times. Assyria is named after its capital, the ancient city of Aššur. In the 25th and 24th centuries BC, Assyrian kings were pastoral leaders, Assyria can also refer to the geographic region or heartland where Assyria, its empires and the Assyrian people were centered. The indigenous modern Eastern Aramaic-speaking Assyrian Christian ethnic minority in northern Iraq, north east Syria, southeast Turkey, in prehistoric times, the region that was to become known as Assyria was home to a Neanderthal culture such as has been found at the Shanidar Cave. The earliest Neolithic sites in Assyria were the Jarmo culture c.7100 BC and Tell Hassuna, during the 3rd millennium BC, a very intimate cultural symbiosis developed between the Sumerians and the Akkadians throughout Mesopotamia, which included widespread bilingualism. The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian, and vice versa, is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a scale, to syntactic, morphological. This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the third millennium BC as a sprachbund and it is highly likely that the city was named in honour of its patron Assyrian god with the same name. The city of Aššur, together with a number of other Assyrian cities, however it is likely that they were initially Sumerian-dominated administrative centres. In the late 26th century BC, Eannatum of Lagash, then the dominant Sumerian ruler in Mesopotamia, similarly, in c. the early 25th century BC, Lugal-Anne-Mundu the king of the Sumerian state of Adab lists Subartu as paying tribute to him. Of the early history of the kingdom of Assyria, little is known, in the Assyrian King List, the earliest king recorded was Tudiya. According to Georges Roux he would have lived in the mid 25th century BC, Tudiya was succeeded on the list by Adamu, the first known reference to the Semitic name Adam and then a further thirteen rulers. The earliest kings, such as Tudiya, who are recorded as kings who lived in tents, were independent semi-nomadic pastoralist rulers and these kings at some point became fully urbanised and founded the city state of Ashur in the mid 21st century BC. During the Akkadian Empire, the Assyrians, like all the Mesopotamian Semites, became subject to the dynasty of the city state of Akkad, the Akkadian Empire founded by Sargon the Great claimed to encompass the surrounding four quarters. Assyrian rulers were subject to Sargon and his successors, and the city of Ashur became an administrative center of the Empire. On those tablets, Assyrian traders in Burushanda implored the help of their ruler, Sargon the Great, the name Hatti itself even appears in later accounts of his grandson, Naram-Sin, campaigning in Anatolia. Assyrian and Akkadian traders spread the use of writing in the form of the Mesopotamian cuneiform script to Asia Minor, the Akkadian Empire was destroyed by economic decline and internal civil war, followed by attacks from barbarian Gutian people in 2154 BC. The rulers of Assyria during the period between c.2154 BC and 2112 BC once again fully independent, as the Gutians are only known to have administered southern Mesopotamia
26.
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.
Colchis
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Colchis was an ancient kingdom and region on the coast of the Black Sea, centered in present-day western Georgia. Internationally, Colchis is perhaps best known for its role in Greek mythology, most notably as the destination of the Argonauts, as well as the home to Medea and the Golden fleece. Colchis was populated by Colchians, an early Kartvelian-speaking tribe, ancestral to the contemporary Western Georgians, namely Svans and Mingrelians, the kingdom of Colchis, Kolkhis or Qulha which existed from the c. According to the scholar of Caucasian studies Cyril Toumanoff, Colchis appears as the first Caucasian State to have achieved the coalescence of the newcomer. Colchis can be regarded as not a proto-Georgian, but a Georgian kingdom. It would seem natural to seek the beginnings of Georgian social history in Colchis. A second South Caucasian tribal union emerged in the 13th century BC on the Black Sea coast. There is some difference in authors as to the extent of the country westward, thus Strabo makes Colchis begin at Trabzon, while Ptolemy, on the other hand. The name of Colchis first appears in Aeschylus and Pindar, the earlier writers only speak about it under the name of Aea, the residence of the mythical king Aeëtes, Kolchian Aia lies at the furthest limits of sea and earth, wrote Apollonius of Rhodes. Scylax mentions also Mala or Male, which he, in contradiction to other writers, the central part of the region is Colchis Plain, stretching between Sokhumi and Kobuleti, most of that lies on the elevation below 20 m above sea level. Marginal parts of the region are mountains of the Great and the Lesser Caucasus, the climate is mild humid, near Batumi, annual rainfall level reaches 4,000 mm, which is the absolute maximum for the continental western Eurasia. The dominating natural landscapes of Colchis are temperate rainforests, yet degraded in the part of the region, wetlands. In at least some parts of Colchis, the process of urbanization seems to have been advanced by the end of the 2nd millennium BC. The Colchian Late Bronze Age saw the development of significant skill in the smelting and casting of metals, sophisticated farming implements were made, and fertile, well-watered lowlands and a mild climate promoted the growth of progressive agricultural techniques. Colchis was inhabited by a number of related but distinct tribes whose settlements lay along the shore of the Black Sea and these Colchian tribes differed so completely in language and appearance from the surrounding Indo-European nations that the ancients provided various wild theories to account for the phenomenon. Herodotus regarded the Colchians as Ancient Egyptian race, Apollonius of Rhodes states that the Egyptians of Colchis preserved as heirlooms a number of wooden tablets, which show, with considerable accuracy, seas and highways. Detlev Fehling regards the link between Colchis and Egypt as a clear example of the way Herodotus used spurious sources to back up stories he had made up himself. In the 13th century BC, the Kingdom of Colchis was formed as a result of the consolidation of the tribes inhabiting the region. This power, celebrated in Greek mythology as the destination of the Argonauts, the home of Medea, the kingdom of Tabal was conquered by the Assyrian emperor Shalmaneser III in the 830s BC
28.
Cimmerians
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The Cimmerians are an ancient people, first mentioned in the late 8th century BC in Assyrian records. Likely originating in the Pontic steppe and invading by means of the Caucasus, they probably assaulted Urartu and they were defeated by Assyrian forces under Sargon II in 705 and turned towards Anatolia, conquering Phrygia in 696/5. They reached the height of their power in 652 after taking Sardis, soon after 619, Alyattes of Lydia defeated them. There are no mentions of them in historical sources. The origin of the Cimmerians is unclear and they are mostly supposed to have been related to either Iranian or Thracian speaking groups which migrated under pressure of the Scythian expansion of the 9th to 8th century BC. This association is controversial, or at best conventional, and is not to be taken as a claim that specific artifacts are to be associated with the Cimmerians of the Greek or Assyrian record. The term Thraco-Cimmerian was first introduced by I, sir Henry Layards discoveries in the royal archives at Nineveh and Calah included Assyrian primary records of the Cimmerian invasion. These records appear to place the Cimmerian homeland, Gamir, south rather than north of the Black Sea, the first record of the Cimmerians appears in Assyrian annals in the year 714 BC. These describe how a people termed the Gimirri helped the forces of Sargon II to defeat the kingdom of Urartu and their original homeland, called Gamir or Uishdish, seems to have been located within the buffer state of Mannae. The later geographer Ptolemy placed the Cimmerian city of Gomara in this region, the Assyrians recorded the migrations of the Cimmerians, as the former peoples king Sargon II was killed in battle against them while driving them from Persia in 705 BC. The Cimmerians were subsequently recorded as having conquered Phrygia in 696–695 BC, in 679 BC, during the reign of Esarhaddon of Assyria, they attacked the Assyrian colonies Cilicia and Tabal under their new ruler Teushpa. Esarhaddon defeated them near Hubushna, and they also met defeat at the hands of his successor Ashurbanipal. A people named Kimmerior is described Homers Odyssey as living beyond the Oceanus, in a land of fog and darkness, at the edge of the world, according to Herodotus, the Cimmerians had been expelled from their homeland between the Tyras and Tanais rivers by the Scythians. Unreconciled to Scythian advances, to burial in their ancestral homeland. The Cimmerian commoners buried the bodies along the river Tyras and fled across the Caucasus, Herodotus also names a number of Cimmerian kings, including Tugdamme, and Sandakhshatra. In 654 BC or 652 BC – the exact date is unclear – the Cimmerians attacked the kingdom of Lydia, killing the Lydian king Gyges and causing great destruction to the Lydian capital of Sardis. They returned ten years later during the reign of Gyges son Ardys II, the Cimmerian occupation of Lydia was brief, however, possibly due to an outbreak of plague. They were beaten back by Alyattes II of Lydia and this defeat marked the effective end of Cimmerian power
29.
Strabo
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Strabo was a Greek geographer, philosopher, and historian who lived in Asia Minor during the transitional period of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus, Strabos life was characterized by extensive travels. He journeyed to Egypt and Kush, as far west as coastal Tuscany and as far south as Ethiopia in addition to his travels in Asia Minor and the time he spent in Rome. Travel throughout the Mediterranean and Near East, especially for scholarly purposes, was popular during this era and was facilitated by the relative peace enjoyed throughout the reign of Augustus. He moved to Rome in 44 BC, and stayed there, studying and writing, in 29 BC, on his way to Corinth, he visited the island of Gyaros in the Aegean Sea. Around 25 BC, he sailed up the Nile until reaching Philae and it is not known precisely when Strabos Geography was written, though comments within the work itself place the finished version within the reign of Emperor Tiberius. Some place its first drafts around 7 BC, others around 17 or 18 AD, the latest passage to which a date can be assigned is his reference to the death in AD23 of Juba II, king of Maurousia, who is said to have died just recently. He probably worked on the Geography for many years and revised it steadily, on the presumption that recently means within a year, Strabo stopped writing that year or the next, when he died. The first of Strabos major works, Historical Sketches, written while he was in Rome, is completely lost. Strabo studied under several prominent teachers of various specialties throughout his life at different stops along his Mediterranean travels. His first chapter of education took place in Nysa under the master of rhetoric Aristodemus, Strabo was an admirer of Homers poetry, perhaps a consequence of his time spent in Nysa with Aristodemus. At around the age of 21, Strabo moved to Rome, where he studied philosophy with the Peripatetic Xenarchus, despite Xenarchuss Aristotelian leanings, Strabo later gives evidence to have formed his own Stoic inclinations. In Rome, he learned grammar under the rich and famous scholar Tyrannion of Amisus. Although Tyrannion was also a Peripatetic, he was more relevantly a respected authority on geography, the final noteworthy mentor to Strabo was Athenodorus Cananites, a philosopher who had spent his life since 44 BC in Rome forging relationships with the Roman elite. Athenodorus endowed to Strabo three important items, his philosophy, his knowledge, and his contacts, moreover, from his own first-hand experience, Athenodorus provided Strabo with information about regions of the empire which he would not otherwise have known. Strabo is most notable for his work Geographica, which presented a history of people. Although the Geographica was rarely utilized in its antiquity, a multitude of copies survived throughout the Byzantine Empire. It first appeared in Western Europe in Rome as a Latin translation issued around 1469, the first Greek edition was published in 1516 in Venice
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Gugars
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The Gugars were a people of Caucasian Iberia, settling near the Debeda river, mentioned by Strabo. They were presumably an early Georgian people, the toponym Gogarene, an integral part of Caucasian Iberia, is derived from their name. The region is first mentioned by Strabo who records it as a province of Iberia, later it was renamed Gugark, after the conquests of Arshakid Armenian rulers in the 2nd century BC. Javakhishvili, Introduction to the History of the Georgian Nation, Book 1 — Ethnological and historical problems of Georgia, Caucasus,1950, D. Muskhelishvili, Georgian Soviet Encyclopedia, Vol.3, pg
31.
Gugark
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Gugark was the 13th province of Greater Armenia. It now comprises parts of northern Armenia, northeast Turkey, at first, Gugark was part of Urartu. From the 6th century, it part of Satrapy of Armenia. In III century the territory was conquered by Caucasian Iberia, during the reign of the Artaxiad and Arshakuni kings of Armenia, Gugark served as one of the kingdoms four bdeshkhs, responsible for protecting the states northern border. In the course of the 4th century, the region was ruled by members of the House of Mihran, in 387, Armenia was partitioned between the Byzantine and Sassanid empires and Gugark, with the exception of the canton of Tashir, was a made part of Caucasian Iberia. The ruler of the region around 425 was Archoucha, in 652, the Armenian prince Theodore Rshtuni was allowed by the Arabs to unite Gugark with his realms. In the following centuries, Gugark and its cantons fell under the sway of several rulers. In the 8th century, it became a part of Emirate of Tbilisi, in the middle of the 9th century, it was taken by the Georgian Bagrationis and these facts prove the statement that this region had been populated by Georgian tribe called Gugars
32.
Kingdom of Armenia (antiquity)
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The Kingdom of Armenia, also the Kingdom of Greater Armenia, or simply Greater Armenia, was a monarchy in the Ancient Near East which existed from 321 BC to 428 AD. Its history is divided into successive reigns by three dynasties, Orontid, Artaxiad and Arsacid. It is widely believed to be the region with which all Armenians descend from and it was one of the largest empires in the history of the Middle East. Under the Seleucid Empire, the Armenian throne was divided in two – Armenia Maior and Sophene – both of which passed to members of the Artaxiad dynasty in 189 BC. The remaining Artaxiad kings ruled as clients of Rome until they were overthrown in 12 AD due to their allegiance to Romes main rival in the region. During the Roman–Parthian Wars, the Arsacid dynasty of Armenia was founded when Tiridates I, throughout most of its history during this period, Armenia was heavily contested between Rome and Parthia, and the Armenian nobility was divided among pro-Roman, pro-Parthian or neutrals. From 114 to 118, Armenia briefly became a province of the Roman Empire under Emperor Trajan, the Kingdom of Armenia often served as a client state or vassal at the frontier of the two large empires and their successors, the Byzantine and Sassanid empires. In 301, Tiridates III proclaimed Christianity as the religion of Armenia. During the Byzantine–Sasanian wars, Armenia was ultimately partitioned into Byzantine Armenia in 387, the Kingdoms symbol and most famous icon was Mount Ararat, arguably the tallest mountain in the kingdom. The geographic Armenian Highlands, then known as the highlands of Ararat, was inhabited by Proto-Armenian tribes which did not yet constitute a unitary state or nation. The highlands were first united by tribes in the vicinity of Lake Van into the Kingdom of Van, the kingdom competed with Assyria over supremacy in the highlands of Ararat and the Fertile Crescent. Both kingdoms fell to Iranian invaders from the neighbouring East in the 6th century BC and its territory was reorganized into a satrapy called Armenia. The Orontid dynasty ruled as satraps of the Achaemenid Empire for three centuries until the defeat against Alexander the Greats Macedonian Empire at the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC. After Alexanders death in 323 BC, a Macedonian general named Neoptolemus obtained Armenia until he died in 321 BC and the Orontids returned, not as satraps, Orontes III also defeated the Thessalian commander Menon, who wanted to capture Spers gold mines. The Seleucid Empires influence over Armenia had weakened after it was defeated by the Romans in the Battle of Magnesia in 190 BC, a Hellenistic Armenian state was thus founded in the same year by Artaxias I alongside the Armenian kingdom of Sophene led by Zariadres. Artaxias seized Yervandashat, united the Armenian Highlands at the expense of neighboring tribes, according to Strabo and Plutarch, Hannibal Barca received hospitality at the Armenian court of Artaxias I. The authors add a story of how Hannibal planned and supervised the building of Artaxata. The new city was laid on a position at the juncture of trade routes that connected the Ancient Greek world with Bactria, India
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Kingdom of Iberia
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Caucasian Iberians is a Greco-Roman designation for the population of Caucasian Iberia, a Kartvelian speaking people in the east and southeast Transcaucasus region in Antiquity and Middle Ages. In the southwest, Iberians extended into Anatolia, inhabiting interior lands beside Colchians, ancient Caucasian Iberians are considered to be the ancestors of modern eastern Georgians as well the Laz people, another Kartvelian-speaking group. The area was inhabited in earliest times by several related tribes collectively called Iberians by ancient Greek, Iberians called their country Kartli after a mythic chief, Kartlos. One of the Iberian tribes of Mtskheta dominated the early Kingdom, the Mtskheta tribe was later ruled by a prince locally known as mamasakhlisi. The Roman general Pompey invaded Iberia in 65 BC, during his war with Mithridates VI of Pontus, and Armenia, nineteen years later, the Romans again marched on Iberia, forcing King Pharnavaz II to join their campaign against Albania as their ally. While another kingdom of Colchis was administered as a Roman province, Iberia freely accepted the Roman Imperial protection, the Iberian king Mirian III adopted Christianity as a state religion in AD327, and Iberia allied itself with the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great. The religion would become a strong tie between Iberia and Rome, and would have a large impact on the states culture. The early reign of the Iberian king Vakhtang I dubbed Gorgasali was marked by relative revival of the kingdom, formally a vassal of the Persians, he secured the northern borders by subjugating the Caucasian mountaineers, and brought the adjacent western and southern Iberian lands under his control. He established an autocephalic patriarchate at Mtskheta, and made Tbilisi his capital, in 482, he led a general uprising against Persia. A desperate war for independence lasted for twenty years, but he could not get Byzantine support, Pharnavaz, victorious in the power struggle, became the first king of Iberia. Driving back an invasion, he subjugated the areas, including a significant part of the western state of Colchis. Pharnavaz then focused on projects, including the citadel of the capitol, the Armaztsikhe. He also reformed the Georgian written language and created a new system of administration and his successors managed to gain control over the mountainous passes of the Caucasus, with the Daryal being the most important of them. It may be possible to trace the presence of Caucasian Iberians in the region for several millennia, the Iberian tribes were an indigenous people of the Caucasus region, united by a common language, the ancestor of the Ibero-Caucasian language group. The name Iberian in its own appears in ancient Greek authors who identified early Georgian tribes as Iberoi. The Iberians called their kingdom Kartli, and their nation Kartlians, some theories have proposed common ethnic and linguistic origins of ancient Caucasian Iberians with the Iberians of the Iberian Peninsula, or the modern Basques in Spain
34.
Abbasid Caliphate
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The Abbasid Caliphate was the third of the Islamic caliphates to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The Abbasid dynasty descended from Muhammads youngest uncle, Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib and they ruled as caliphs, for most of their period from their capital in Baghdad in modern-day Iraq, after assuming authority over the Muslim empire from the Umayyads in 750 CE. The Abbasid caliphate first centered its government in Kufa, but in 762 the caliph Al-Mansur founded the city of Baghdad, the political power of the caliphs largely ended with the rise of the Buyids and the Seljuq Turks. Although Abbasid leadership over the vast Islamic empire was reduced to a ceremonial religious function. The capital city of Baghdad became a center of science, culture, philosophy and this period of cultural fruition ended in 1258 with the sack of Baghdad by the Mongols under Hulagu Khan. The Abbasid line of rulers, and Muslim culture in general, though lacking in political power, the dynasty continued to claim authority in religious matters until after the Ottoman conquest of Egypt. The Abbasid caliphs were Arabs descended from Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib, one of the youngest uncles of Muhammad, the Abbasids claimed to be the true successors of Prophet Muhammad in replacing the Umayyad descendants of Banu Umayya by virtue of their closer bloodline to Muhammad. The Abbasids also distinguished themselves from the Umayyads by attacking their moral character, according to Ira Lapidus, The Abbasid revolt was supported largely by Arabs, mainly the aggrieved settlers of Marw with the addition of the Yemeni faction and their Mawali. The Abbasids also appealed to non-Arab Muslims, known as mawali, Muhammad ibn Ali, a great-grandson of Abbas, began to campaign for the return of power to the family of Prophet Muhammad, the Hashimites, in Persia during the reign of Umar II. During the reign of Marwan II, this culminated in the rebellion of Ibrahim the Imam. On 9 June 747, Abu Muslim successfully initiated a revolt against Umayyad rule. Close to 10,000 soldiers were under Abu Muslims command when the hostilities began in Merv. General Qahtaba followed the fleeing governor Nasr ibn Sayyar west defeating the Umayyads at the Battle of Nishapur, the Battle of Gorgan, after this loss, Marwan fled to Egypt, where he was subsequently assassinated. The remainder of his family, barring one male, were also eliminated, immediately after their victory, As-Saffah sent his forces to Central Asia, where his forces fought against Tang expansion during the Battle of Talas. Barmakids, who were instrumental in building Baghdad, introduced the worlds first recorded paper mill in Baghdad, As-Saffah focused on putting down numerous rebellions in Syria and Mesopotamia. The Byzantines conducted raids during these early distractions, the first change the Abbasids, under Al-Mansur, made was to move the empires capital from Damascus, in Syria, to Baghdad in Iraq. Baghdad was established on the Tigris River in 762, a new position, that of the vizier, was also established to delegate central authority, and even greater authority was delegated to local emirs. During Al-Mansurs time control of Al-Andalus was lost, and the Shiites revolted and were defeated a year later at the Battle of Bakhamra, the Abbasids had depended heavily on the support of Persians in their overthrow of the Umayyads
35.
Black Sea
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The Black Sea is a body of water between Eastern Europe and Western Asia, bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine. It is supplied by a number of rivers, such as the Danube, Dnieper, Rioni, Southern Bug. The Black Sea has an area of 436,400 km2, a depth of 2,212 m. It is constrained by the Pontic Mountains to the south and by the Caucasus Mountains to the east, the longest east-west extent is about 1,175 km. The Black Sea has a water balance, that is, a net outflow of water 300 km3 per year through the Bosphorus. Mediterranean water flows into the Black Sea as part of a two-way hydrological exchange, the Black Sea drains into the Mediterranean Sea and then the Atlantic Ocean, via the Aegean Sea and various straits. The Bosphorus Strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and these waters separate Eastern Europe and Western Asia. The Black Sea is also connected to the Sea of Azov by the Strait of Kerch, the water level has varied significantly. Due to these variations in the level in the basin. At certain critical water levels it is possible for connections with surrounding water bodies to become established and it is through the most active of these connective routes, the Turkish Straits, that the Black Sea joins the world ocean. When this hydrological link is not present, the Black Sea is a basin, operating independently of the global ocean system. Currently the Black Sea water level is high, thus water is being exchanged with the Mediterranean. The Turkish Straits connect the Black Sea with the Aegean Sea, and comprise the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Black Sea as follows, On the Southwest. The Northeastern limit of the Sea of Marmara, a line joining Cape Takil and Cape Panaghia. Strabos Geographica reports that in antiquity, the Black Sea was often just called the Sea, for the most part, Graeco-Roman tradition refers to the Black Sea as the Hospitable sea, Εὔξεινος Πόντος Eúxeinos Póntos. This is a euphemism replacing an earlier Inhospitable Sea, Πόντος Ἄξεινος Póntos Áxeinos, strabo thinks that the Black Sea was called inhospitable before Greek colonization because it was difficult to navigate, and because its shores were inhabited by savage tribes. The name was changed to hospitable after the Milesians had colonized the southern shoreline and it is also possible that the epithet Áxeinos arose by popular etymology from a Scythian word axšaina- unlit, dark, the designation Black Sea may thus date from antiquity. A map of Asia dating to 1570, entitled Asiae Nova Descriptio, from Abraham Orteliuss Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, english-language writers of the 18th century often used the name Euxine Sea to refer to the Black Sea
36.
Bagrationi dynasty
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The Bagrationi dynasty is a royal family that reigned in Georgia from the Middle Ages until the early 19th century, being among the oldest extant Christian ruling dynasties in the world. In modern usage, this line is often referred to as the Georgian Bagratids. The common origin with the Armenian Bagratuni dynasty has been accepted by scholars, the family, in the person of Ashot I, the great-grandson of the presiding prince of Armenia Ashot III Bagratuni, gained the principate of Iberia at the end of the 8th century. His descendants restored, in 888, the Georgian monarchy and united various native polities into the Kingdom of Georgia, which prospered from the 11th to the 13th century. This period of time, particularly the reigns of David IV the Builder, the dynasty persisted within the Russian Empire as an Imperial Russian noble family until the 1917 February Revolution. The earliest Georgian forms of the name are Bagratoniani, Bagratuniani and Bagratovani. These names as well as the Armenian Bagratuni and the modern designation Bagratid mean the children of Bagrat or the house of/established by Bagrat. A successor, Guaram, was installed as a prince of Kartli under the Byzantine protectorate. Thus, according to version, began the dynasty of the Bagratids. This tradition enjoyed a general acceptance until the early 20th century, the Jewish origin, let alone the biblical descent, of the Bagratids has been discounted by modern scholarship. Adarnase’s son, Ashot I, acquired the principality of Kartli in 813, although certain, the generation-by-generation history of the Bagrationi dynasty begins only in the late 8th century. The Odzrkhe line, known in the annals as the Bivritianis. They cannot, however, be considered the ancestors of the later Bagratids who eventually restored Georgian royal authority. In 813, the new dynasty acquired, with Ashot I, despite the revitalization of the monarchy, Georgian lands remained divided among rival authorities, with Tbilisi remaining in Arab hands. The sons and grandsons of Ashot I established three separate branches – the lines of Kartli, Tao, and Klarjeti – frequently struggling with each other, the Kartli line prevailed, in 888, with Adarnase I, it restored the indigenous Georgian royal authority dormant since 580. In spite of repeated incidents of dynastic strife, the continued to prosper during the reigns of Demetrios I, George III. With the death of George III the main line became extinct. The invasions by the Khwarezmians in 1225 and the Mongols in 1236 terminated Georgia’s golden age, the struggle against the Mongol rule created a dyarchy, with an ambitious lateral branch of the Bagrationi dynasty holding sway over western Georgia
37.
Tao (historical region)
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Tao is a historical Georgian region in the territory of modern Turkey. Its name derives from the name of Taochi, its oldest inhabitants, in the Middle Ages, it was a province within various Georgian royal Bagrationi kingdoms and states from the 8th to the 16th century. Afterwards, the region was conquered by the Ottoman Empire, tao-Klarjeti Klarjeti Diauehi Taochi Tayk Georgia in Encyclopædia Britannica Online
38.
Klarjeti
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The Klarjeti was a province of ancient and medieval Georgia, which is now part of the Artvin Province and Ardahan Province, northeastern Turkey. Klarjeti, the province of Tao and several other smaller districts constituted a larger region with shared history. Klarjeti, traversed by the Chorokhi, stretched from the Arsiani Range westwards, towards the Black Sea and it was bordered by Shavsheti and Nigali on the north, and Tao on the south. The region roughly corresponds to Cholarzene of Classical sources and probably to Kaţarza or Quturza of the earlier Urartian records. In the 370s division of Iberia between the Roman and Iranian empires, Klarjeti passed to the former, but it is unknown whether as a province or as a vassal. The marriage of the Chosroid king Vakhtang I of Iberia to the Roman princess Helena seems to have enabled the Iberians to regain the province c,786, when the Guaramid possessions passed to their resurgent cousins from the Bagrationi family. The Bagrationi dynasty presided over a period of prosperity and cultural revival in the area. The taxes collected at Artanuji were a factor in the rise of the Bagrationi power. Around 870, Klarjeti became a fiefdom of one of the three principal branches of the Georgian Bagrationi rulers. This line—known in the medieval Georgian records as the Sovereigns of Klarjeti —was eventually dispossessed by their cousin Bagrat III, Klarjeti never fully recovered from a series of Seljuk attacks later in the 11th century and further declined in the Mongol and Timurs invasions in the 13th and 14th century. After the partition of the Kingdom of Georgia in the 15th century, Klarjeti passed to the princes of Meskheti who lost the area to the Ottoman conquest in 1551
39.
Arab rule in Georgia
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This period is called Araboba in Georgian. The history of Arab rule in Georgia can be divided into 3 main periods,1, from the first appearance of Arab armies around 645 until the establishment of the Emirate of Tbilisi in 736. Those years saw the installation of political control over the Georgian lands by the Umayyad Caliphate. From 736 until 853, when the Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad destroyed Tbilisi to quell a rebellion by the local emir, from 853 until the 2nd half of the 11th century, when the Great Seljuq Empire replaced the Arabs as the main force in the Middle East. Before that, the power of the emirate of Tbilisi had already declined in favor of independent Georgian states, Tbilisi remained however under Arab rule until 1122. In the first decades of the 7th century, most of present-day Georgia was under the authority of the Principate of Iberia. This state, like its predecessors, continually played the two powers of the time, the Byzantine and Sassanid Empires, to guarantee its own survival as an independent state. From the next decade however, the Muslim conquests of the Middle East started, the first Arab incursions in present-day Georgia happened approximately between 642 and 645, during the Conquest of Persia. It soon turned into an invasion, and Tbilisi was taken in 645. The presiding prince Stephen II had to recognize the suzerainty of the Rashidun Caliph, the Caliphate was then still in its first decades, very unstable politically, and had not yet developed a system of administration able to keep their numerous conquests under control. The main manifestation of Arab power over a region was at the time a religious command of Islam. The most significant of those uprisings, which engulfed the whole Caucasus region, happened in 681–682, despite a two-year-long struggle, the revolt was quelled, Adarnase was killed, and the Arabs installed in his place Guaram II of the rival Guaramid Dynasty. In their efforts to assert their rule over Iberia, the Arabs also had to contend with two major powers in the region, the Byzantine Empire and the Khazars. The latter, a confederation of semi-nomadic Turkic peoples, ruled over the north of the Greater Caucasus range. They had played a role in Caucasian history since the beginning of the 7th century, later, they successfully halted the Muslim armies in a series of wars, but also helped them suppressing the Georgian revolt of 682. Around 685, the Emperor Justinian II concluded a truce with the Caliph, in which they agreed on joint possession of Iberia and Armenia. However, the Arab victory at the Battle of Sebastopolis in 692 upset the balance, and led to a new Arab conquest of Armenia, a new status quo, more favourable to the Arabs, was now in place. Around 730, two led to a change in Umayyad policy towards Georgia
40.
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
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Byzantine Empire
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It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, several signal events from the 4th to 6th centuries mark the period of transition during which the Roman Empires Greek East and Latin West divided. Constantine I reorganised the empire, made Constantinople the new capital, under Theodosius I, Christianity became the Empires official state religion and other religious practices were proscribed. Finally, under the reign of Heraclius, the Empires military, the borders of the Empire evolved significantly over its existence, as it went through several cycles of decline and recovery. During the reign of Maurice, the Empires eastern frontier was expanded, in a matter of years the Empire lost its richest provinces, Egypt and Syria, to the Arabs. This battle opened the way for the Turks to settle in Anatolia, the Empire recovered again during the Komnenian restoration, such that by the 12th century Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest European city. Despite the eventual recovery of Constantinople in 1261, the Byzantine Empire remained only one of several small states in the area for the final two centuries of its existence. Its remaining territories were annexed by the Ottomans over the 15th century. The Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 finally ended the Byzantine Empire, the term comes from Byzantium, the name of the city of Constantinople before it became Constantines capital. This older name of the city would rarely be used from this point onward except in historical or poetic contexts. The publication in 1648 of the Byzantine du Louvre, and in 1680 of Du Canges Historia Byzantina further popularised the use of Byzantine among French authors, however, it was not until the mid-19th century that the term came into general use in the Western world. The Byzantine Empire was known to its inhabitants as the Roman Empire, the Empire of the Romans, Romania, the Roman Republic, Graikia, and also as Rhōmais. The inhabitants called themselves Romaioi and Graikoi, and even as late as the 19th century Greeks typically referred to modern Greek as Romaika and Graikika. The authority of the Byzantine emperor as the legitimate Roman emperor was challenged by the coronation of Charlemagne as Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III in the year 800. No such distinction existed in the Islamic and Slavic worlds, where the Empire was more seen as the continuation of the Roman Empire. In the Islamic world, the Roman Empire was known primarily as Rûm, the Roman army succeeded in conquering many territories covering the entire Mediterranean region and coastal regions in southwestern Europe and north Africa. These territories were home to different cultural groups, both urban populations and rural populations. The West also suffered heavily from the instability of the 3rd century AD
