Text and Photos by Tim Hanningan
The light is sharper than glass, and the stark, ochre mountainsides slice at a sky the colour of lapis lazuli. The afternoon sun is slanting away to the west, beyond the great snow-streaked peak of Mount Ararat, and a cold breeze is blowing from the east carrying with it the scent of Central Asia. The salmon-tinted sandstone of the palace wall is rough beneath my fingertips.
I am standing looking out from the battlements of Ishak Pasha Palace, the ruined stronghold of a local chieftain, perched on a craggy outcrop above the remote town of Dogubayazit. The wild world of Eastern Anatolia stretches out before me. The Iranian border lies some 20 kilometres to the east behind a bank of hard hills; Armenia is only a little farther away to the northeast. Two hundred kilometres to the south is Iraq, while behind the northern ramparts of the Caucuses Russia is scarcely more distant. One thing is certain, however – Istanbul is a very long way away.
The towns of western Turkey – and especially the great multilayered metropolis of Istanbul – are as cosmopolitan as they are historic, and as tapped into the zeitgeist as they are in tune with their past. Travellers from all over the world visit in their thousands each year to view the great mosques and palaces, and to trace shopping itineraries that run from the grand bazaars to designer boutiques. The beaches of the Mediterranean coast, meanwhile, suck up the sophisticated sun-seekers of Northern Europe during the summer months.
But I have chosen to explore another side of Turkey altogether. Some 600 kilometres to the east is a rugged border region. It is a place marked by the countless invaders who have swept through its passes, teetering on the multiple brinks of the Middle East, the Persian world, Central Asia and Russia, and steeped in the romance of the old Silk Route. It is also home to hard brown mountains, cobalt-blue lakes, ancient palaces and warm hospitality.
The first stop on my journey is the town of Erzurum, a place adrift in the vast Anatolian landscape. I have winged my way in directly from Istanbul, and the transition is total, instant and thrilling. A 5th century citadel looms over the town; the bazaar is crowded with donkey carts, bulky women swathed in coal-black chadors, and old men in woollen skull-caps fingering worry beads. There is a faint scent of tea and cumin on the chilly wind.
Erzurum was a Silk Route staging post, and a first prize for a litany of invaders. Armenians, Persians, Mongols, Seljuks and others have all conquered the town. Many left their mark, and the arrow-straight main street is a thoroughfare through Turkey’s architectural history, with ancient seminaries, cusped archways and Persian-style tile-work slotted in amongst the modern shops. The highlight is the Cifte Minareli Medrese, the Twin Minaret Seminary, built in the 13th century by the Seljuk Turks. An elaborately carved limestone portal opens to a shady courtyard. In the little garden outside old men sit on benches, enjoying the autumn sunlight, and in the distance a bank of ribbed brown hills rises to a clear sky.
From Erzurum, the gateway to Turkey’s borderlands, I travel onwards by road through a landscape on the cusp of the coming winter. The fallow fields run out to lines of distant mountains, villagers lead flocks of shaggy brown sheep down poplar-lined lanes, and in the little roadside towns there is a smell of watermelons.
The road carries me across an ever wilder, ever emptier landscape to Kars, perhaps the most remote city in all of Turkey. Here there are historic traces of a more recent set of invaders – the streets are a neat grid of sturdy classical townhouses, laid out during a period of Russian occupation. The pavements are studded with ash trees, their leaves turning copper-coloured with the fading year. There are traces of an older city too in Ottoman bridges, a medieval castle and a scattering of stocky Armenian churches.
