Sarıkamış

Sarıkamış or Sarikamish (Zerqamîş, Սարիղամիշ) is a town in Kars Province in the Eastern Anatolia Region of Turkey. It is the seat of Sarıkamış District. Its population is 15,260 (2022). The town is perhaps best known for being the site of the Battle of Sarikamish, one of the major battles of the Caucasus front of World War I. For most of the 19th century, Sarikamish was an insignificant settlement that was divided into two parts: upper Sarikamish and lower Sarikamish. Nothing is known of its earlier history, but nearby archaeological sites date from Urartian times: there is a Urartian fortress on a hill beside upper Sarikamish, another, away, beside Chatak village, and a third, away, at a site known as Yedikilise. In 1878, archaeologist Alexander Yeritsian discovered near Sarıkamış a cuneiform inscription made during the reign of Urartian king Argishti I. To the east and south of the town, in the forests of Soğanlı, there were many medieval Armenian monasteries, but most were in ruins by 1878. Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan invaded the Sarikamish area including Allahüekber and Soğanlı mountains in 1064, only a few years prior to the battle of Manzikert between the armies of Alp Arslan and Byzantines. The area was then taken by Selim I in 1514 and became a liva of Kars sancak of the Ottoman Empire. In the 19th century, the region around Sarikamish became a conflict zone between the Ottoman and Russian empires. Battles took place at nearby Zivin in 1829, 1855 and 1877. After the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, Sarikamish became part of the Russian empire, incorporated within the militarily administered Kars Oblast, which was renowned for the extreme ethnic diversity of its population. Lower Sarikamish developed into a small, modern town. Being close to the Ottoman border, it was also a military station with barracks for two regiments. It had a railway station that was the railhead for the line running from Kars and Alexandropol.