Ardahan

Template: Infobox city in Turkey / Maintenance / County

Ardahan (Kurdish Erdêxan or Erdêhan, Armenian Արդահան / Ardahan, georgian არტაანი / Artaani, Russian Ардаган / Ardagan ) is a town in the far north-eastern Turkey with 19,075 inhabitants. It is the provincial capital of the province of Ardahan.

Geography and Name

Ardahan is located between the Caucasus, the Black Sea and Anatolia both sides of the Kura at 1860 meters above sea level.

The name " Ardahan " can probably be attributed to the Armenian pronunciation of the original Georgian or even Luwian name.

History

Excavations in the castle Ardahans have testimonies of different cultures revealed and shown that Ardahan has been inhabited since the early Bronze Age.

According to the medieval historian Moses of choirs Ardahan was in ancient times one of the economic centers of Western Gugark, but was released in vorschriftlicher time to a Georgian state. At the time of Pharnawaze I. the former Kadjtha - Kalak was probably the site of a battle between the troops of the latter and allied associations of ancient Greece.

The first forays Islamic associations made ​​in the year 642 Turkish associations fell under Qutalmisch from 1053 to the region a. Ardahan was probably captured when the castle of Kars in 1067 fell into Turkish hands. Then Ardahan was alternately under the rule of the Seljuks, Georgians, Mongols, Ilkhanate, Qarakoyunlu and Aqqoyunlu. Evliya Çelebi After Ardahan was under Selim I of the Ottoman Empire. There it was in the exchange part of the Eyalets Çıldır, Erzurum and Kars.

The city was occupied on 17 May 1877 by the Russian army and was in accordance with the Treaty of San Stefano and in conjunction with the Treaty of Berlin in 1878 to the Russian Empire. In the Peace of Brest- Litovsk, the Ottoman Empire this Sanjak received back, but had him in early 1919 in the wake of the Armistice of Mudros again clear, Ardahan fell to Georgia. In the course of the invasion of Soviet troops in Georgia latter Ardahan surrendered on February 23, 1921 without a fight to the Turks.

Demography

1835 came up with the 300 then mostly subterranean dwellings only about 70 households that formerly inhabited by Russians houses were looted and destroyed.

Reception

In Ardahan reference is made both in Georgian and Armenian folk songs. Georgian myth has it that a son of Kartlos, the mythical father of the Georgian Nation, the city has established.

Personalities

• Taner Akçam, historian, sociologist and author
• Adnan Maral, actor