Hakkâri

Hakkâri (Turkish) or Colemêrg (Kurdish), formerly known as Julamerk (Turkish: Çölemerik) is a city in the namesake province in Eastern Anatolia, in the far southeastern corner of the country.

Understand
The city of Hakkari itself is nothing to write home about. Lots of army quarters but everyday life seems pretty normal. Getting there makes it worth the trip, as you are literally in the most remote city of the country, near the corner where Turkish, Iranian, and Iraqi borders meet.

People seem to be indifferent to tourists (or perhaps just a little cautious) but usually react in a friendly way if you  want to take their pictures. You will hear very little Turkish. Almost everybody in the streets speaks Kurdish.

Before World War I, the surrounding mountainous area was densely populated by the Chaldeans, who still call the area home to a smaller degree. The Chaldeans are Eastern Catholics who reverted to communion with the Roman Catholic Church after the schism of 1552, when they broke from the Syriac Orthodox Church, which in its turn broke from mainstream Christianity in the schism of 451 that came about after the Council of Chalcedon. In 1692, a smaller group of Chaldeans (re-)broke their communion with Rome, declaring themselves to be the members of the Assyrian Church of the East, an independent Eastern Christian denomination with a patriarchate in the village of Qodchanis/Qudshanis (modern Konak), northeast of Hakkari. (In 1918, the patriarchate was moved to Iraqi Kurdistan, and the former cathedral in Qodchanis now lays in ruins.)

Get in
Frequent buses from Van make Hakkari easily accessible.

Get around
As Hakkari is not a big place most of the town is within walking distance. It does spread out, however, over various hills. Do read the Stay safe note below.

Do
Hakkari Province is the home to some of Turkey's most beautiful mountain scenery, which is very undervisited due to (actual or supposed) safety concerns.

Sleep
Hakkari has three hotels. None of them has its own website.



Stay safe
Travelling there is pretty safe as long as you stick to the main roads and/or use public transport. Going for a wild walk (to take pictures) on your own even to the top of one of the hills close to the city could let you end up next to a military zone. That could be very unpleasant as you may be thought to be a PKK agent and treated as such. You should always have your passport or ID with you. To a frustrated and rightly fearful soldier in these regions (not the most comfortable place to be deployed), it seems to be difficult to differentiate between a tourist and a terrorist.

Connect
(+90) 438 is the area code for Hakkari.

Go next
There are several buses to Van daily leaving from the city centre to all sorts of places. The only bus southwest to Şırnak leaves pretty early in the morning (7AM), though.

Check with big bus companies like Vangölü or Best Van. Due to the regional conflicts there might be ID controls on the buses. In case of bombings roads might also be closed, so do not rely on too tight a schedule.