Kars

Kars is a city in Eastern Anatolia. It is most frequently visited as a jumping off point for travelers going to Ani, but it is a viable destination in its own right for its 19th-century Russian imperial buildings, and, of course, its role as the setting for Orhan Pamuk's famous novel Snow.

Understand
A small village on the Rideau River in Ottawa, Canada is named "Kars" in honour of General Sir William Fenwick Williams's defence of the town of Kars, Anatolia during the Crimean War.

Climate
Kars is one of the highest cities in Turkey, at an altitude of about 2000 metres above sea level. This, coupled with its lack of maritime influence, causes the city to experience a hemiboreal climate, with short, mild to warm summers and long, frigid and snowy winters. It also features a storm season from April to June, which tends to be much more severe than other places in Turkey. Kars is one of the only cities in Turkey that is both far from the Black Sea and gets year-round, frequent precipitation.

Summers are short, and fairly warm during the daytime, and therefore the best time to visit the city. Despite this, nights are chilly, sometimes even cold, and nighttime temperatures can fall below 0°C even during summer. Rain is frequent but brief during this time of year, falling for around 15 days a month, even if it's usually a brief shower.

Winters are frigid with average night-time temperatures below -15°C (5°F), which means the average night-time temperature is colder than the coldest recorded temperatures of most temperate climates. Furthermore, temperatures vary a lot throughout winter making night-time temperatures below -25°C quite a common occurrence. Contrary to most Turkish climates, winter is the driest time in Kars, with occasional and fairly light snows distributed throughout the season. Nevertheless, the constant low temperatures allow Kars to accumulate massive amounts of snow, making travel in winter a rather tough task.

Spring and fall are short, chilly seasons, as March and November are basically extensions of winter. During spring, especially from May to mid-June, Kars enters its storm season, when afternoon showers and thunderstorms can erupt every day, with an average of 20-25 days of showers during May. This, coupled with its high altitude, makes Kars a very hail-prone city.

Read
Kars is the setting of Orhan Pamuk's novel Snow (ISBN 0-375-70686-0).

By plane


Anadolujet flies regularly between Ankara and Kars.

By bus
Most companies serve Kars – though you might need to change bus at either Erzurum or Iğdır, depending on where you come from. There is a daily bus between Hopa and Kars, leaving Hopa at 10:30. It costs 200 TL (2022) and takes 6-7 hr with a stop for lunch. There are also buses from Doğubayazıt.

Buses usually stop at a gas station near Kars and not at the official bus station. The official bus station is occupied by stray dogs and no humans go near it. The buses will only drop you off there if you explicitly ask for it, but there are no taxis, humans, or any sort of facilities, so it is better to get off at the gas station.

By train
The Doğu Express departs Ankara daily at 18:00, reaching Kars 24 hours later. The return train leaves at 08:00. There are couchettes and a buffet. Main stops along the route are Kayseri, Sivas, Erzincan and Erzurum. Buy tickets online from Turkish Railways.

There is also a more expensive "tourist" version of this train, running daily in winter. It makes long stops for sightseeing eastbound at İliç (for Kemaliye), Erzincan and Erzurum; the westbound train makes long stops at Divriği and Bostankaya. Total travel time Ankara-Kars is 30 hours, and you are tied to the train schedule without flexibility of stopover. The accommodation is in standard sleeping cars, which have been purloined from the conventional train, so the travel experience on that has been degraded.

There's also a daily regional trains from Akyaka, near the border with Armenia, which is of limited use for tourists.

Turkey’s rail link via Kars to Georgia and Azerbaijan opened in 2017 for freight only. As of 2024, passenger services between Ankara and Baku, via Kars and Tbilisi, initially planned with just one train a week, have not started yet.



Get around
There are a few taxis serving the city centre. It's a pretty small place so it's quite possible to cover it by foot.

See


Kars has a large heritage of Russian architecture, locally known as the "Baltic style" of the townhouses on the old town's grid formed during the Russian occupation of Kars between 1878 and 1918.



Buy
Gravier cheese is delicious! You can enjoy some from the shops near the castle. You can try the Soldier Souvenirs Passage on the main street with a lion statue sells stuff for rare collector's items.

Eat
A local speciality is goose (kaz), usually made into a stew.


 * Ani Restaurant is a good local restaurant, located under Kar's Otel.
 * Antep Pide & Lahmacun Salonu is popular with the locals, makes cheap and tasty pide.

Sleep
There are at least twenty hotels in the north central part of town, just south of the castle. Prices start around 100 TL per night and there are high-end options too. (May 2022)



Connect
As of Dec 2020, Kars has 4G from all Turkish carriers, but there is no signal on the highways to town. 5G has not yet reached this area.

Ani
A visit to Eastern Anatolia is not complete without a visit to the ruins of the ancient Armenian city of Ani, 45 km east of Kars.

Daily bus departures from Kars in front of the Antik Cafe (corner of Faikbey Cd. and Gazi Ahmet Muhtar Paşa Cd.) at 09:00 in winter (see Ani article)

You can charter a taxi (100 TL, 2016) or get a guide (entrance fee €8 foreigners 2024). In summer, it is very easy to find travel mates to fill a taxi. In winter, you will most probably travel alone.

If you're on a tight budget you can also try hitch-hiking to Ani. Walk about 2 km out of town to the cross section where the street heads towards Ani (There are enough street signs to find it). There is not a lot of traffic on this road but eventually a local will stop for you.

Sarıkamış
is a town 60 km southwest of Kars. The winter sports centre just outside the town is a favourite of a small but growing group of enthusiasts for its easy access, snow quality (often compared to the Alps), and long and highly scenic tracks amidst an old-growth Scots pine forest.

As with Kars, Sarıkamış was a part of the Imperial Russian Kars Oblast from 1878 to 1917. Therefore, a variety of sites from that epoch can be visited in the town or in its outskirts, such as the Yanık Kilise, a Russian Orthodox church converted to a mosque in 1970, and the hunting lodge of Nicholas II, the last tsar, although that building is known anachronistically after Catherine the Great by the locals.

Ardahan
Several minibuses to Ardahan every day, every hour from 8am (at least 8am, 9am, 10am, 11am). Departs from the minibus station (city center). About 1 hr 30 min.

Roughly in the same direction, an excursion to wintry Lake Çıldır is quite popular among the passengers of the "Instagram Express" (see above), for a horse-drawn sleigh ride over the frozen lake.

Artvin and Hopa
Bus every morning at 10:00 to Rize that stops in Göle, Artvin and Hopa from the minibus station (city center). The bus is run by Artvin Ekspres and departs almost everyday; check one day before just in case. This option is the best to reach Georgia through Batumi. As of July 2022, the price for the Kars-Hopa bus - on Artvin Ekspress - is 220 TL per person. The journey is about 6 hours to 7 hours with a break to eat around 14:00.

If the bus from Kars to Hopa does not run, first go to Ardahan by minibus and, from there, take the 12 hr 30 min to Hopa (35 TL).

The same bus continues onwards to Trabzon (45 TL from Ardahan).