Eastern Anatolia Voyage Tips and guide

Eastern Anatolia (Turkish: Doğu Anadolu) is a region in Turkey. It occupies the mountainous east of the country and has the harshest winters.

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Map of Eastern Anatolia

• 38.3506238.30941 Malatya is the first major city encountered coming east overland. Its sights were damaged in the 2023 earthquake.
• 38.55638937.4936112 Darende is a historic town, with the shrine of Somuncu Baba, who combined religious wisdom with bakery.
• Kâhta south of Malatya is the service town for Mount Nemrut.
• 38.66666739.2166673 Elazığ, almost surrounded by lakes, is prettifying its former site of Harput.
• 39.26083338.4966674 Kemaliye is a preserved old town with adventure sports in its "Dark Canyon".
• 39.10611139.5480565 Tunceli is near Munzur Valley National Park.
• 39.74638939.4913896 Erzincan is modern, but villages further east have ancient sights.
• 39.90972241.2755567 Erzurum is the biggest city of this region and has a ski resort.
• 40.60777843.0958338 Kars has Russian architecture, and is the base for visiting Ani.
• 41.11666742.79 Ardahan has the shell of a 12th century castle. It's on the road to Georgia and the Turkish Black Sea coast.
• 39.5544.08333310 Doğubayazıt by Mount Ararat has the İshak Paşa Palace.
• 38.73333341.49111111 Muş has a collection of old mosques and castles.
• 38.50222242.28138912 Tatvan on the west shore of Lake Van is by the other Mount Nemrut, the one with a crater lake.
• 38.50194443.41666713 Van on the east shore of Lake Van has remains of Urartu civilization.
• 37.57444443.74083314 Hakkari is the most remote city in Turkey, pinched between the Iran and Iraq borders.

• 37.78027838.6216671 Mount Nemrut : this region has two of them, both named for the legendary Nimrod who built the Tower of Babel. The must-see is the one south of Malatya, with great statues of the deities scattered at its summit. The other is a dormant volcano with a crater lake rising near Tatvan.
• 38.34166743.0355562 Akdamar is the best of the islands in Lake Van, with a medieval Armenian church.
• 40.507543.5727783 Ani near Kars is an abandoned city that was once the Armenian capital.

Most of this region is at over 1000 m, rising to the 5137 m peak of Mount Ararat. Winter snow lies long and deep: the main highways are snowploughed but the minor mountain roads are closed. Summer heat can be harsh; here and there are windy plateaux where agriculture is possible. Melt water cascades off the slopes to form two mighty rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, with much of their headwaters nowadays pent by dams for irrigation and hydroelectric power. There are no great mineral resources, industry is small-scale and population is sparse. These remote lonely landscapes present a face of Turkey far away from the thronged beach resorts: about 1800 km away to be precise.

From the 16th century the Ottomans claimed this territory but they were at the eastern limit of their power, and it was only definitively part of Turkey from 1923, when the borders were re-drawn after World War I. Historically this area was mainly inhabited and in parts governed by Armenians, but massacres in the 19th / 20th centuries culminated in the genocide of 1915. Survivors fled to the Levant and to the west. The remaining major ethnicity is Kurdish, who have never had their own nation state, and Turkey is determined to keep it that way.

Language and placenames are therefore politically charged. Turkish is the official language, or else! - always use this when encountering officialdom. The local dialect (especially around Erzurum, Kars and Iğdır) is closer to Azeri, as spoken in Azerbaijan, than it is to standard Turkish.

Kurdish however is what most people speak. An uncommon variant is the related language of Zaza.

English or German may be understood by people in the hospitality sector, but don't rely on it.

This region has borders with Georgia, Armenia, the Azerbaijan exclave of Nakhchivan, Iran and Iraq. See the relevant pages for entry requirements but in short, for most passport holders Georgia is easy, Iraq and Iran are difficult and unwise. The Armenian border is totally closed, travel via Georgia. The land borders of Azerbaijan are closed so for Nakhchivan you have to fly via Baku.

There are airports at Ağrı (for Doğubeyazıt), Elazığ, Erzurum, Erzincan, Iğdır, Kars, Muş, Van and Yuksekova (for Hakkari). They all have flights daily from Istanbul (both IST and SAW, taking 2 hours), several days a week from Ankara and less often from Izmir. You can arrange car hire at any, which you need for this far-flung region, but must book in advance - the limited airport footfall means there isn't a desk staffed to meet all flights.

D300 is the principal highway into the region. It transects Turkey east-west, 2000 km from the Aegean coast near Izmir to Konya, Kayseri, Malatya, Elazığ, Muş, Van and up to the Iranian border. From Ankara go south on O-21 (toll) to join it towards Kayseri. From Istanbul, E80 crosses the country via Bolu to Erzincan, Erzurum and Doğubeyazıt. These are fast divided highways, and top priority for the snowplough in winter. You might also approach along D010 via the Black Sea coast towards Trabzon, but eventually you have to hairpin up into the mountains.

Buses from Istanbul and Ankara follow these highways, and most large towns have a direct daily service. Metro Turizm buses reach Malatya but the main inter-city line this far east is Kâmil Koç, now part of Flixbus.

High speed trains from Istanbul and Ankara run as far as Sivas, whence slow trains make their ponderous way further east. One train runs nightly from Ankara via Sivas, Erzincan and Erzurum to Kars; there's also a seasonal "tourist train" along this route, with extended stops for sight-seeing. A railway between Kars and Tbilisi in Georgia was completed in 2017 but only carries freight, while the new passenger trains bought for it gather rust and graffiti in a siding somewhere. Another train from Ankara runs to Sivas and Malatya: five nights a week this continues to Diyarbakır, Batman and Kurtalan. The other two nights it heads to Elazığ, Muş and Tatvan. There you take a ferry across or bus around the lake to Van, which twice a week has a train to Tabriz and Tehran. Trains from Adana into Eastern Anatolia are suspended for interminable track works near that city.

The towns are connected by buses and dolmuşes. But many sights are away from a bus route, so you need a vehicle to reach these: the distances and gradients are daunting for cyclists. For popular sights such as Mount Nemrut or Ani you can join an organised tour, for others it may make sense to hire a taxi for the afternoon.

• Modern towns are what you mostly encounter, unlovely, shoddily built and destined to fall down at the next major earthquake. But their museums are full of antiquities, and here and there in the side streets are interesting old buildings. Erzurum has a good collection, and Kars was rebuilt by the Russians on a grid pattern. Malatya is the only one to feature a historic hydro-electric power station, but HEP, barrage lakes and ambitious irrigation schemes have changed the face of this region.

• Mosques have been kept in good repair while buildings around them have collapsed. Some are conversions of former churches, others are modern but in retro "Ottoman Baroque" style, at the insistence of religious conservatives. Medieval mosques were often associated with a madrasa (a religious college), a soup kitchen and a pilgrim hostel. The few of those that survive have been restored to other use, such as craft shops.

• Shrines are often associated with mosques but may be free-standing. Some are kümbetler - cute kiosks with conical rooves. An extensive shrine is that of Somuncu Baba in Darende, in a garden within a ravine.

• Trad architecture: modern development has swept away more than the fires and earthquakes, but here and there are attractive districts with Ottoman-era buildings. The best example is Kemaliye. Harput near Elazığ has been partly restored.

• Palaces are mostly scrappy ruins, but a better-preserved example is the 17th century İshak Pasha Palace near Doğubeyazıt. The Republic turned its back on Ottoman sultanate luxury, but most cities have a mansion house where Kemal Atatürk stayed awhile, made into a museum of his era.

• Mount Nemrut (west) is the one with giant heads of deities scattered at its summit, like the morning after Zeus threw an especially riotous party. It's only accessible in summer: approach from the south via Kâhta as this road reaches the summit.

Mount Nemrut (east) is a dormant volcano near Tatvan with a geothermal warm crater lake. The village of Ahlat at its foot has a medieval cemetery with remarkable headstones similar to Armenian khachkars.

• Ancient monasteries reflect the regions' former populations of Armenians, Georgians and Greek Orthodox. The star example is Ani, reached via Kars: it was an entire Armenian walled city, but the churches are the main standing ruins. Akdamar is on a lake island, reached by boat from Gevaş near Van. But so many are sad and tumbledown: Öşkvank (100 km from Erzurum) was magnificent but is now fenced off as unsafe.

Winter sports centres in the region include Palandöken south of Erzurum, Sarıkamış southwest of Kars, and Hazarbaba southeast of Elazığ.

Lakes are poorly developed for recreation, as from the eastern cities it's easier to head to the beach resorts of the Aegean and Med. Lake Van, the largest in Turkey, is soda-salt and will sting your eyes, though waterbirds prefer it as it doesn't freeze. Most other lakes are part of the huge Keban barrage complex for irrigation and HEP. One exception is Lake Hazar southeast of Elazığ, a deep rift valley lake that covers an ancient city and is the source of the Tigris.

Doğubeyazıt is the start point for treks up Mount Ararat.

Trad Turkish cuisine - meat meat meat - is the staple, and veggies may struggle. Fruit and veg has to be trucked in as the climate is too harsh for local market gardening, but the dearth is cultural rather than logistical. Meat signifies a proper meal, beans are what poor folk had to eat in the bad old days. This region has no immigrants to introduce other cuisines, and few international tourists to clamour for those.

A small amount of red wine is produced near Elazığ in the Euphrates valley, from the local Öküzgözü cultivar. But this is a conservative region and there are no free-standing pubs.

Always keep your passport, car documents and similar identification handy. There are many checkpoints along the highways.

The mountains deserve your respect. Ararat at 5137 m is a four day trek, and its summit is always ice-clad.

• Eastern Karadeniz is the Black Sea coast, north across the Pontic Mountains, with Trabzon its chief city. It's culturally rich but has few beaches, as the coast highway was built by reclaiming land.
• Central Anatolia is the great plain to the west. Lots to see here, including the capital Ankara, the strange landscape of Cappadocia, and historic Konya.
• Southeastern Anatolia is a drier region to the south, meeting the deserts of Syria and Iraq. It was the centre of the major earthquake of 2023 and re-building is still in progress.
• Georgia can be entered via Türkgözü north of Ardahan, but by public transport you're better going via Hopa and Sarpi on the coast. Tbilisi is the standout. You have to go via Georgia to reach Armenia.
• Iran can be entered at Doğubayazıt, Van or Hakkari down south. Don't miss Tabriz on your way to Tehran.
• Nakhchivan is an exclave of Azerbaijan. This border is closed.