Eastern Karadeniz Voyage Tips and guide

Eastern Karadeniz (Turkish: Doğu Karadeniz) is the eastern part of Black Sea Turkey, comprising the provinces of Artvin, Giresun, Gümüşhane, Trabzon and Rize. It has historic cities along its coast while mountains rise behind.

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Map of Eastern Karadeniz

• 41.00539.72251 Trabzon is the biggest city and hub of the region.
• 41.01739.552 Akçaabat is a smaller resort just west.
• 40.938.4166673 Giresun has a Byzantine citadel, an old town, and boat trips to its nearby island.
• 41.02482540.5199144 Rize is a good base for exploring the northeast.
• 40.9525241.1020515 Ayder is a summer village in the mountains, closed up in winter.
• 41.18308141.8287456 Artvin has a 10th-century fortress.
• 40.88555639.2922227 Tonya is a dairy-farming town in the mountains, a base for hiking.
• 40.4639.488 Gümüşhane is a hill town beyond Zigana Pass.

• 40.6939.6583331 Sümela Monastery perched high on a cliff is the best of the abandoned monasteries dotted in the mountains. It's within a day-trip from Trabzon. Others, more tumbledown, include Kuştul and Vazelon.
• 41.47833341.8983332 Camili or Macahel is a remote valley with six villages populated by Muslim Georgians, who decided in a 1921 referendum to join Turkey instead of then-Soviet Georgia. Due to its biodiversity, the valley is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. In winter when local roads are snowbound, the only access is from Georgia, so it becomes for a while a pene-exclave of Turkey.

The Pontic or Kaçkar Mountains rise to almost 4000 m and course east-west along an active fault line. They're close to the Black Sea coast, which is therefore difficult for agriculture and overland transport, so historically people got about by sea. As compensation, the mountains draw a lot of rain and snow, with forests on their slopes and dairy farming in summer on the laylas, the little plateaux.

Settlement was concentrated wherever there was a natural harbour, especially at the foot of valleys with passes over the mountains. Trebizond, nowadays Trabzon, was the chief port; the Greeks were not its first inhabitants but always major players, with their language and culture spanning millennia into the 20th century. The region lay at the edge of rival powers such as the Roman and Persian empires, far enough away to carve out a 13th / 14th century "Empire of Trebizond", until the Ottomans took control.

The region had long benefited from east-west trade, and to Europeans Trebizond was a romantic name to mention along with Baghdad and Damascus, but much of this was lost in modern times. The Greeks were deported taking away their mercantile nous and leaving behind gaunt ruins of their churches and monasteries. The Armenians were massacred and the survivors fled. The USSR clamped down a hostile border to the east and north.

Better roads and affordable air travel then opened up what had become a backwater, and the border with Georgia became easy to cross though that with Armenia remains slammed shut. Tourists even from within Turkey find it easier to reach the Aegean / Med resorts than venture here. So Eastern Karadeniz is a niche destination, for its history and for hiking in its mountains.

Turkish is the universal language. Naturally it has its own local pronunciation, which city-slickers find rustic and funny, while locals mock back at their hollow "sophistication". English may be understood in the service sector especially by young people, and learning it is popular.

There are traces of other languages from the past, such as Georgian and the related Turkish dialect of Laz, but after a century of the Republic and determined "Turkification" these have almost died out: travellers won't encounter them. There is not in this region a living language that indicates a divide, whereas south of the mountains Kurdish versus Turkish is a badge of ethnic identity.

Of all the strange time-warp languages in pockets of the mountains, the oddest was Kuş dili, "bird language", a code of whistles especially in the valleys above Giresun. This survived to the end of the 20th century so there are still people around who might demonstrate it, like Mongolian throat singing. But it perished once a mobile phone signal reached those districts, and they discovered the benefits of Twitter.

This region borders Georgia, with a highway crossing at Hopa / Sarp. There are sometimes long tailbacks for border inspection.

Airports are at Trabzon (TZX ^IATA), between Ordu and Giresun (OGU  ^IATA) and between Rize and Artvin (RZV  ^IATA). They all have daily flights from Istanbul (both IST and SAW), less often from Ankara or Izmir, and only occasional international flights. You might also fly into Samsun to the west or Batumi in Georgia.

D010 is the six-lane highway almost the length of Turkey's Black Sea coast. From Istanbul or Ankara your decision is where to branch off E80 to cross the mountains and join it: D795 to Samsun is a good bet. At Hopa D010 turns inland towards Kars. These roads are priority for snowploughs in winter.

Buses from Istanbul run every couple of hours to the coastal cities: to Trabzon is 18 hours. One or two per day continue across the border to Batumi. Buses from Ankara are much less frequent, maybe only once a day.

There are nowadays no Black Sea ferries, and there has never been a railway.

Anywhere along the coast and spine highway D010 has buses for inter-city travel and dolmuşes to get around the sprawling cities. You need your own wheels to explore up in the mountains, such as the isolated former monasteries.

• Museums depict the millennia of cultures that have flourished then disappeared here, from prehistoric times to the Republic. They're mostly free.
• Old churches and monasteries were variously Georgian, Armenian or Greek Orthodox, but all of those communities were driven out or slain over a century ago. Some have been converted into mosques or other use, others are gaunt ruins. There are plenty in the cities, but the most striking are in remote spots in the mountains, too isolated for anyone to recycle their stone into farm buildings.
• Atatürk House: every self-respecting Turkish city has a mansion where Atatürk stayed awhile during the War of Independence or early days of the Republic. They're typically 19th century merchant residences made over into ethnography museums. Rize and Trabzon have good examples.

• Beaches are few, as Highway D010 was built by reclaiming land, so the sea comes right up to the embankment. Akçaabat is a small beach resort west of Trabzon, but Giresun has a better stretch.
• Hiking and trekking: many trails thread through the mountains, with multiple access points.

There are no winter sports resorts - the snow can be heavy but it doesn't last long, and this region is too far from the big cities for ski lifts to be commercially viable. Those above Trabzon folded during Covid and never restarted.

• Hamams are traditional Turkish baths, found in the major cities. This region has no geothermal springs.
• Football: Trabzon and Rize have top-tier soccer teams.
• Kafkasör is a Caucasian Bullfighting Fiesta in July near Artvin. The bulls fight each other.

Meat meat meat: this is Turkey. So everywhere serves trad cuisine, veggies may struggle, and there isn't the demand from foreign tourists for other styles.

Anchovies (hamsi) are popular - if you encounter them Oct-Feb they're fresh from the Black Sea, at other times they'll be frozen. Hamsi böreği is rice surrounded by anchovies and baked in the oven, hamsi tatlısı is a cake filled with anchovies and topped by fruits and sweet syrup.

Corn is the main grain, as the climate doesn't suit wheat. It's made into breads, and muhlama which is corn flour, butter, cheese and salt.

Honey is produced from mountain wildflowers. Beware "mad honey" (deli bal) from toxic rhododendron flowers, it's hallucinogenic and worse.

Water from the tap is safe to drink, as it's from mountain catchments free of pollution.

Tea is drunk in great volumes, and the slopes above Rize grow lots of it.

You're seldom far from a beer, but this is a conservative region lacking pubs and clubs.

Beware traffic, safeguard valuables and steer clear of low-life, same as anywhere else.

The mountains deserve your respect. They rise to 3000-4000 m, and even at low altitude can be hazardous with slippy rocks, strong winds, and fog-bound. And no mobile signal to call for help.

• Central Karadeniz west has lower mountains and more plains and beaches. Samsun is the main city.
• Eastern Anatolia beyond the mountains is at high altitude and sparsely populated. Ani is the standout, an abandoned Armenian city reached via Kars.
• Georgia is entered via Sarpi border gate. Batumi is the nearby beach resort, but the must-see is Tbilisi.