Where Turkey has a Russian heritage: City of Kars in Anatolia

by time news

IRussian troops conquered Kars again and again. No other city in today’s Turkey is said to have been conquered by new masters as often as the garrison city in north-eastern Anatolia, namely 19 times.

Russian troops first besieged the strategically important city at the foot of the Caucasus in 1807, finally entering victorious in 1828 and taking more than 10,000 prisoners of war, then again in 1855. In the Peace of San Stefano in 1878, the Ottoman Empire had to cede Kars definitively to Tsarist Russia.

The Russian presence has left its mark

It was a wild back and forth. The tide turned towards the end of the First World War, in 1921 the Turkish independence movement took back Kars. Since then there has been peace. However, the long Russian presence has left its mark to this day.

For Russians, Armenians and Greeks took the place of the Muslims who found refuge in the Ottoman Empire in 1878. They built houses with the black basalt of the region, which characterize the old town of Kars to this day with their massive architectural style.

Downtown Kars.  Most Molokans leave the city and Turkey.


Downtown Kars. Most Molokans leave the city and Turkey.
:


Image: Rainer Hermann

Alexei Degirmencioglu is the last Russian in Kars, and he is also the last representative in the city of a religious community that long ago split from the Russian Orthodox Church, the Molokans. Ali, as they call him here, was born in Kars in 1965. He is a Turkish citizen and is married to a Kurdish woman from Kars. But his mother tongue is Russian.

By enjoying milk to a sparkling wine

The Molokans, the “milk drinkers”, had been resettled from Russia to the Caucasus towards the end of the 19th century, including Kars. The tsarist empire thus killed two birds with one stone: the sectarians were now far away, and as ethnic Russians they marked the Russian claim to power in the conquered areas.

Most of the Molokans have left Kars and Turkey since then. But he feels comfortable in Kars and doesn’t want to leave, asserts Alexei Degirmencioglu.

Just like his older brother did, although he was drawn 100 kilometers to the west, where he works in a mill. But Degirmencioglu lives up to his faith: He works in a company that produces dairy products, especially the cheeses, for which the agricultural region of Kars in Turkey is known.

View of the citadel of Kars, first built in 1152 by the Saltukids.  Today's architecture dates from the 19th century.


View of the citadel of Kars, first built in 1152 by the Saltukids. Today’s architecture dates from the 19th century.
:


Image: Rainer Hermann

It was the enjoyment of milk that had turned the Molokans into a sect. “Contrary to the teachings of the Russian Orthodox Church, we drink milk every day during Lent,” says Alexei Degirmencioglu. This alone is not what distinguishes the Molokans from orthodoxy.

They had their church outside of Kars, but it is now in ruins. Most of the parishioners had left Kars in 1962 and emigrated to Sevastopol in the Crimea. Others to Istanbul, others to Germany or the United States.

No priest for worship

So the church, says Alexei Degirmencioglu, who can no longer attend church services himself, is different from that in the Russian Orthodox Church. There is no priest leading the service. The faithful sit around the church elders and sing.

The walls are bare so that nothing distracts the faithful. No icons and no cross decorate the room. It should be like in early Christianity. “Only the Bible counts,” says Alexei Degirmencioglu. And the spiritual experience. Smoking and alcohol are strictly forbidden, as is wearing a pectoral cross. “Faith alone is important,” says the Molokane. Symbols would have no place.

The break with the Church and the Tsar was also caused by the fact that the Molokans, like the Quakers, categorically rejected the service of arms. That didn’t help. Like any other Turk, Alexei Degirmencioglu had to do his military service. With great reluctance he took up arms.

Cakmak, a few kilometers north of Kars, was once a village where the Molokans lived among themselves. There are still such Molokan villages, but no longer in Turkey. Like Ivanovka in Azerbaijan and Fioletowo in Armenia. There the Molokans are self-sufficient and live almost self-sufficiently. In Kars, however, Alexei is the last.

After him there will be no more Molokans. Because the couple has no children. Although he knows of relatives in Russia, he has never visited them. And the question of whether he should travel to Russia – that never came up for him.

You may also like

Leave a Comment