Skiing in Turkey

Today it is 40C in Ankara...this is far too hot for me...

Coming from Canada, winter is one of my favorite seasons.  And when the weather is this hot, I like to think about the cold and snow...and with snow, my favorite sports...

Especially, I love skiing! 

Many of my friends wondered what I would do when I moved to Turkey in order to replace my beloved sport.  Oil wrestling (the national sport)?  Camel racing?  Football?  Well, friends, the answer is this – I didn’t have to give up my favorite sport!  It turns out that there are many people here who love to ski and there are many places for us to practice our wonderful hobby!

I want to introduce you to another unknown gem off the beaten track in Turkey – Sarıkamış. 

Sarıkamış is in the Eastern Anatolian region of Turkey.  It is rather easy to travel there because of cheap cost of transportation – a return flight was the equivalent of $90CAD.  The flight is about an hour and half.  You can drive there as well – but, it takes about 12 hours through the mountains.

 Sarıkamış was part of the Russian empire for most of its history, but is now within Turkey’s borders.  The architecture reflects the Russian influence.  Its claim to fame is a hunting lodge that used to belong to Czar Nicholas and a sprawling yellow pine forest (from which the town takes its name) that was planted in honor of Catherine the Great.  Sarıkamış is also historically significant in military terms – during the Battle of Caucasus in World War I, between 60 to 80 000 Ottoman soldiers froze to death in its forests.   This was the biggest loss ever suffered by the Ottoman army.

Despite this somewhat grisly history, the forests of Sarıkamış are vast and proud.  They provide the perfect backdrop for one of Turkey’s premier ski areas – now, you West Coast ski aficionados, think East Coast premier, not Rocky Mountain premier!  Sarıkamış does however have snow that rivals anything I’ve skied in Western Canada – champagne powder as we call it back home!  And it is also the home to one of Turkey’s longest pistes, measuring in at 7 kms.  The best part of skiing here was that most Turkish people prefer skiing on-piste so the snow in the trees was deep and untracked!  Blissful!

Some 80 kms from Sarıkamış, at the end of the last highway in Turkey (literally, the highway comes to a dead end here), on the Turkish-Armenian border, sit the ruins of the medieval city of Ani – another fascinating historical area not often visited (even by the Turks!).

 Ani had a very colored and storied history.  In its heyday, it rivaled Istanbul and Baghdad as the centre of Middle East.  It was sacked and conquered time and again.  It started as an Armenian stronghold, and then it was surrendered to the Byzantines.  After a time, the Seljuk Turks conquered the city and sold it to a Kurdish dynasty.  The Kurds lost it to some Georgians who gave it back and forth to the Kurds for a few years.  The Armenians won it back but then lost it to the Mongols.  Eventually, the Ottoman Turks won control of the city, and it stayed that way for several hundred years.  In the 18^th century, the city was abandoned completely for reasons not quite known.  The city started to decay and nearby villagers started to pillage stones and other materials to use for their own farms and buildings.  The army used the ruins for target practice and several earthquakes further devastated the area.  Because of its proximity to the Armenian border, up until 2004, photography of this area was strictly forbidden and you needed governmental permission to visit the area – you could say that tourism was not really encouraged.  Now, the Turkish government in collaboration with UNESCO is doing its best to rehabilitate the ruins and rebuild tourism in the region.  In fact, some of the money collected for admission is used towards restoration and conservation.  I recommend visiting Ani if you are interested in medieval churches and Gothic architecture.  Some of the best examples I have ever seen exist in this region.

So for you skiers out there who have a hankering for some history with your sports fix, check out this hidden gem in Eastern Anatolia – you will not be disappointed with the snow or the scenery!