page_title: Kars
section_title: Russian administration
hierarchical_section_title: Kars / History / Russian administration
caption_attribution_description: Kars, armenische Kathedrale, Heilige-Apostel-Kirche / Սուրբ Առաքելոց Եկեղեցի (10. Jhdt.)
context_page_description: Kars is a city in northeast Turkey and the capital of Kars Province. Its population is 73,836 as of 2011.
  Kars was in the ancient region known as Chorzene, in classical historiography, part of Roman Armenia. The city's name may be derived from the Armenian word հարս, meaning "bride", or from կառուց բերդ, "Kaṛuts Fortress". Another hypothesis has it that the name derives from the Georgian word კარი, meaning "the gate" as was the case for other border region strongholds. The Turkish etymology offered by M. Fahrettin Kırzıoğlu, has been dismissed as unsustainable by scholars. The mayor of Kars is Ayhan Bilgen of the Peoples' Democratic Party, elected in 2019. The current kaymakam is Nur Sevinç Özbek.
context_section_description: In 1807 Kars successfully resisted an attack by the Russian Empire. During a break between the Russian campaigns in the region conducted against the Ottomans, in 1821, commander-in-chief Abbas Mirza of Qajar Iran occupied Kars, further igniting the Ottoman-Persian War of 1821-1823. After another Russian siege in 1828 the city was surrendered by the Ottomans on June 23, 1828 to the Russian general Count Ivan Paskevich, 11,000 men becoming prisoners of war. At the end of the war it returned to Ottoman control for diplomatic reasons, Russia gaining only two border forts. During the Crimean War an Ottoman garrison led by British officers including General William Fenwick Williams kept the Russians at bay during a protracted siege; but after the garrison had been devastated by cholera and food supplies had depleted, the town was surrendered to General Mouravieff in November 1855.
  The city's significance increased as the Ottoman and Russian empires contested its possession. The fortress was stormed by the Russians in the Battle of Kars during the Russo-Turkish War, 1877-78 under generals Loris-Melikov and Ivan Lazarev. Following the war, Kars was transferred to Russia by the Treaty of San Stefano. Kars became the capital of the Kars Oblast (province), comprising the districts of Kars, Ardahan, Kaghisman, and Oltu,which was the most southwesterly extension of the Russian Transcaucasus. In the following years the Russians supported the fortification of Kars.
  From 1878 to 1881 more than 82,000 Muslims from formerly Ottoman-controlled territory migrated to the Ottoman Empire. Among those there were more than 11,000 people from the city of Kars. At the same time, many Armenians and Pontic Greeks (here usually called Caucasus Greeks) migrated to the region from the Ottoman Empire and other regions of Transcaucasia. According to the Russian census data, by 1897 Armenians formed 49.7%, Russians 26.3%, Caucasus Greeks 11.7%, Poles 5.3% and Turks 3.8%.
caption: An Armenian Church in Kars.
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