Ardahan Castle

The three sanjaks… In the last years of the Ottoman Empire, these words referred to Kars, Ardahan and Batum: Elviye-i Selâse. Ceded to Russian rule in 1878, these three cities lived apart from the homeland for forty years; and the return of Kars and Ardahan to these lands during the years of the National Struggle still holds a special place in the region’s memory. So how does a city remember a forty-year separation?