Erzurum

Erzurum grew on the high plain that controls the passes between Anatolia, the Caucasus and Iran, and that position has decided almost everything about it. A Roman and then Byzantine fortress town called Theodosiopolis stood here from the late 4th century; an Arab army took it in 700, and after the Seljuk victory at Manzikert in 1071 the region passed to Turkish rule. The Saltukid dynasty made Erzurum its capital, building the Grand Mosque and the oldest of the conical stone tombs that still stand in the centre.

Under the Seljuks and their Ilkhanid successors the city became a centre of learning and trade on the caravan route to Tabriz. The Twin Minaret Madrasa of the 13th century and the Yakutiye Madrasa of 1310 date from these decades, and their carved portals are among the finest surviving Anatolian stonework of the period. The Ottomans took Erzurum in 1514 and made it the seat of a large frontier province, rebuilding the citadel and adding mosques, baths and covered markets.

For four centuries it was a war city. Ottoman and Safavid armies fought over the region, and from the 19th century Russian forces occupied Erzurum three times, in 1829, 1878 and again from 1916 to 1918 during the First World War, which brought famine, deportation and massacre to the wider region and destroyed much of the old fabric. In July and August 1919 delegates met here for the Erzurum Congress, an early step towards the Turkish republic. The 20th century brought a university, a railway and heavy state investment; more recently the city has built its future on winter sport, hosting the Winter Universiade in 2011.

Erzurum has a reputation across Turkey for religious conservatism, plain speaking and toughness in the face of its weather, and the city rather enjoys the reputation. Social life is organised around the tea house and the family, and the winter is long enough that indoor sociability is a serious business. Tea is taken kıtlama style, with a sugar lump held between the teeth so that the tea is sweetened as it passes, a habit locals mention to visitors within minutes.

The bar dance, performed by lines of men with linked arms to drum and zurna, is the emblematic folk dance of the province, and cirit, a game in which riders throw blunt javelins at one another from horseback, survives here as a competitive sport more than in most of Turkey. The âşık minstrel tradition, with improvised verse sung to the saz, also has deep roots.

The city's best-known craft is the working of Oltu stone, a black jet-like mineral mined in the district of Oltu to the north-east, cut and polished into prayer beads, rings and cigarette holders in workshops around the old bazaar. Winter sport is the other modern identity: ski jumping hills, biathlon courses and the Palandöken runs were built for international competition, and school children in Erzurum learn to ski in numbers unusual for Turkey. Hospitality is strong, and an invitation to tea or a meal is meant literally.

About 370,000 people live in the city and roughly 760,000 in the province, which is large, mountainous and thinly settled. Atatürk University, founded in 1957, is one of the biggest employers and gives the modern districts a student population that swells the city in term time. Public administration, the army, hospitals and schools account for much of the rest of the formal economy, alongside construction and retail.

Outside the city the province lives from livestock and dairy: cattle graze the high summer pastures, and the milk goes into the region's cheeses, honey comes from highland hives, and sugar beet and cereals are grown where the short season allows. Winter tourism has become the great hope of the local economy, drawing domestic visitors and a growing number from the Gulf states to Palandöken, and lifting hotel building on the southern edge of town.

Life runs on the weather. From November to April snow clearing, heating costs and icy pavements shape the day; families stock food, and the tea house fills. Summer brings a rush of building work, weddings, harvest and returning relatives from Istanbul and Europe. Emigration has been heavy for decades, and many households depend partly on money sent home. The centre keeps its old rhythm of morning bazaar trade, midday prayer and long evenings over tea.

Erzurum's dish is cağ kebabı, which the province claims as its own: lamb marinated with onion, stacked on a horizontal spit and roasted over a wood fire, then carved onto skewers and eaten with thin bread, onion and rocket. It spread from Erzurum and the district of Oltu to the rest of Turkey, and it is the meal visitors are pressed to try first. Ordinary kebab houses otherwise serve grilled lamb, lahmacun and pide.

Breakfast is the other local speciality. Su böreği, layered pastry boiled before baking and filled with cheese, is sold by weight from trays; the region's dairy produce is the star, particularly civil peyniri, a stringy, low-fat cheese pulled into threads, and its aged, mould-ripened form küflü civil, which has a strong smell and a following well beyond the province. Honey from the highland meadows and thick butter fill the rest of the table.

Sweets end the meal. Kadayıf dolması, shredded pastry wrapped around walnuts, fried and soaked in syrup, is the dessert Erzurum is known for, and it is served in sweet shops in the centre alongside baklava and milk puddings. Tea is drunk all day in small glasses; coffee is far less common. In winter, soups thickened with grain or yoghurt and slow-cooked meat dishes dominate home cooking, and the dried fruit, walnuts and preserves laid down in autumn appear on every table.