Kars

The castle or citadel was built from 1153: it's been destroyed on several occasions but restored. Approach up the cobbled track from the south. Within is a small mosque, and the reconstructed tomb of Kahraman Celal Baba, a mythical 13th century hero against the Mongol invasion. There's not much else within but you get a view of the city. The mausoleum at the foot of castle hill by Taş Köprü is for two other fallen defenders.

Built as an Armenian church circa 930 AD, it was probably abandoned in 1046 when the Seljuks took over - they may have used it as a mosque. It was certainly a mosque after the Ottomans captured the city in 1579 and made it part of the Evliya complex. The Russians reverted it to an Orthodox church in 1877, but when they withdrew it was back-and-forth between mosque and church as the frontier shifted. In the 1960s it housed the city museum, until that moved edge-of-town. It's again been a mosque since 1993.

Built by the Russians in 1885 as the Alexander Nevsky barracks and church, it was later converted to a mosque by adding two minarets.

This bastion was built in 1803 to protect the city from the south, which it failed to do: in 1828 the Russians raided it and slaughtered the entire garrison. It's now a branch of Kars Museum exhibiting the Caucasus conflict, signage is only in Turkish.

Covering the city's history and pre-history. The garden has a good array of statues.