Note 6 — Chapter XIX · KARS

The names Kars and Karutz are believed to be derived from the Georgian, in which language Kari signifies a gate. The fortress would be known in that tongue as Karis-Kholakhi, or the gate-town. It would seem to have been originally a stronghold of the Iberians, the ancestors of the Georgians of the present day.6 If this derivation be correct, we must suppose that the Kars near Marash in Asia Minor, which is mentioned by a writer of the seventeenth century, was named after the city in northern Armenia.7 During the Bagratid period the province of Kars was called Vanand,8 and the river Akhurean. This last name was also applied to the present Arpa Chai from the confluence with the river of Kars to its junction with the Araxes. These appellations have disappeared during the long spell of Mussulman rule, nor have they been revived by the Russians. I must not weary my reader with an attempt to follow the fortunes of Kars from the eleventh to the nineteenth century. But it may interest him to know that among its conquerors figure two great names, that of Timur in the fourteenth century and that of Shah Abbas in the seventeenth. Nadir Shah attempted in vain to effect its capture in 1744, although he brought up no less than sixteen large cannons and spared no pains to reduce the Ottoman garrison.9 The memory of this failure and of that of the Russian general Nesvateff in 1807 had confirmed the Turks in the conviction that the place was impregnable when the army of Paskevich appeared beneath the walls.10