Note 16 — Chapter XIX · KARS

Still the number of the inhabitants has grown smaller and smaller, if we even confine ourselves to the present century. Prior to the campaign of Paskevich, we are informed by a credible authority that Kars with its suburbs contained some 10,000 families, or from 50,000 to 60,000 souls.16 After it was evacuated by the Russian army upon the close of that war, the bulk of the Armenian population deserted their homes and followed the Russian retreat.17 The figure then drops to a pretty uniform estimate of 2000 houses or families, giving a result of some 10,000 to 12,000 souls, of whom the vast majority were Mussulmans.18 It must now be further reduced by more than one-half. Perhaps the projected railway will increase the prosperity of Kars if the military regulations be relaxed. But it will be a long time before it can recover its former splendour, when the fortress city contained no less than 3000 houses, 47 mosques and 18 schools.19