Note 5 — Chapter IX · ERZERUM

The population of Erzerum, especially the Armenian element, has undergone a remarkable oscillation during the nineteenth century. In 1827 it appears to have numbered as many as 130,000 souls.5 Another but lower estimate gives a total at that period of 16,378 families, or from 80,000 to 100,000 souls. Of these 3950 families, or from 19,000 to 24,000 people, were Armenians of the national religion.6 The Russian occupation of the city in 1829 was followed in 1830 by a general emigration of the Armenian inhabitants, who followed the Russian armies upon its evacuation. Those were the days when Russia was assisted to her conquests by Armenians and hailed by them as a deliverer. Numbers of their countrymen—it is said by Armenians not less than 40,000—had already emigrated into the Russian provinces from the frontier districts of Persia in the train of the Russian army when it retired from Tabriz at the peace of Turkomanchai (1828).7 What with the exodus of Armenians both from the city and the plain—which before those times was probably inhabited by an Armenian majority—and the various calamities of a disastrous war, the population of Erzerum had declined to a total of not more than 15,000 souls in 1835.8 Only 120 Armenian families are said to have remained behind.9 At the time of my first visit the inhabitants numbered about 40,000, exclusive of a garrison of 5000 or 6000 men. The official figures assigned some 10,500 to the Armenians, 26,500 to the Mussulmans, 1400 to the Persians and strangers, and about 500 to the Greeks. Of the Armenians some 500 succumbed in the great massacre of 1898. It is evident, however, that the town has been returning to its former condition; and there can be no doubt that with the most moderate instalment of tolerable government the older figures would be soon surpassed. I was informed by the Persian Consul that some 30,000 to 40,000 head of camel were yearly counted as having passed through the city. The money spent by their owners for provisions and sundries in Erzerum amounts to about £T90,000 or, in sterling, £81,000 a year. Such is the value to the city of the Persian trade.