bluebird research

To help family historians with Armenian ancestors from the Kars region, Bluebird Research has created an online map identifying and displaying the location of Armenian villages in the then Russian oblast of Kars circa 1900-1914.

These villages were from 1878 to 1917 in Russian Armenia (and this is how they are usually described in, for example, American and Canadian passenger lists, naturalisation records and census returns) but since the end of WW1 have been incorporated into Turkey.

Most of the village names have now changed – both modern Turkish and the old Russian, Armenian and indeed Turkish names are given on the map.

This map should be used in conjunction with our other recent (March 2011) posts on this subject.

Please click here to view the Armenian Villages in Kars Province map in Google Maps.

The table below is a name concordance showing the Armenian settlements of Kars province (oblast) of the period 1900s/1910s. It is designed to be used in conjunction with the two extracts from late Imperial Russian gazetteers on this website – the 1902 and 1914 editions – to help Armenian family historians to locate their ancestral villages. Please contact us for further assistance if required, or if you are interested in our professional genealogical research services.

The table gives a) the names as transliterated from the Russian Cyrillic in Imperial Russian official publications, b) their Armenian names in standard transliteration and c) their modern Turkish names.

All errors are the blogger’s own. Additions and corrections are welcomed.

The table below shows the Armenian settlements of Kars province (oblast) with their Armenian population as at 1913. A village (selo) or town (gorod) was located within a community (obshtina), and communities within a district (okrug). The table, with its companion for 1901, is intended to help Armenian family historians to locate their ancestral villages.

Unless otherwise indicated, all villages were entirely Armenian and were of the Apostolic (Gregorian) faith. 

The table uses simple transliterations from the Russian, without replacing hard signs or soft signs, and does not attempt to render the place names in a correct transliteration from the Armenian language. 

All errors are the blogger’s own.

Source: 1914 Address-Calendar for Kars Province

The Kars region was administered by the Russian Empire from 1878 to 1917. The table below shows the Armenian settlements of the then Kars province (oblast) with their Armenian population as at 1901. A village (selo) or town (gorod) was located within a community (obshtina), and communities within a district (okrug). The table, with its companion for 1913, is intended to help Armenian family historians to locate their ancestral villages.

Unless otherwise shown, all villages were entirely Armenian and of the Apostolic (Gregorian) faith.

The table uses simple transliterations from the Russian, without replacing hard signs or soft signs, and does not attempt to render the place names in a correct transliteration from the Armenian language.

All errors are the blogger’s own.

Source: 1902 Address-Calendar for Kars Province

Among the Californian Armenian community is a disproportionate number of descendants of immigrants from the small village of Karakala, or Kara-Kala, near Kars. On incoming American passenger lists and in naturalisation records, the place of origin of these immigrants will usually be shown as Russian Armenia, because the region around the city of Kars became the Russian Karsskaya oblast from 1878 to 1917. Before that period, the region was part of the Ottoman Empire and therefore a minority of US immigration records, especially for those Armenians born in Karakala before 1878, may state Turkey or Ottoman Empire, rather than Russia, as place of birth.

There is little to be found on the internet – at least, in the English language and of value to genealogists – about Karakala. There is confusion as to its exact whereabouts. The primary reason for this confusion is that the place name is not unique: there are multiple candidates. Furthermore, place names changed under modern Turkey and some Armenian villages were completely razed and have disappeared from the map. However, the true location of Armenian Karakala can be determined with confidence.

Imperial Russia, like other late 19th century empires, took a lively interest in demographics and ethnography (not least because nationalism needed to be monitored as the single biggest challenge to empire). Russian gazetteers of the period show the administrative geography (the hierarchy of local government from regional capital down to village), the population breakdown and usually something of the ethnicity (natsionalnost or nationality in Russian) of the inhabitants. The colossal 1897 Russian Census was a monument to just such a preoccupation with the population of empire.

Gazetteers for Kars oblast record the entire population down to the smallest villages of no more than 50 inhabitants. The gazetteers for the 1900s and 1910s show consistently that there were nine places called Karakala in Kars oblast. However, Armenian Karakala – the source of the Californian immigrant population – is readily identified. Each of the various entries for the settlements named Karakala gives the nationality of its population. In this respect, while cities and towns in eastern Anatolia were usually of mixed population, the villages in the hinterland tended to be occupied by a single people. Only one of the nine places named Karakala had an Armenian population: of the remaining eight, seven were Muslim villages, identified carefully as Kurdish, Turcoman/Turkish and even Karapapak, and one a Yezidi village.

Under Russian rule, Armenian Karakala seems originally to have been classed as an obshestvo (community) in its own right, with the nearby Turkmen selo or village of Hadzhi-Halil subordinate to it, within the okrug (or district) of Magaradzhik (itself a Greek village). However, later Karakala lost its obshestvo status and became simply a selo like Hadzhi-Halil in Magaradzhik obshestvo in Magaradzhik okrug. The other two villages in the immediate grouping were Azat (which was Greek) and Kany-Kei (another Armenian settlement).

Across Kars oblast, the majority of Armenian settlements were growing rapidly during the years leading up to WW1, due to natural growth (families were large) and in-migration. Karakala was an exception to this trend. In 1902, the village comprised 464 souls (as they are described in the gazetteers) residing in 43 households; by 1914, it had 489 souls living in 79 homes. All were Armenian.  The explanation for the relatively slow growth in population size and reduction in household size in Karakala is the significant emigration from the village to North America.

So where is Karakala? It is situated 17.5km SSE of Kars and is today called Merkezkarakale. The prefix Merkez simply signifies its location in Kars Merkezi, or the central district of the Kars province of modern Turkey: this name was not used during the Ottoman or Imperial Russian eras. 8km to the NNW is Azat; about 5km to the N is Magaradzhik, now called either Mağaracık or Ataköy in Turkish; 5km to the NW is Kany-Kei, now known as Gelirli; and 2km to the S is Hadzhi-Halil, now spelt Hacıhalil.

Bluebird Research has created two Google Maps showing a) Armenian Karakala in the context of the other Armenian settlements in Kars and b) Armenian Karakala along with the non-Armenian villages named Karakala. A third map shows Armenian Karakala in the context of the surrounding villages of different ethnicity or nationality.

There is an old photograph of the village of Armenian Karakala online. If one studies Merkezkarakale in satellite view at high magnification on the Bluebird Research Google Map, one thing that is noticeable and common to both photograph and satellite image is the village’s linear structure – essentially it is a single street with plots to the left and right set back at different short distances from the road. Although 100 or more years may have passed, and the village will have been rebuilt and extended, and perhaps shifted its centre of gravity, its basic plan seems remarkably similar today. The axis of the village is NW to SE. The road in the satellite view, extending off to the right half way down the village street (heading roughly N), looks like a more organic recent development. The old photograph seems to have been shot from an elevation and may have been taken on the rising ground SE of the village.

This is the only village named Karakala with a linear settlement plan in the former Kars oblast. If one looks at each of them in turn at high magnification on the Google Map, it will be seen that all of the others are organic, sometimes seemingly random clusters of low buildings. Merkezkarakale is the only one with the planned look and feel of a linear village. It has been suggested that Armenian Karakala was built shortly after the Russian administration arrived in 1878; if so, then this would be consonant with the appearance of a “modern” rectilinear and planned layout.

The next step in research is to try to find out if there are any surviving genealogical records for Karakala; and, if so, where they are held; and whether they cover both the Apostolic and the village’s burgeoning Armenian Protestant or Evangelical sect known as the “Jumpers” which generated many of the emigrants to California.

If you are a family historian with Armenian roots in Karakala, especially a descendant of one of the original immigrants – such as Katanian, Keosababian, Mooshagian, Nalian, Perumian or Shaharian or Stepanian – we would be delighted to hear from you.