Dogubayazit, Turkey

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into the Ottoman Empire. Some 7km/4.5mi to the southeast, close to the remains of a Urartian settlement, are the ruins of a town dating from about 1064 (now called Eski Dogubayazit), often, though wrongly, said to have been founded by Bayazit I sometime around 1390. It was abandoned in 1928 and its inhabitants forcibly resettled in the valley, ostensibly because there was too little scope for developing the existing town. The last remaining houses were demolished in 1945.

The old town of Bayazit was once an important staging post on the Silk Route, appearing in Armenian sources as "Darong". In the Ottoman era it was the provincial center, a status it surrendered to Agri in 1927 (the name Dogubayazit also dates from this time). The new town contains little of interest, but it does have some hotels and provides a base from which to attempt the ascent of Ararat. It makes its living from tourism and the through traffic to Iran.