along a street lined by stone houses. These are designed to protect the inhabitants from the extremes of this harsh continental climate, with its bitterly cold winters and blazing hot summers. At the same time heavy wooden beams laid between the courses of stone makes them resistant to earthquakes. The same technique can be seen in the walls of the castle which commands a view over the town from its high vantage point. The town and its fertile plain were ruled in turn by the Urartians, Medes, Cimmerians, Scythians, Sassanids, Armenians, and Vanad Bulgars - the memory of the latter preserved for a long time in the name Land of Vanad given to the northern area of the district. Then came the long centuries of Ottoman rule, which were relatively peaceful until the later period, when a series of wars with the Russians caused suffering and upheaval. But the plain lost none of its abundance nor the inhabitants any of their hospitalite. People we met insisted that we visit the Haci Rüstü Coffeehouse, and we were not disappointed by this historic establishment with its friendly atmosphere.

My tea break over, it was time to regretfully leave the warmth of the café for the freezing street, and visit the villages of Bulkasim and Tasagil. The mist was still thick, and the driver told us that it would not clear until the middle of February. For lunch we bought some of the thin bread called lavas from the bakery and ate it with local Çeçil cheese. Our black car stood out against the white expanse of snow stretching as far as we could see all around us, and the poplar trees by the edge of the road seemed to come straight out of an artst'st canvas. When we had climbed to the top of the hill ahead, the view became even more beautiful, and we stopped to enjoy it at leisure. The driver, Seyfi, called me over and showed me wolf tracks in the snow, seeing which I decided it would be imprudent to wander away from the car.
At Tasagil, which stands on higher ground, the sun shone brightly down from the blue sky onto the glistening snow, and took the chill out of the air.

But by three o'clock in the afternoon twilight was already setting in, and I returned to Pasinler and a sound night's sleep, broken only by the whistling of a train, reminding me that I had to be at the station the following morning. There were only six passengers waiting at the station for the Kars train. As the coloured carriages came into sight, excitement simmered up inside at the prospect of continuing my travels through this vast mountainous landscape in the depths of an eastern winter.

* Ibrahim Yogurtçu is a photographer