Boğatepe is a village of herders and cheese makers 40 km from Kars, and for about 130 years it has been a centre of gravyer production. Here the Boğatepe Çevre ve Yaşam Derneği, set up in 2007, has created an eco-museum that it describes as the first and only one in Türkiye and one of only two in the world.
The animals graze pastures where around 650 different plants and flowers grow, and in winter they are fed on the same plants, dried and baled. The village credits this rich flora, together with its altitude and the north winds under which the cheese ferments, for the character of its gravyer and of Kars kaşarı.
Visitors tour the cheese dairies, the eriştehane where noodles are made, and the drying workshops for around 35 medicinal plants. The village's own foods include kavulca from heirloom wheat flour, erişte from red wheat, village pasta, hangel, kavurma and sucuk from its own livestock, and a village breakfast. In summer there are cycling and horse-riding tours and walks to learn how plants are identified, gathered, dried and used; in winter there are sleigh tours. Visitors can stay with families in village homes, with room for 50 guests a night and meals for around 100, and the women of the village make carpets and handicrafts.
Getting there
The village is 40 km from the city centre and can be reached by public transport or by car.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Kars as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from -10.7 °C in January to 17.9 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in July and August; rainfall is heaviest in May (83 mm) and lightest in January (23 mm). Long-term means for 1931-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
