Sarıkamış-Allahuekber Mountains National Park spreads across the border of Kars and Erzurum provinces, covering the Sarıkamış forests and the Allahuekber range. It covers more than 22,000 hectares. It was declared a national park in 2004.
The directorate names two reasons for the protection, and the first is not natural. On the Allahuekber mountains stand memorials to the Sarıkamış operation of 1914-1915, in which, the directorate states, around 90,000 Turkish soldiers froze to death. It adds that various sources record twenty burial grounds for the soldiers killed, that only seven of these have a monument, and that the rest are areas whose boundaries are not marked. Anyone coming to visit them should plan around that: the marked sites are the ones that can be found. Allahuekber, Tekçam, Soğanlı and Dikenli Tabya cemeteries are all reached by private vehicle on stabilised roads, and a commemoration programme with organised walks is held every year.
The second reason is the forest. Scots pine reaches its highest altitude in Türkiye here and forms pure stands of optimal structure. Growing with it are steppe oak, stinking juniper, aspen, barberry and downy birch.
The bird list is dominated by raptors and scavengers: cinereous, griffon, bearded and Egyptian vultures, along with eagles, buzzards, falcons, kites, sparrowhawks and kestrels, and the Caucasian chiffchaff. Brown bear, wolf, fox, roe deer, wild boar, stone marten, weasel and hare are present, as is the Caucasian frog. Access is by private vehicle: from Sarıkamış town it is 7.8 kilometres to the controlled use zone, then about 6 kilometres further on stabilised roads through pasture and forest to the sustainable use zone, while the strict protection zone can be approached by vehicle to within 2.1 kilometres.
- Designated
- 19.10.2004
Entry fee
- Black Sea group 3 · category 2 · Per person
- 50 ₺
- Southeastern Anatolia group 1 · category 2 · Per person
- 40 ₺
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).
