Satlel Castle stands on a high outcrop in the Söğütlü quarter, about two kilometres short of Şavşat on the Artvin road. It has no inscription, so its date is not fixed; in plan and architectural character it resembles the castles of the Bagratid kingdom, and on that basis the ninth century is suggested. It was in use in the Ottoman period as well, and much of its curtain wall is still standing. The site covers 3,360 square metres.
The walls are almost entirely gone along the stretch running from the north round to the west. From the east as far as the western end, four rectangular and cylindrical towers rising to about thirteen metres survive, with walls reaching up to half their height. Inside, on the southwest wall, a cylindrical tower projects outwards as a bastion, 6.10 by 5.35 metres and fifteen metres high. Of the main enclosure there remain the ruins of a chapel, 8.00 by 4.80 metres on a rectangular plan under a pitched roof, and a cistern cut into the bedrock just northwest of it. On the east side are two adjoining rectangular towers 2.4 metres wide under vaults, with a small window opening outwards in the middle wall; the space next to them has a rectangular door 6.70 by 3.75 metres. That tower, its interior decayed and its upper walls fallen, stands about seven metres high. Rubble stone and lime mortar were used throughout.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Artvin as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 2.8 °C in January to 21.3 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in December (87 mm) and lightest in August (29 mm). Long-term means for 1949-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
