The monastery at Çakırkaya, in the Şiran district of Gümüşhane, was not built but carved: it was cut into a mass of rock standing above the level of the road. Inside are a church, a chapel and spaces thought to have been for daily living. The monastery is no longer in use.
Steps on the south side lead up to the church, which has three aisles on a domed basilical plan. Of its three semicircular apses the middle one is deeper and wider than the others. Only the south front has windows, and those are slits; the other faces are blind. West of the church is a chapel with a single aisle and a single apse, reached by one step, with three niches in the apse, one of them small. Its entrance is on the east; the north and east faces are blind, and the rectangular window on its south front has been widened over time.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Gümüşhane as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from -1.7 °C in January to 20.3 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in May (70 mm) and lightest in August (14 mm). Long-term means for 1961-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
