Above the forest line at 2,000 metres, Sultanmurat Yaylası has electricity, water, telephone, a grocery, a greengrocer, a bakery, a coffeehouse and a mosque, along with small hotels and guesthouses; a hundred-bed hotel with a restaurant covers much of the lodging and meals.
The yayla owes its name and its place in history to Sultan Murat IV. In 1635, on his way back from his second campaign against İran, he led the congregational prayer here as he came down towards Trabzon, and the spot where the sermon stone stands is part of the yayla's story.
Two dates are marked here each year: the Yayla Ortası festival on 20 August, and on 23 June a day of remembrance for the one officer and 70 soldiers who fell here fighting in 1916.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Trabzon as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 7.3 °C in February to 23.5 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in October (113 mm) and lightest in July (37 mm). Long-term means for 1927-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
