İspir
Encyclopedia
İspir is a town and district of Erzurum Province
Erzurum Province
Erzurum Province is a Province of Turkey, in the Eastern Anatolia Region of the country. It is bordered by the provinces of Kars and Ağrı to the east, Muş and Bingöl to the south, Erzincan and Bayburt to the west, Rize and Artvin to the north and Ardahan to the northeast. The provincial capital is...

 in the Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

, on the Çoruh River
Çoruh River
The Çoruh River or Ch'orokhi River rises in the Mescit Mountains in north-eastern Turkey, flows through the cities of Bayburt, Ispir, Yusufeli, and Artvin, along the Kelkit-Çoruh Fault, before flowing into Georgia, where it reaches the Black Sea just south of Batumi and a few kilometers north of...

. The mayor is Osman Çakır (AKP
Justice and Development Party (Turkey)
The Justice and Development Party , abbreviated JDP in English and AK PARTİ or AKP in Turkish, is a centre-right political party in Turkey. The party is the largest in Turkey, with 327 members of parliament...

). The district has a population of 30260 while the town has a population of 11789.

History

İspir is the historical Sper/Sber/Speri.

Sper is known from the III millennium BC.

Alexander the Great sent one of his generals Menon to conquer Speri, but Menon and his forces were defeated and killed.

After 387, Sper and its main city Sper passed to the Roman Empire, in the 7th century to the Arab Caliphate, in 885 Bagratuni Kingdom of Armenia
Bagratuni Kingdom of Armenia
The medieval Kingdom of Armenia, also known as Bagratid Armenia , was an independent state established by Ashot I Bagratuni in 885 following nearly two centuries of foreign domination of Greater Armenia under Arab Umayyad and Abbasid rule...

. In XI century it was conquered by Seljuqs, in 1207 by Zakare and Ivane Zakarids, in 1242 conquered by Mongols
Mongols
Mongols ) are a Central-East Asian ethnic group that lives mainly in the countries of Mongolia, China, and Russia. In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia...

, in 1502 by Persia and in 1555 by Ottoman Turkey. Under the medieval Kingdom of Armenia, it was part of the province of Upper Armenia
Upper Armenia
Upper Armenia is a historic region of Armenia located in present-day Turkey roughly corresponding to the modern province of Erzincan. immediately west of the Kura River. Within the borders of the Kingdom of Armenia, it was bounded by the regions of Dsopk, Taron, Tayk, and Ayrarat. It was called...

 and was famous for its gold mines.

A large number of Armenians
Armenians
Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....

 lived in Sper until the 1915 Armenian Genocide
Armenian Genocide
The Armenian Genocide—also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, by Armenians, as the Great Crime—refers to the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I...

.

Links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK