Kars: Snow's Otel ... 's no hotel!

Kars, July 4th 2008

The tourism infrastructure is not extensive in Turkey, and especially along the Black Sea coast,
the guidebooks all warn against "natasha" hotels. We may have stayed at one or two without knowing it, and in any case what's really the harm in some other room being used for a trick or two? So we weren't overly concerned about it, but of course always asked if the establishment was a "family hotel" (aile otel).

So far, we've had pretty good luck with lodging during our travels, and aside from perhaps the occasional loud disco, leaky toilet, predatory manager, or damp tomblike cement basement, we've managed to get a decent night's sleep everywhere we went.

In the smudgy pucker that is the city of Kars, the exception was met.

We had taken most of the day to drive to Kars, going from the mistladen mountaintops of Ayder to Pazar, along the Black Sea coast to Hopa near the Georgian border, over the Cankurtaran pass to Ardahan, up the river valley past Artvin, through the national forest surrounding Şavşat, then over another small pass into the high plains. Here were wild horses ambling, herds of cattle grazing, tent settlements blooming like mushrooms overnight, old women crossing the road with flocks of geese, and one-horse carts rattling alongside the highway.

We kept an eye out for suitable sojourns, and had already passed by well-turned-out motel near Şavşat. I wanted to find something before we reached the city of Kars, and like an godsend there appeared a large new hotel proudly emblazoned with three stars, next to the highway 10 kms from the city. SNO 'S OTEL, the letters read, the W having fallen off. It is a three-story concrete structure painted in warm culinary pastels - lemon, custard, and avocado. So what if the stars might have been self-awarded? At first sight it certainly looked comfortable, quiet, and respectable.

We entered the lobby, which was new and tastefully decorated, including a large painting of a triumphant sultan entering the gates of the city, banners flying, and vanquished Crusaders littering the foreground. There were half a dozen men in hotel employee uniforms, and they soon summoned what appeared to the manager. The boss looked like he stepped out of the frames of a film noir. His upper incisors are gone leaving a wide gap between two short canines, and his frequent smile is at once alarming and disarming. He had on an immaculate white shirt beneath a dark pinstripe suit, and the outfit was completed with impeccably shined black leather ankle boots with tapered toes and a row of small buttons up the side. We must have appeared just as curiously outfitted to them, in our T-shirts, jeans, and khakis. He spoke passable English and gestured us to sit for a cup of tea.

There we sat in the salon, beneath the gaze of the triumphant sultan, and said mostly nothing. We watched the flickers on the flatscreen TV, sipped tea, nibbled at cherries, and talked only infrequently. The essential facts escaped periodically into the air like puffs of cigarette smoke - yes, we're from America; yes, we need a room for the night; yes, Turkey is beautiful; yes, we're going to Ani tomorrow. We mirrored his companionable silence and waited patiently. Finally, he asked if we'd like to see the room. Up we went in the tiny elevator that barely fit 3 persons. The room was viewed, the price was set, the passports were handed over, and we were set. When one of the attendants was posted on our floor and seemed almost to follow us around, we thought nothing of it.

So far, so good, and we were rather pleased with ourselves to have come upon a relatively peaceful oasis in the middle of desolate plains. We drove the 10 kms to Kars city, peeked inside the Georgian church, clambered up to Kars castle, and came back to settle in for the night.

The excitement started around midnight. The disco had started early but we were used to that by now. Then we heard raised voices outside our door, footsteps to and fro. There were several knocks on our door. I asked Jim to wedge a chair under the door. The phone kept ringing.

The sequence of events were now cast in a more sinister light. While we were sipping tea in the salon, was the boss waiting for Jim to begin negotiations on the "merchandise"? After all, why else would one bring a Japanese girl to a hotel if not to make some profit? Was our man not so much a floor attendant but our personal sentry posted at our door by the boss, once he realized we were hapless tourists that needed protection?

Our sentry scolded the rowdies away from our door. We heard the clicking of high heeled shoes, a woman giggling, then a brief cascade of moans next door followed by shower sounds. Now came another set of male voices, more insistent and authoritative. It was the jandarma. Our sentry knocked on the door and announced "hotel servis." For him we opened the door. The two jandarma, in fatigues with machine guns slung over the shoulder, had a looked inside the door and, seeing our startled and grumpy faces, were satisfied and left. What were they looking for, we wondered. Illegal migrants? Unauthorized working girls? Or were they just curious about the American tourists? Whatever it was, their presence seemed to have put an end to the incessant banging around outside. An hour later, their jeep was gone, the music finally died down, and we managed a few hours of fitful sleep.

The next morning, we decamped very quickly and, waving off several solicitous offers of breakfast, and jumped in the car to put as much distance between us and Snow's Otel as we could, as fast as we could. We drove over crumbled roads to the remote ruined city of Ani, the ancient Armenian capital that once had 100,000 inhabitants. There, amidst the sun-scorched thistles swarming with gnats, I had a John Woo moment in the dark hull of a church with the dome missing and the dressed facade crumbled away revealing the rubble core of the walls. The light was just so as sooty swallows swirled and keened. On the highway out of Kars, past the hotel, we didn't stop to take a souvenir photo, but merely snapped a quick shot through the windshield.

P.S. We were stunned to find their website: http://snowsotel.com/

P.P.S. The constrast between the Lonely Planet description of Kars and what we found provides a benchmark of the insane optimism of that publication.    "Subtle charms" my foot!

P.P.S.  Even though Kars is grim, dull, and dreary, it is intensely atmospheric and the mood gets under your skin.   After returning home, I started reading Orhan Pamuk's "Snow."   Here's a passage from the book that captures the desolation and despair:

someone had written the lines that Ka would incorporate into “All Humanity and the Stars,” the poem he would write tomorrow while sitting in the Lucky Brothers Teahouse:

Even if your mother came down from heaven to take you into her arms,

Even if your wicked father let her go without a beating for just one night,

You’d still be penniless, your shit would still freeze, your soul would still wither, there is no hope!

If you’re unlucky enough to live in Kars, you might as well flush yourself down the toilet.