Located at about 5,800 feet above sea level Erzurum is one of the highest cities in Turkey and has some of that country’s finest winter sports facilities. The city hosted the 2011 Winter Universiade. 

A modern city with a population of approaching 400,000 Erzurum has a history that started well before the Eastern Roman Empire fortified the place as their chief military stronghold along their eastern border and renamed it Theodosiopolis after Emperor Theodosius 1. 

Theodosiopolis as a front line City ws taken and retaken by Byzantium and Seljuks, and during the Ottoman Empire serves as the main base of Ottoman Military power in the region. 

In more recent history, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk resigned from the Ottoman Army in Erzurum and the Erzurum Congress in 1919 was one of the starting points of the Turkish War of Independence.

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