Ispir

İspir stands beside the Çoruh River, beneath a castle on a rocky height overlooking the fertile valley. Its position made it a stopping place on the road from Erzurum across the Pontic Mountains towards the Black Sea. The fortress was repaired by successive rulers, and a small mosque was built against the southern wall of its inner enclosure.

Taken by the Mongols in 1242, İspir was recovered by the Georgian kingdom under George V. After the kingdom's fragmentation it passed to the Jaqeli atabegs of Samtskhe, before falling under Persian and then Ottoman rule in the early sixteenth century. The Ottoman sultan Süleyman ordered repairs to the region's fortresses, including İspir. The town's religious buildings also reflect a longer history: the Sultan Melik mosque and madrasa date from the thirteenth century, while the Kadızade madrasa was built in the eighteenth.