59785 vantage point. Even from such a cursory visit, (see nightfall), this much we know: Kars is a place of traders and merchants. From our hotel window on the third floor, I spy on their early morning activities: people on the street on their way to somewhere; trucks coming and going, unloading goods; other people as they share tea and make deals before the shops open to customers in the mid-morning. It looks contemporary in these images, but these practices are age-old. The frontispiece image dates from the 1870s, during a period of Russian control of the Kars region.