Bayburt

Bayburt is a city in northeast Turkey lying on the Coruh River and is the provincial capital of Bayburt Province. Bayburt was once an important center on the ancient Silk Road. It was visited by Marco Polo and Evliya Celebi. Remains of its medieval castle still exist.

Bayburt straddles the Coruh amid an open and fertile plateau on the route between Trabzon and Erzurum.It was subsequently settled or conquered by the Cimmerians in the 8th century BC, the Medes in the 7th century BC, then the Persians, Pontus, Rome, the Byzantines, the Bagratid Armenian Kingdom, the Seljuk Turks, the Aq Qoyunlu, Safavid Persia, and then the Ottoman Turks.

The town was the site of an Armenian fortress in the 1st century and may have been the Baiberdon fortified by the emperor Justinian.It was a stronghold of the Genovese in the late Middle Ages and prospered in the late 13th and early 14th century because of the commerce between Trebizond and Persia.It contained a mint under the Seljuks and Ilkhanids.From c. 1243 to 1266, Bayburt was under brief control of the Georgian princes of Samtskhe. A Christian church within the Bayburt castle was built in the 13th century under the Trapezuntine or Georgian influence.