Aziziye Bastions
The history of the first bastions built in Erzurum dates back to the Ottoman-Persian war in the 18th century. However, the biggest bastions were built from the beginning of the 19th century to protect the city from the raids and invasions of the Russians in Eastern Anatolia. The number of these strategic buildings, which were built on the hills with high visibility around the city, reaches 22. These bastions, which include headquarters buildings, military shelters, training areas, dining halls, cisterns, ambush rooms; sometimes a single, sometimes a combination of several large structures. The most important of the bastions, whose sizes and locations have changed, are the Mecidiye and Aziziye bastions located just east of the city.
While all of the bastions were built of stone, solidity and usage principles were emphasized rather than architectural style. The bastions, consisting of adjacent rooms, were covered with a thick layer of soil. On the other side of the direction where the enemy will come, there are sections such as the meeting courtyards of the soldiers, the warehouse, the infirmary. While there are barracks rooms in the widest part of the bastions, they were built in a rectangular shape connected to each other. The width of the rooms is 3-4 meters and the depths are 6-14.5 meters. Some of the barracks, which are mostly single-storey, were divided into two with wooden planks and made into two floors in order to save space. These bastions (Mecidiye and Aziziye) played a critical role in stopping the advance of the Russians in the 1877-1878 Ottoman-Russian War, known as the "93 War".
