Fethiye Mosque
Fethiye Mosque is a building that has been converted from a church to a mosque, located in Yeni Mahalle in the center of Kars. While the church was called Alexander Nevsky Church (Russian: Церковь Александра Невского Tserkov Aleksandra Nevskogo) or Kazakh Church. The old Christian church, built at the end of the 19th century, is one of the oldest constructions in the region and remained empty after the 1915 Armenian Genocide. After the 1921 Turkish-Armenian War, it was used by some public institutions for a while and then turned into a mosque.
church structure; It has a rectangular plan and is made of light and dark brown tuff stone. The round arched pediment on the windows and the application on the roof arranged in the form of triple clover leaves is a lighting area with the triple window system arranged in round arches, which is also seen in Baltic style buildings.
The church was built by the Russians at the end of the 19th century, after the Russian Empire took Kars and established Kars Oblast in 1878. In the Armenian Genocide of 1915, the Alexander Nevsky Church was attacked and the Armenian inhabitants of Kars were forcibly deported or killed, while the remaining Christians were exiled to the Democratic Republic of Georgia or the Democratic Republic of Armenia after Turkey's war against Armenia. After that, the historical church was left without a congregation.
The onion domes of the church, which is an example of Russian religious architecture, were dismantled in 1953 and the bell tower was demolished. The place of worship was used as an indoor sports hall until the 1970s. It was converted into a mosque with two minarets added in 1984.
