Trabzon in Turkey: Pearl of the Black Sea

Trabzon (historically known as Trebizond or Trapezus) is a historic port city situated on Turkey's northeastern Black Sea coast, nestled between the rugged Pontic Mountains to the south and the vast expanse of the Black Sea to the north. The capital of Trabzon Province, it is home to approximately 800,000 people and stands as the largest city in the Eastern Black Sea region. Despite its rich historical pedigree and remarkable natural beauty, Trabzon remains one of Turkey's best-kept secrets — a destination that rewards those who venture beyond the well-worn tourist trails of Istanbul and the Aegean coast.

Geography and Climate

Trabzon occupies a narrow coastal strip compressed between mountains and sea, giving the city a dramatic, layered topography unlike most Turkish cities. The heart of the old town sits on a triangular plateau flanked by two deep ravines — a natural defensive formation that attracted settlers for millennia. The Roman-built harbour lies at the base of this plateau, and much of the medieval city's layout persists in its modern street plan.

The surrounding landscape is extraordinarily lush. Thanks to heavy Black Sea rainfall and a humid subtropical climate, the Pontic Mountains are blanketed in dense mixed forests, tea gardens, and hazelnut orchards. This is not the sun-baked Anatolian plateau most people associate with Turkey — Trabzon is green, misty, and cool, more reminiscent of Georgia or the Caucasus than the Mediterranean. Summers are warm and humid rather than scorching, while winters are mild along the coast but snowbound in the highlands. The region's high-altitude plateaus, known locally as yaylas, burst into wildflower colour each summer and have been gathering places for local communities for centuries.

The city is connected to the rest of Turkey by the coastal highway running east–west along the Black Sea, by Trabzon Airport (TZX) receiving frequent flights from Istanbul, Ankara, and other major cities, and by a network of mountain roads threading up into the highlands.

A City Built on Three Thousand Years of History

Few cities in Turkey — or indeed in the world — can claim a continuous inhabited history as long and as layered as Trabzon's. Its story begins not with the Ottomans or the Byzantines, but with ancient Greek colonists who arrived on these shores in the 8th century BC.

The Greek and Roman Era

The city was founded as Trapezus, a name derived from the Greek word for "table," describing the flat-topped ridge on which it stood. It was established as a colony of Miletus and quickly grew into a prosperous trading port. Trapezus sat at a pivotal point on the ancient Silk Road, where goods flowing from Persia, Central Asia, and the Caucasus met the sea routes of the Black Sea and, beyond them, the Mediterranean world. The Greek historian Xenophon famously celebrated when his Ten Thousand mercenaries sighted the sea from the mountains above Trapezus in 401 BC, ending their long march from Persia — an episode recounted in his Anabasis.

Under Roman rule, Trapezus became an important military and commercial port. The remains of the Roman-era harbour are still visible today at the base of the old city plateau.

The Empire of Trebizond (1204–1461)

Trabzon's most celebrated historical chapter began in 1204, when the sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade shattered the Byzantine Empire into several successor states. Two Byzantine princes, Alexios and David Komnenos, fled east and, with the backing of their grandmother, the Georgian queen Tamar, established the Empire of Trebizond — an independent Greek Orthodox Christian empire centred on the city. At its height, the empire controlled a stretch of the Black Sea coast and cultivated a sophisticated court culture, producing remarkable Byzantine art and architecture.

The Empire of Trebizond endured for over 250 years — longer than many empires — and was the last surviving Byzantine state. It finally fell in 1461, eight years after the fall of Constantinople itself, when Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II marched east and took the city without significant resistance. The last emperor, David Komnenos, surrendered peacefully and was later executed in Istanbul along with his sons.

Ottoman and Modern Era

Under Ottoman rule, Trabzon flourished once again as a trading hub. The city served as the endpoint of caravan routes from Persia and as the main port for goods flowing in and out of Anatolia's interior. It was during this period that many of the bazaars, mosques, and hans (caravanserais) that still define the old city were built.

In the 19th century, Trabzon was one of the most cosmopolitan cities on the Black Sea, home to significant Greek, Armenian, and Jewish communities alongside the Turkish Muslim majority. The population transfers and tragedies of the early 20th century — including the First World War, the Greco-Turkish population exchange of 1923, and the establishment of the Turkish Republic — fundamentally reshaped the city's demographic character. Today, the population is predominantly Turkish, with Laz and Hemşin communities contributing significantly to its cultural identity.

Landmarks and Attractions

Sumela Monastery

No visit to Trabzon is complete without making the journey to the Sumela Monastery, one of the most extraordinary religious sites in the entire Middle East region. Located approximately 47 kilometres south of the city in the Altındere Valley, the monastery clings to a near-vertical cliff face at an altitude of 1,200 metres above sea level, surrounded by dense forest.

Founded in the 4th century AD by two Athenian monks, Barnabas and Sophronios, who claimed to have received a vision of the Virgin Mary, Sumela was dedicated to her and became one of the most important pilgrimage sites of the Orthodox Christian world. Over the centuries, it was expanded and rebuilt many times, accumulating layer upon layer of frescoes, chapels, and monastic cells carved directly into the rock. The frescoes — vivid scenes from the Bible and the lives of saints — are particularly remarkable, painted across the walls of the main church and rock-face chapels in brilliant reds, blues, and golds.

The monastery was abandoned in 1923 during the Greek-Turkish population exchange, and its sacred icon of the Virgin — believed to have been painted by Saint Luke himself — was smuggled out and taken to Greece, where it now resides in a monastery near Veria. Sumela underwent extensive restoration in the early 2000s and reopened to visitors in 2020. It draws pilgrims, hikers, and history lovers in equal measure.

Hagia Sophia of Trabzon

Not to be confused with its more famous namesake in Istanbul, the Hagia Sophia of Trabzon is a magnificent 13th-century Byzantine church built during the reign of the Trebizond emperors. Situated on a promontory overlooking the Black Sea, it is considered one of the finest surviving examples of late Byzantine architecture in the world.

The church's interior is adorned with exceptional frescoes — remarkably well-preserved scenes of the Last Supper, the Annunciation, and the life of Christ — that offer a direct window into the artistic achievement of the Trebizond court. The building was converted to a mosque after the Ottoman conquest, then served as a museum for much of the 20th century, and was reconverted to an active mosque in 2013. Visitors are welcome outside of prayer times.

Atatürk Pavilion

Built in 1890 as a summer residence for a wealthy Greek merchant named Konstantinos Kabayannopoulos, the Atatürk Pavilion (Atatürk Köşkü) is a graceful three-storey mansion set in wooded grounds above the city. It later passed into the hands of a local banking family, who donated it to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder of the Turkish Republic — during his visits to Trabzon in 1924 and 1937. Atatürk slept in the house on both occasions, and the guest bedroom, personal effects, correspondence, and period furnishings are preserved exactly as they were. The pavilion today operates as a museum and is surrounded by pleasant gardens offering views over the city.

Uzungöl

Roughly 99 kilometres southeast of Trabzon, Uzungöl ("Long Lake") is a glacially formed lake nestled in a valley beneath forested peaks. The lake's still surface mirrors the surrounding mountains and wooden village houses, creating the kind of scenery more often associated with Switzerland or Norway than the Middle East. It has become one of Turkey's most photographed natural landscapes, particularly popular with Arab tourists who arrive in large numbers during summer. Despite its growing fame, the surrounding highland villages retain much of their traditional character, and the area is excellent for walking, hiking, and simply sitting with a glass of tea at one of the lakeside cafés.

The Old City, Bazaars, and Walls of Trabzon

The historic core of Trabzon rewards unhurried exploration on foot. The Walls of Trabzon — ancient Roman fortifications expanded during the Byzantine and Ottoman periods — still largely encircle the old city, and walking along their battlements gives a sense of the city's original defensive geography. Within the walls, the Ortahisar Bazaar is a living, breathing market where vendors sell spices, dried fruits, local tea, handicrafts, and the famous Trabzon butter alongside modern goods. The neighbourhood of Ortahisar also contains the Fatih Mosque, a Byzantine church converted to a mosque after 1461, and the ruins of several medieval palaces and churches from the Trebizond era.

Cuisine: The Black Sea Table

Trabzon's food culture is fascinatingly distinct from the Turkish cuisine most visitors know. The Black Sea kitchen relies heavily on corn, anchovies, butter, wild greens, and cheese — a palette shaped by the wet mountain climate rather than the sun-drenched olives and lamb of the Aegean and southeastern Turkey.

The undisputed king of the local table is hamsi, the small Black Sea anchovy. Trabzonlus are devoted to their hamsi with an almost religious intensity, and the fish is cooked in dozens of ways: deep-fried whole, baked in the oven with onions and herbs, stuffed into corn bread, mixed into rice pilaf, and even incorporated into a sweet dessert called hamsi tatlısı. The anchovy season runs from November to February, and the arrival of the first hamsi catch is a genuine cause for celebration.

Mısır ekmeği (corn bread) is the staple bread of the region, dense and slightly sweet, eaten at nearly every meal. Kuymak is a rich, molten dish of cornmeal cooked with butter and local cheese until it reaches a thick, stretchy fondue-like consistency — intensely satisfying on a cold mountain morning. Trabzon pidesi is the local version of the ubiquitous Turkish flatbread, shaped into a distinctive boat or pointed oval and filled with minced meat and egg. Laz böreği is a celebrated pastry filled with a thick, lightly sweetened cream custard — named for the Laz people of the eastern Black Sea. Akçaabat köftesi, from the nearby district of Akçaabat, are dense, garlic-heavy meatballs grilled over charcoal and regarded as among the finest köfte in Turkey.

The region produces approximately 70% of Turkey's hazelnuts and ranks among the largest hazelnut exporters in the world. Local sweets, chocolates, and pastry shops make extensive use of the nut, and bags of fresh hazelnuts are sold everywhere as snacks. The tea served throughout the region comes from gardens along the border with Rize province — strong, dark, and poured into the characteristic tulip-shaped glass without milk.

Culture, Sport, and Society

The Laz and Hemşin Communities

Trabzon's cultural identity is inseparable from the Laz people, a South Caucasian ethnic group indigenous to the eastern Black Sea coast whose language, Lazuri, belongs to the Kartvelian family alongside Georgian. While most Laz people today speak Turkish as their primary language, Lazuri is still spoken in villages and is undergoing modest cultural revival efforts. The Hemşin people, another community of Armenian origin from the highlands near Artvin and Rize, also have a significant presence in the region. Both groups contribute distinctive music, food traditions, and cultural practices that set the eastern Black Sea region apart from the rest of Turkey.

Horon: The Dance of the Black Sea

The horon is the folk dance of the eastern Black Sea, and it is unlike any other folk dance in Turkey. Performed in a tight line or circle with arms interlocked at shoulder height, dancers vibrate and tremble at extraordinary speed to the squealing, rapid-fire rhythms of the kemençe — a small, three-stringed bowed instrument held vertically on the knee. The effect is intense and almost hypnotic. Both men and women dance the horon, though in different styles, and performances at weddings, festivals, and public celebrations can last for hours.

Trabzonspor: More Than a Football Club

In Trabzon, football is a form of civic identity. Trabzonspor, founded in 1967 from a merger of local clubs, became the first non-Istanbul club to win the Turkish Süper Lig, claiming six league championships between 1976 and 1984 and breaking the dominance of Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe, and Beşiktaş. The club's success in that golden era made it a symbol of Anatolian pride and working-class defiance against the Istanbul elite — a sentiment that still defines the club's passionate fanbase today. The claret-and-blue colours of Trabzonspor are visible throughout the city on jerseys, scarves, flags, and café walls.

Arts and Community Life

Trabzon hosts the annual Trabzon International Black Sea Theatre Festival, drawing theatre companies from across the region. Family and community ties are deeply valued; the city retains a conservative social character, particularly in rural areas, while the urban centre is lively with cafés, restaurants, and a young university population from Karadeniz Technical University, one of Turkey's major research institutions. The seaside promenade is a favourite gathering place, particularly in the evenings, when families stroll, vendors sell corn and chestnuts, and the lights of fishing boats flicker on the water.