SPORT

The first sports club in Kars was established in 1938 and called the 30 October Sports Club. Today there are 34 sports clubs in Kars with facilities for activities ranging from football, volleyball, basketball, boxing, wrestling and track and field to skiing, table tennis, billiards, chess, karate, taekwando, badminton and traditional sports like horseback javelin-throwing.

JAVELIN

Javelin is a very old sport played on horseback. Its roots go back to groups living in inner Asia where war games were traditionally held. It spread into Anatolia with the Mongolian invasions.

The game is played with two teams of horse riders. The riders try to hit each other with the bats they carry while riding. The javelin game was considered a war game in the 16th century in the Ottoman Empire. In the 19th century it became the empire’s biggest spectator sport.

In the past 50 years the game has been dying fast, and today it is found only in Erzurum, Bayburt, Ankara, Istanbul and Kars. The javelin games are played today in Kars in the town of Selim with the sponsorship of the Kars Municipality.

In some regions the game is referred to as the degnek (baton, bat) game, while in Tunceli and Mus it is known as the horse game. There is a ceremonial aspect to the game in most places it is played. Music with drums and zurna accompanies the game with rhythms unique to the sport, called Cirit Havasi (Javelin music). In Tunceli and Mus, specific melodies and rhythms are played prior to a game in order, as the players and musicians say, to “make the horse dance”.

SKIING – SKATING

The Regional Directorate of Youth and Sports encourages these sports through the organization it set up in 1950 called the Sarikamis Skiing and Camping Education Center. Sportsmen trained here have represented Turkey in international tournaments in various skiing disciplines.

The origins of skating developed on the streets, where people threw water onto the snowy side streets and then tried to skate on them. This is still done in Kars, but today there is also a pool in the Mesut Yilmaz Park which has been converted into a skating rink.Courses are given to young people to encourage the sport.