Ani

Ani - darkometer rating : 4 - A city of ruins in the far east of Turkey . Ani is a place of great antiquity, namely in that it was the former capital of Armenia about a thousand years ago. Now it is largely a ghost town in ruins, but these are very alluring ruins indeed. Add to that the historically and politically charged location (even still today), and you have a pretty unique dark tourism destination. > More background info > What there is to see > Location > Access and costs > Time required > Combinations with other dark destinations > Combinations with non-dark destinations > Photos More background info: given it's so ancient should it really qualify as a dark site? Not normally (cf. the concept of dark tourism ) – and anyway, Turkey, like the whole Middle East, is full of ancient sites, though out of those with an Armenian background Ani is by far the most significant. However, the link to contemporary "darkness" is this: it's on Turkish territory, right on the border with Armenia , a border that is closed because of the continued animosities between the two countries (which in large part have their roots in the Armenian genocide at the hands of the Turks in the early 20th century – see Armenian genocide monument ). Furthermore, this used to be part of the Iron Curtain : NATO member Turkey on the one side, the Soviet Union (which Armenia used to be part of) on the other. Together with a short strip of borderland in northern Norway near ( Kirkenes ) the Turkish border with the Caucasus countries was one of only two land borders that the Soviet Union ever shared directly with a NATO country. For a brief period after the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the border was more permeable – you could even swim in the river. But that quickly changed with the war over Nagorno-Karabakh , in which Turkey sided with Armenia 's enemy Azerbaijan .