Bulanık, formerly Gop or Kop ( hy, Կոփ, ku, Kop), is a town and district in

Muş Province Muş Province ( tr, Muş ili, Armenian: Մուշի մարզ, ku, Parêzgeha Mûşê) is a province in eastern Turkey. It is 8,196 km2 in area and has a population of 406,886 according to a 2010 estimate, down from 453,654 in 2000. The provin ...

, in the

Eastern Anatolia The Eastern Anatolia Region ('' tr, Doğu Anadolu Bölgesi'') is a geographical region of Turkey. The most populous province in the region is Van Province. Other populous provinces are Malatya, Erzurum and Elazığ. It is bordered by the Black Se ...

n region of

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

History

In the 19th century Bulanık was the name of the

kaza A kaza (, , , plural: , , ; ota, قضا, script=Arab, (; meaning 'borough') * bg, околия (; meaning 'district'); also Кааза * el, υποδιοίκησις () or (, which means 'borough' or 'municipality'); also () * lad, kaza , ...

. Its capital, today's Bulanık town, was called Gop, also rendered as Kop. At the end of the 19th century Gop was described as a large village with about 400 houses, all but 50 of them inhabited by Armenians. Although the soil was amongst the most fertile in the region, the inhabitants were almost destitute due to the region's insecurity and the impossibility of exporting their crops. Two miles south of the village was an Armenian monastery named Surb Daniel which contained the relics of a saint of that name. The district was formerly called Hark' and was part of Historical Armenia's

Turuberan Turuberan ( hy, Տուրուբերան) was the fourth Armenian region that was part of the ancient Kingdom of Armenia from 189 BC to 387 AD. Then it was part of the Sassanid Empire, Byzantine Empire, Arab Caliphate, medieval Kingdom of Armenia, ...

province. The earliest record of Kop is found in the 995 encyclical from Vandir monastery under the name Koghb, which was later distorted. Bulanık means "blurred" in Turkish which is a cite for

Murat River The Murat River, also called Eastern Euphrates ( tr, Murat Nehri, , hy, Արածանի, translit=Aratsani), is a major source of the Euphrates River. The Ancient Greeks and Romans used to call the river ''Arsanias'' ( gr, Ἀρσανίας). It ...

. After the

Battle of Manzikert The Battle of Manzikert or Malazgirt was fought between the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuk Empire on 26 August 1071 near Manzikert, theme of Iberia (modern Malazgirt in Muş Province, Turkey). The decisive defeat of the Byzantine army and th ...

in 1071, Turkmen tribes (such as Bayat, Eymür and Bayındır) settled in Bulanık. Today,

Kurds ug:كۇردلار Kurds ( ku, کورد ,Kurd, italic=yes, rtl=yes) or Kurdish people are an Iranian ethnic group native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan in Western Asia, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Ir ...

are the majority. Before the

Armenian genocide The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was ...

, there was an

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...

majority, which was later replaced by

Turks Turk or Turks may refer to: Communities and ethnic groups * Turkic peoples, a collection of ethnic groups who speak Turkic languages * Turkish people, or the Turks, a Turkic ethnic group and nation * Turkish citizen, a citizen of the Republic o ...

(in addition to local

Turkmens Turkmens ( tk, , , , ; historically "the Turkmen"), sometimes referred to as Turkmen Turks ( tk, , ), are a Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia, living mainly in Turkmenistan, northern and northeastern regions of Iran and north-weste ...

). Bulanık took a lot of Turkic emigrants such as

Meskhetians ''meskhebi'' , image = Georgian dialects.svg , image_caption = , population = - 100,000 , popplace = Samtskhe-Javakheti: 89 995 or 43,4 % (2002) Ardahan province: unknown , pop1 = , languages = Meskhetian dialect of Ge ...

and Qarapapaq Turks. These

Muhacir Muhacir or Muhajir (from ar, مهاجر, translit=muhājir, lit=migrant) are the estimated 10 million Ottoman Muslim citizens, and their descendants born after the onset of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, mostly Turks but also Albanians ...

s first came with the

Russo-Turkish War The Russo-Turkish wars (or Ottoman–Russian wars) were a series of twelve wars fought between the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire between the 16th and 20th centuries. It was one of the longest series of military conflicts in European histo ...

and continued to come during the Republic era). An American consul, Consul Tyrell, visited the border region between Bulanık and Eleşkirt and made these observations in the beginning of the 20th century: The town's current mayor is Adnan Topçu of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP). Mehmet İlidi was appointed as the current district governor.

Economy

Historically, Bulanık was known for producing

wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...

and

salt Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quantitie ...

References

Populated places in Muş Province Districts of Muş Province Towns in Turkey Kurdish settlements in Turkey {{Muş-geo-stub