The town of İspir

Like so many small Anatolian towns, İspir consists largely of a mix of nondescript concrete buildings constructed in recent decades. The impoverished and neglected old residential area below the castle hill still gives an impression of how the town looked in the past. The few pre-World War I houses that have survived are similar in style to those in the provincial capital, Erzurum.

The rather small historic bazaar (just one street) has a few dilapidated old shops, perhaps dating from Ottoman times, with typical wooden shutters - nowadays very rare.