I realize there are several Karakala villages in the Kars province. Prof. Hovanessian shows Karakala north of Kars on one of the maps in his book (I don't have the exact reference in front of me). There is a legend that the hills of Karakala were the foothills of Mt. Ararat ("The Happiest People on Earth" by Demos Shakarian, Ch 1,2). A photo was taken of our people in Karakala shortly after they moved there. Legend describes it as an abandoned Russian military outpost and the structuresin the photo appear to have been barracks. A relative states it was destroyed and dug under by the Turks in 1920. I took photos of where we found evidence of this area having been inhabited while visiting Kars in 1999. The area was located between Taslica and Incesu. The background hills in this area are similar to the hills in the old photo but are definitely not the foothills of Mt. Ararat.
I remember the map that was sent some time ago and seemed that Karakala was west of Kars and will check again to see if it was even in the Kars province. It will be wonderful to know if Samvel Karapetian can say for sure which Karakala is where the Armenian Protestants lived.
The old photo taken of Karakala, along with photos taken at the supposed site in 1999, can be seen on Andy Conovaloff's Molokan web site.
