Araklı

Araklı

Like other places in the Eastern Black Sea region, the prehistory of Araklı has not been elucidated by archaeological studies. However, the fact that it was founded on the lands where the Silk Road, which was the most vibrant route of East-West trade for millennia, reached the Black Sea and has military and geostrategic values in addition to its commercial value, makes us think that the settlement in the district was not much later than Trabzon. The mountains, which surround the Eastern Black Sea from the south and facilitate its defense, prevented the administrations ruling Anatolia from establishing authority over the region and changing the culture of the region through commercial and other relations for a long time, and led to the formation of a type of people who adopted a self-sufficient life in their own way. It is known that during the Hittite period, minerals were taken from the Khalibs, the people who processed the mines of the region, and that the Assyrians came from Western Iran and had limited commercial relations with the region. The region experienced its first colonial visit by the Milesians in 750 BC. However, due to the Cimmerian raids that started through the Caucasus in these years, the colonists did not have the opportunity to settle in the region. After the Cimmerians, Scythians, Medes and Persians dominated for a short time. Ksenefon, who talks about the people around Trabzon, their characteristics, their way of life and the characters they have developed, writes about his wars with the Kolkhs, the indigenous peoples of the region, and the Macrons, during his Bayburt-Trabzon journey in 400 BC, in his work Anabasis. Araklı is in the east of Trabzon, and its first settlement was 'Konakönü', located in the west of today's district center. The district was occupied by the Russians in 1916 and this occupation ended in 1918. It was separated from Sürmene in 1953 and became a district.