Laz - Settlements



Outside of the coastal towns, which are largely Greek in origin and never heavily inhabited by the Laz themselves, the Laz live in villages of separately constructed wooden chalets, often erected on high wooden stilts. The mountains are dotted with the ruins of castles, fortresses, forts, towers, walls, and chapels, and the many mountain torrents are crossed by innumerable hump-backed bridges of stone. There is no traditional Laz capital. The fortified port of Rize (Greek: Rhizaion) appears to have been the chief center in antiquity, whereas the coastal fortress of Petra or Justinianopolis (Georgian: Tsikhisdziri) had that role in the Byzantine period. Under Turkish rule, the great Ottoman-built coastal fortress of Gonia, completed in 1547, was the capital of Lazistan; then Batum served as the capital until the latter was acquired by the Russians in 1878. Thereafter, Rize became the capital of the sanjak and remains so to this day.


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