Gökçedere (Pulur) Hot Spring

Gökçedere, formerly known as Pulur, is a historic town in the Demirözü district of Bayburt, set among the inland ridges of the Eastern Black Sea at an altitude of about 1,700 metres, roughly 43 kilometres from the provincial centre and 12 from the district town.

History & Significance

Home to Chepni Turks for more than six centuries, it once stood at a crossroads of the ancient Silk Road, and to support caravan trade the Aq Qoyunlu (White Sheep Turkomen) endowed it with an inn, a bathhouse, a madrasah and a mosque. The most important surviving monument is the Ferahşat Bey Mosque, also called the Ulu (Grand) Mosque, built in 1517 as part of a complex by Ferahşat Bey, son of the Aq Qoyunlu lord Korkmaz Bey. Raised in alternating courses of red and pale-yellow ashlar on an inverted-T plan, crowned by a dome on an octagonal drum and accompanied by a single-balcony stone-and-brick minaret, the mosque was restored in December 2022. The L-shaped madrasah to its north still stands, while the contemporary bathhouse has largely fallen into ruin, and no trace remains of the inn, soup kitchen or guesthouse. Another point of interest is the Pulur (Gökçedere) Mound, notable for pottery dating to the Early Bronze Age.

Nature & Local Life

Naturally, the town offers a calm highland atmosphere: a green valley watered by the Pulur Stream that flows to the Çoruh, farmland expanded by the Demirözü Dam, and a landscape of organic farming and beekeeping. Its thermal and hot-spring associations stem from local water heritage and the historic Aq Qoyunlu hamam rather than a modern spa, so the promise here is an authentic rural-historical experience.

Visiting, Access & Route

For this reason agencies fold Gökçedere into the Demirözü–Aydıntepe cultural circuit as a niche stop, with groups spending about an hour around the complex and the mound. On guided programmes it usually sits between Bayburt Castle and the Aydıntepe Underground City. The strongest photographs are the two-tone stone mosque façade, the minaret against the surrounding ridges, and the fertile valley. Access via the Bayburt–Demirözü highway is easy on improved, tunnelled asphalt; there is open ground and parking where a tour coach can pull in, though the courtyard and historic flooring make wheelchair access partly limited. The best time to visit is May to October when the snow clears and the pastures green; the peak falls in July and August around highland and holiday season, while winter is cold and snowy.