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Erzroom, like most of the large cities of interior Turkey, is the centre of a great number of smaller cities and villages scattered over the far-stretching plain and into the ravines of the mountains. There is a large Kurdish population to the south and east of Erzroom, which presents in itself a considerable problem. Erzroom itself has for many years been the headquarters of an army corps of the Turkish Empire, maintained there particularly to keep order among the various antagonistic races, especially the Kurds, and particularly to guard the frontier against undue aggression on the part of Russia.

The people of Erzroom and vicinity, like mountain people generally, are unusually hardy and vigorous, with a large degree of independence. The city itself, so far as wealth is concerned, is hardly surpassed by any of the interior cities of Turkey. Its merchants go all over the empire, and as a centre of trade with Persia as well as with Europe Erzroom holds a unique place.

Since the city was occupied as a mission station in 1840, many distracting events have occurred, such as the war of 1877–78, when it was taken by the Russians and, following the siege, was sorely afflicted by the plague. One of the American missionaries, Rev. Royal M. Cole, D.D., then in Erzroom, went to the front with the army to care for the wounded and the suffering, and gave himself wholly to this work so long as the war lasted, devoting himself to the sick after the Russian troops had withdrawn. Two of his own children died from the plague at that time. Again in 1895 Erzroom came within the massacre belt and suffered greatly from the attacks upon the Christians by the Turks and Kurds.