Snow blankets the countryside along a road between Van and Dogubayazit, Turkey, close to the border with present-day Armenia. The region of Eastern Turkey is where the largest population of Turkey's Armenians had been living for centuries. The region of Lake Van was hit hard by violence during conflicts between Armenians and Ottoman Turks in the late 1800s to early 1900s, as well as during WWI. After the deportation decrees in 1915 were issued, almost all of the Armenian communities in the southeast were subsequently wiped out.