Van: Day I

View from what's left of Old Van into the mountains behind the city. The look much closer in real life.

Van, located in eastern Turkey not far from the Iranian border, had been on my list of sites to visit from the very beginning. I'd seen pictures of Van Lake and the surrounding mountains and found them quite inviting. Also my sister and brother-in-law inherited a cat they believe to be a Van cat, very special indeed. I just had to go check it out. Finally, that part of the country is more unknown to westerners and hence more mysterious. So when spring arrived, I bought myself a plane ticket, booked a hotel room, got the name of a guide and took off. Fortunately, one of my colleagues heard I was going and decided to come along.

My first impression after getting out of the plane was awe. The mountains seemed so close. It was much more spectacular than I had expected. My traveling companion was actually coming on a plane from Istanbul, arriving a couple hours after I touched down, so I took a taxi into town, checked into the hotel and started exploring. The old city of Van was actually razed by the Ottomans during the First World War. They had been fighting with the Russians over it's possession, and the city actually passed between them a couple of times during the early 20th century. The old city had been located at the foot of Van Castle, right on the lake. The new city was built a few miles inland. Architecturally, it's not at all interesting, mostly four or five story square buildings. But the streets are mostly laid out in a comprehensible fashion and are broad enough to accommodate traffic. There is also an energy and openness around the city, something you can really feel.

We called the guide after getting settled into the hotel. He and his partner came to the hotel to discuss what we'd be doing for the next couple of days. The one thing I wanted to do that afternoon was to visit a weaving cooperative I'd read about. It is a charitable trust set up to aid poor village women by paying them a fair wage for their work, and the profits go to a community health care project. I had been wanting to by a Turkish rug but had no idea how to do it without having to deal with the rapacious rug merchants. This seemed like the perfect solution.

The two guides decided they would accompany us since they hadn't heard about the place and wanted to check it out. It turned out to be difficult to find and when we got there it was closed. Someone went and got the key to let us in, but it appears that the coop might be closed for a couple of months. There was one spacious, well-lit room with probably a dozen looms set up. Most were empty but some had works "in progress."

A rug on a standard loom. Note the CD player on the left.

The loom is strung and ready to go. All the yarn is colored with natural dyes.

Having had no luck at this cooperative, our guides took us to another rug place that has EU support for teaching young village girls both rug making and life skills such as basic hygiene, child care, etc. They had room after room of rugs, both the woven kilims and the knotted rugs.

This is just one room. They had just about anything you could possible want in any shape and size.

Above is one of the students at the school. Notice that she has a knife in her left hand. After tying a knot, she expertly swings that knife out and cuts the threads so quickly you hardly realize she's done it.


And I did get to see Van cats. They are special for several reasons. First, they like the water. Also many, but not all, of them have one blue eye and one black eye. And because it gets cold in Van in the winter, they grow a large ruff around their necks. There is actually a Van cat institute at the university there. That's where most people go to see them. However, I got to see my cats at the rug place, so we didn't need to make that stop.


That night we had dinner in our hotel, Otel Tamara, in case you hadn't guessed. It's a famous Ocak (pronounced Ojak) restaurant. An Ocak is simple a grill in the middle of the table. It looked to us like the fuel for the grill was hazel nut shells. You pick out your meet from a cooler. We selected lamb shish kebabs, little lamb steaks and chicken shish kebabs. They also bring sliced tomatoes, onions, stuffed mushrooms, and green peppers (the hot kind) to grill along with the meat. Of course there is bread, meet and salad. We actually spent two lazy hours at the table. There was traditional music playing on a bandstand and we just went very slowly. Great way to end the day.