the van cat

Before we leave Van for vast lava fields and the Iranian border, there's something peculiar about Van that's worth mentioning. For all you cat lovers out there, the region has its own unique breed known simply as the "Van cat". I don't know much about cats nor do I really want to, so I admit that I have not researched this feline or its history. What I do know about the Van cat is that it is always a short-haired white cat, with one blue eye and one green eye.

Van cat:



Not a Van cat:



Perhaps the reason why this fellow was wandering the streets and not in a cage by the castle for tourists to tease and photograph. Ok, curiosity got the better of me. I just read that Van kittens can go for near $300 each, especially if they are pure white (apparently some can have a reddish mark on their heads and hind legs), and that the cat is claimed as a national symbol by Armenians, Kurds, and Turks.



It was even featured on a series of Turkish postal stamps in 1997.

the contours of a scar

Atop a hill overlooking the lake, the ruins of Van Castle, an ancient Urartian fortress, crumbles into the grasses below. The castle dates back to the 9th–7th centuries BCE, and sections of its walls are inscribed with declarations from the Persian king Xerxes the Great. Having only heard of the Urartians when we visited the Museum of Anatolian Civilisations in Ankara, I read up on them out of curiosity, and discovered that some of the descendants of the Urartians are the Armenians.



Van had at one time, a very large Armenian population. The only traces left behind from the once thriving community are the scars of walls, buildings and roads etched into the earth— their contours clearly visible from the top of the castle rock.



Van was rebuilt about four kilometres away from the castle, where it still stands today. It's hard to imagine, when looking out into the violet-blue of the lake, that this peaceful place was a scene of such unimaginable horror— but then again, isn't that how it always is? The rain washes, grasses cover, and the wind whittles away, but some scars never fade.



Some wounds cannot heal.

entering van

We entered Van just after the sun went down, and drove by an armoured car and a couple of TOMA vehicles, sending chills down my spine. TOMAs are the tank-like trucks that terrorised Gezi protesters with chemically treated water last year— and have been involved in nearly every protest since. The Eastern part of Turkey is predominantly Kurdish, as is Van, and I couldn't help but wonder if the ridiculous amount of armoured vehicles that we kept on seeing had anything to do with that. There's a lot that isn't spoken about in Turkey; certain topics that are impossible to get a clear view on, probably due in part to the fact that you can be imprisoned or physically harmed for saying something that someone considers "anti-Turkish."

I realise that I am a foreigner and will always be a foreigner with an outsider's perspective, and I struggle with the idea that I am not able to express myself freely on some issues. There are people I have met who vehemently deny that Kurdish people in Turkey are treated any differently than Turks— and yet, those same people will openly express their distrust of "people from the East."



I am torn over what to say about certain observations I have made over the course of this adventure. I will say that Van felt depressed, and traces of the massive earthquake in 2011 were still evident.



On a far lighter note, Van has some of the most marvellous roundabout sculptures.