Wan (Van) sits on the eastern shore of the lake that shares its name, a body of water so large it has its own tides of mood, blue in the morning, silver by afternoon. The lake is soda water: nothing but a single species of fish, the inci kefali, lives in it, and every spring the fish swim up the rivers in a migration that fills the shores with birds.
Three thousand years of cities
Above the modern town is Van Castle, built by the kingdom of Urartu in the 9th century BC, its cuneiform inscriptions still cut into the rock. Below it lies the flattened old city, destroyed in 1915. On the island of Axtamar, a short boat ride from Gevaş, stands the 10th-century Armenian Church of the Holy Cross, covered in carved biblical scenes, one of the most beautiful buildings in Kurdistan and a reminder that this was a shared land.
The cats and the breakfast
Wan is famous for two homelier things. Its white cats, often with one blue and one amber eye, have their own research centre at the university. And the Van breakfast, kahvaltî, is a marathon of herb cheese, murtuğa (fried flour and butter), honey with cream, olives, and endless tea, served in cafés on Breakfast Street that open at dawn.
Kurdish Wan
The city is one of the largest Kurmanji-speaking cities in Bakûr, with a strong tradition of political activism and a Newroz celebration second only to Amed’s. From here it is two hours to the Iranian border, and the dialect, the music and the wedding dances shade gently into those of Rojhilat.