Update coming soon!

Tomorrow I wıll head to Cappadocia with my group! I wıll post more afterwards.

The header picture on my blog ıs from last summer when I went to Cappadocia. I am pretty excited to be going again - ıt ıs a really beautiful and strange landscape. In addıtıon, this tıme I am staying overnight which means I get to sleep ın a cave!

We're also preparing for Thanksgiving here ın Turkey. I know there are turkeys available, but I am not sure ıf I wıll be eating any. I'll have to figure that out later!

Life as been pretty boring here with little happening ın between our bıg trips. I wıll be posting more (about the electıon results, article 301, and more famous Turks) shortly.

Van!

So, as I said...after Kars and Ani, we went to Van.

Now, you might have heard about Van on the news last Friday because there were some riots and protests there. While such events are not really common there, it was expected because the Turkish prime minister visited the city. The Van region has a lot of Kurdish people living there and the prime minister is not very popular with SOME of the people in the region. But, my group was not in the city that day so I cannot tell you anything more than that.

Van was the center of the Urartu kingdom and so there are many ruins all around the region. We visited two major sites - the Van Castle located near the modern day city and one farther away (and closer to Iran!) named Çavustepe.

This is Van Castle - you can see in the background modern Van.

Urartu is another name for Ararat - the kingdom was a union of several different small regions reaching across eastern Turkey and into Armenia. The people of Uratu mostly wrote in cuneiform and I was able to see some of their writing! But, even though they used cuneiform, their language was really different from most of those spoken in the region. Linguistics is a little confusing for me, but Urartian is not related to Indo-European languages (that means not close to English!).

Cuneiform writing from Çavustepe.

I was really surprised by the beauty of the region. I thought everything was going to be a desert, but there were streams and rivers everywhere and it is common to see water bubbling out of the ground.

Van Lake is huge and amazing. We were able to take a ferry to Akdamar Island on the lake and the water is an amazing color. It changes throughout the day and can be an amazing crystal blue or a sparkling green. Also, even though it is located in the mountains, it never freezes because it is a soda lake. If you go swimming, you have to take a bath or shower soon after so your skin doesn't burn!

This is Van Lake with Akdamar Island in the background.

On the island is a church, graveyard, and there used to be a palace and monastery. The church was the private chapel of an Armenian king and was recently restored by the Turkish government. It is covered in amazing details and carvings that represent stories from the Bible as well as local Armenian saints.

This shows the story of Jonah and the whale. Because Van is located in the mountains they didn't know what a whale looked like so they made a monster with a lion's head!

A lot of ruins in the region are controversial because they are links to Armenia. There are problems because the Turkish government tends to downplay Armenian influences in the region and attempts to minimize parts of history. But, that's another story...

Ani, Doğubeyazıt, and Mt. Ararat

Kars is on the Armenian border with Turkey and Ani is just a little drive from there. Then, turning south, you will find Mt. Ararat and Doğubeyazıt palace. Van is a little farther south closer to the Iranian border. Here's a map:

On this map Kars is the most eastern and northern dot. If you follow the edge of the eastern border you come to Mt. Ararat and Doğubeyazıt palace. Then the lıttle southern-most dot on the border is Van.

If you go to the site below you can click on each city to learn a little more.

http://www.turkeytravelplanner.com/Maps/TouristicMap.html


My group did not actually visit Kars much- just enough to buy some of the famous cheese and honey! Our real goal in going there was to visit Ani, which is an old Armenian city. It was a trade city located on the Silk Road. When the trade routes shifted south, the city's wealth began to decline. Today, it is possible to see some of the churches and some of the house foundations.

The city spans a large area and was enclosed by a huge double castle wall.


Now, the city is located on the Armenian-Turkish border. A river runs next to the ruins and on the other side is Armenia! Both countries have military outposts on the border and people are not allowed to travel through the border. Some people would like to open the border so Armenians can visit the city that was important in their history.

After visiting Ani, my group drove through eastern Turkey to Van. We stopped at Mt. Ararat and Doğubeyazit. There is a story that - if you look carefully - you can see the shape of Noah's Ark under all the snow on the mountain...but I couldn't see it!


Doğubeyazıt was a city controlled by many different peoples. It takes its name from a Turkish lord who built the present castle and ruled there. We had to drive through winding roads and up to a very small mountain top to see the castle. Right now there are intensive restorations going on so we were only allowed in the first courtyard - but even that was pretty big!
After we stopped to see the palace we drove all the way to Van. It was a long trip, but Van was beautiful!

...and you'll hear all about it in my next post!