Balkan Travellers, Bulgaria
Feb. 26, 2008

Armenian History Floats on the Waters of Lake Van in Turkey

Text by Albena Shkodrova | Photographs by Anthony Georgieff

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We sit in the restaurant across the road from the dock, waiting for
the boat to pick up enough passengers. We help ourselves to some tea,
>From cups that are unusually dirty for Turkey. It is as if they have
been washed in the lake. Actually, no; it is as if they have been
washed in a different lake, because the high sodium carbonate content
in the waters of Lake Van are said to clean everything like washing
powder.

We move our chairs so that we can watch the pier and forget about the
minor annoyance. The 3,750 square kilometres of water in Turkey’s
largest lake may not remove stains from cups, but they definitely do
cleanse the mind.

>From this part of the shore we can see the dramatic peaks in the
distance. Just before the place where the lake lets out into a kind
of open sea, Akdamar Island looms on the horizon.

>From the shore, about 800 metres away, the view is somehow
reminiscent of the dawn of creation. The tall, reddish silhouette of
the single surviving church looks like the eye to which the entire
mighty universe surrounding it owes its existence. It is a carefully
painted detail, a focal point where the broad swathes of water and
mountains converge.

For the Armenians of the ninth and tenth centuries things looked like
this: in the area around the lake their country was enjoying its most
successful period. When the Seljuk Turks attacked in 1064, Akdamar
was the Armenian rulers’ last stronghold. Now, Akdamar is for them
what Kosovo Polje is to the Serbs and Lake Ladoga to the Finns; it is
a symbol of former grandeur, as well as lost territory.

A group of young Kurds save us from the long wait. They are students
>From the local university, who have come in hopes of catching some
rays on the island. They snack on sandwiches as the boat approaches,
and we, the four tourists on board, watch as the small red detail
grows. This is the stone Church of the Holy Cross.

It is the only remnant of the large-scale construction undertaken on
the island by Gagik I of the Vaspurakan dynasty, from 915 to 921AD.
According to Thomas of Ardsruni, a tenth-century chronicler, it was
the Armenian king himself who planned the orchards and terraced parks
within the fortifications. He erected a palace that rose like a hill
in the centre of the island, and gilded its cupolas so that their
glow would dazzle passers-by.

Historical records attest to the extreme lavishness of the Armenian
sovereign’s castle: the frescoes on the walls of the audience hall
depicted the monarch on a gilded throne surrounded by the elite of
the palace, amongst feasting courtiers, musicians, dancing girls,
sword-bearing soldiers, wrestlers, lions, wild beasts, and various
colourful birds.

That Gagik was not too sparing in his expenditures from the royal
coffers is also obvious from the fact that the entire construction
was completed within just five years. To this end, the best builders
and craftsmen were summoned to the island, with the king himself
supervising their work, in his spare time when he was free of regal
duties.

Today, there is nothing left of the palace and its former grandeur,
and the only surviving church is not in a particularly good
condition. Despite being considered one of the most exquisite
monuments of early Armenian architecture, it can fall apart at any
time.

Once we disembark on the pier we are welcomed by a notice that takes
us quite a while to read, as we attempt to decipher its rather unique
English. It tells us that the "reliesf [sic] that are connected with
christian’s religion on the lover part of church wals and the reliefs
that are connected with islam’s religion on the upper, part of it’s
wals have been existed lagether with on walls are succesfull and
interesting sampleform islam and christian pictures programs."

We start moving towards the ruins, hoping that they will turn out to
be more comprehensible than the notice. We stand in front of the
church, which is incredibly tall for its small size. Its cross-shaped
floor-plan is only 12 by 15 metres, while the central dome rises to
about 20 metres. This was typical of Armenian as well as Georgian
churches, which usually jutted so dangerously high that the
architects had to leave them nearly windowless, in order to keep them
>From falling down. For this reason, semidarkness prevails in most of
them.

The Church of the Holy Cross is no exception. It has an eerie
feeling, not only because of the dim light but also because of the
frescoes, which appear as if drawn in charcoal and tinted with indigo
blue. We are shocked by the floor, which is covered with straw and
shows the unmistakable signs of the structure?s having been used as a
stable.

It would be wrong to assume that this is evidence of some form of
religious or ethnic disregard for historical relics. We find this out
further inside the church, where we notice the remains of an
extension built long ago in order to adapt it to serve as a mosque.

Back outside, we begin to circle around the church. Its walls turn
out to be adorned with uncommon, strikingly expressive reliefs. Some
of them are so bold that they almost erupt into sculpture.

The Old Testament scenes depicted on the lower part of the façade are
larger, and often defaced. Adam and Eve’s faces have suffered the
worst damage; they are literally scraped off. The depictions of
Delilah cutting off Samson’s hair, David and Goliath, and Abraham and
Isaac are in better condition.

According to one story, the builders of the Church of the Holy Cross
were influenced by a cult to the sun, borrowed from the Zoroastrians
in Persia. Some researchers have come to this conclusion because of
the dramatic way in which the sun’s movement changes the reliefs,
turning them into three-dimensional, almost live figures at one
moment and into ghostly shadows at another.

Zoroastrian or not, the authors of these scenes cannot have studied
their natural sciences books very carefully, because on one of the
walls Jonah is depicted in the gaping maw of a monster with ears and
sharp teeth, which bears very little resemblance to a whale.

According to historian Samuel of Ani, 11 centuries ago the Armenian
kingdom surrounding Lake Van comprised eight cities, 72 strongholds,
and over 4,000 villages, where nearly a million people lived. There
are scarce remnants of this civilisation, but amongst them the Church
of the Holy Cross on Akdamar Island is one of the most prominent.

The fabulous blend of architecture and sculpture in this unusually
severe but still enchanting scenery remind us of the eternal struggle
of the human spirit to find its reflection in the elements while at
the same time giving them new life in its own image; to define God
and at the same time see itself mirrored in him.

It is the wind that reminds us of the existence of God now, as it
carries the fragmentary notes of the local imam’s noon prayer. His
voice drifts in with the waves but makes no particular impression on
the Kurdish students, who have finished their sandwiches and are
splashing in the water.

>From the walls of the Church of the Holy Cross, the saints with
gouged-out eyes stare at us in silence: Gregory the Illuminator, St.
John the Baptist, the prophet Elijah, the King of Nineveh.

Akdamar is one of the few places in the world where history lives
alongside the present, just like the spiritual easily coexists with
the material. And you realise that the best way to make the step
between the two is to sip another Turkish tea, from a cup washed in
the waters of Lake Van.

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Read more about Armenian historical heritage in Eastern Turkey in
BalkanTravellers.com: Ani Fades Away in the No Man’s Land between
Turkey and Armenia