Today is the day that Larry is getting his shave.  Meli found a barbershop that gives a typical Turkish shave.  (Meli told us his barber has been doing this for 3 days….oops! 3 years).  Larry had 2 shaves.  The first was a close shave, the second was the “even a fly would slide off your face” shave.  Next came the burning of the ear hairs.  Larry was “flambed”.  Heinz quote: “hair today….gone tomorrow”.  Meli treated us to a delicious spicy phyllo pastry called “borek”:  There are hundreds of types of borek.  This was “breakfast borek”.  Next stop was the Van Uratu museum.  The many tombstones outside showed the history starting with the Asyrians who invented cuniform writing.  The Uratu’s were master metalworkers. We saw fine examples of gold and copper metalwork along with 3,000 year old jewelry.  The beadwork is representative of the landscape of the Uraturians.  There was a display of gravestones found in Hakkari, the only example of shaministic gravestones found in Turkey.  Upstairs in the ethnographic museum were the remains of Turks massacred in the Turk-Armenian conflict of 1915 (at the end of the Ottoman empire).  Nancie even found an exact example of the ibrikleri (coffee pot) that she purchased in Erzurum. 
Next stop was the Van Kilim Center.  We were greeted by a drummer, horn  (zurna) player and 6 dancers from the Van Cultural Center. Inside the courtyard were the kilim weavers, but first a performance under the tent by the dancers and musicians.  We had tea and cold drinks and were invited to join in for the dance, “the three-legged dance”.   Unfortunately, most of us could not keep up.  Larry was invited to play the drum  and some of the dancers showed us how the scarf is wrapped so that we looked “authentic”.
Inside the rug showroom, we were given lunch.  We had LAMARCHUN with various toppings…a kind of pita “pizza” although Meli told us not to call it pizza.  It was very delicious.  Meli gave a talk on carpet weaving and also gave a demonstration on the items a young woman would weave for her marriage. Then a gentleman from the carpet center told us about carpets and kilims.  He showed us many examples.  It was a bit overwhelming.   Purchases in hand, we boarded our bus for a boat ride to the island of Akdamar.  Here we climbed to the Armenian cathedral built in 915 AD.  The beautiful reliefs which covered the outside have never been restored, but are remarkably intact.  Jonah and the Whale is depicted with the whale looking much like a pig. (The Armenians had never seen a whale). The acoustics in the cathedral are incredible, so Heinz sang a beautiful rendition of “Eidelweis” which brought a few of us to tears.  We sat under a lovely tree overlooking Lake Van and some of the group decided to take a swim.  The water is highly alkaline which enables one to float very easily.  We took the long way around the island on the boat back to see the cliffs with the seagull nests.  The captain hit his horn and the birds were soaring above us.  It was beautiful.   Heading back to Van, we searched for the secret “Russian Market” with no success.  Oh well, I think we’ve had enough shopping for one day.

Having tea at Akdamar Island in Lake Van

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