Akdamar Island
Armenian Church Of The Holy Cross, Built 915 921 For King Gagik I Of Vaspurakan; Restored 2005 2007 And Open As A Museum, On The UNESCO Tentative List · Gevas, Van
On a small island in Lake Van stands a church built between 915 and 921 for an Armenian king, and its outside walls are carved from top to bottom with figures: Adam and Eve, David swinging at Goliath, Jonah going into the whale and coming out again, Daniel among lions, a king holding a model of the church, and a vine frieze full of animals and men running the whole way round. There is nothing else like it in Turkiye and very little like it anywhere. The monastery around it went when the Armenian population did, and the church itself came close to demolition in the 1950s; it was restored between 2005 and 2007 and reopened as a museum, and since 2010 an Armenian liturgy has been permitted once a year. You reach it by boat across a lake so alkaline that almost nothing lives in it, twenty minutes from the pier at Gevas, past almond trees that blossom in spring. Out of season the boat leaves when it is full, not when you arrive.
Akdamar Adasi, Gevas, Van Golu, Gevas, Van, Turkiye
The island and church keep daytime hours with an earlier winter close. Access is by boat from the Gevas pier, about twenty minutes; in high season boats run frequently and out of season they leave when enough passengers have gathered, which can mean a long wait or a charter. Rough weather on Lake Van cancels crossings. An annual liturgy is held, usually in September.