Lake Van — the Lake Van Monster

OVERVIEW

The Lake Van Monster is a creature of Armenian and Turkish folklore said to live in Lake Van in eastern Turkey. The Armenian chroniclers wrote of vishaps, water dragons, in the lake, which the god Vahagn would drag out before they grew large enough to devour the world.

HISTORY

On 29 April 1889 the Ottoman newspaper Saadet claimed a creature had dragged a man into the lake; the government sent a scientific survey that found nothing. Sightings returned in the 1990s. In 1997 Ünal Kozak said he had filmed the monster; the academic Mustafa Y. Nutku wrote a book on it with him. A four-metre statue now stands in Van.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

DISPUTED. Critics ask whether the video was framed to hide a boat, why the animal's path never curves, and why its 'breathing' is a steady stream like an air hose. Skeptics note the tourist trade; the scholar James Russell says Kurds he met in Van in 1994 and 1997 called it 'a commercial ploy and a farce', and doubts any link to the old Armenian vishaps.

VISITING

A public lake; the statue stands in the city of Van.