Lake Van Monster

For this week's episode, we're heading over to Türkiye and Armenia for a water monster, the Lake Van Monster! How does this compare to other famous lake cryptids? Why does it relate to the Ottoman Empire? Find out this week!

Transcript

INTRO:
Hello and welcome to Myth Monsters, my name is Erin and I’ll be your host for these little snack bite size podcasts on folklore and mythical monsters from around the world. 

These podcasts focus on the actual cryptids, folklore and mythic monsters from global mythology, rather than focusing on full stories of heroes and their big adventures.

I’ll also be dropping in some references that they have to recent culture and where you can see these represented in modern day content so you can learn more, and get as obsessed as I am about these absolute legends of the mythological world.

I hope you’re ready for the festive season now that it is very nearly upon us, we have one episode to go for the year following this one and it’s our Holiday special, and all will be revealed at the end of this episode. I will also be taking a week break after this to celebrate the new year, so following that, we’ll be back on the 4th January!

DESCRIPTION:

But just because we have a special next week, doesn’t mean that this one isn’t special - because this one is a bit more elusive than other lake monsters we’ve covered and from an area that doesn’t really have many creatures like it - so grab your sunglasses and come with me to Turkiye this week for the Lake Van Monster from Turkish and Armenian folklore.

The Lake Van Monster is a water based cryptid and it’s described as being a sea monster much like the Loch Ness Monster or the Mugwump, with a 50 ft long body and dragon-like features. It’s said that the Lake Van Monster is slightly different to the cryptids we know from other places across the world, and has more of a wyrm or dragon-like look to it, with scales and ridges all over its face and body, wing-like fins and a snake-like body with no arms or legs. It is also reported that it has large sharp teeth and is able to push away any oncoming boats with the length of its tail. 

However, there are some reports that it’s more like a whale, with paddle-like fins and a more positive disposition - but most report that this monster is hostile towards people. This monster has been known to attack people, and in fact, eat them - so certainly isn’t one you would want to mess with. Lastly, the most common and unbacked up thought is that it could be a dinosaur like a plesiosaur, much like Nessie - which have wide bodies, long necks, flippers and no teeth, but it is more commonly described to have these draconic features I mentioned earlier.

This monster is from Lake Van from Eastern Turkiye, or Turkey as it used to be known as. Lake Van is the largest lake in the country, within the Armenian Highlands - which is the bordering country on the east. It’s a salt-water lake, but it's also one of the world’s very few endorheic lakes, meaning that they have no outlet to the sea and it is carbonic - making a monster living in there, all the more interesting. It’s 1,200 sq miles across and 561 feet deep, but due to Turkiye’s climate being so up and down, it can reach temperatures of 22.5C in the summer and -3.5C in the winter, meaning most life is stifled, but there is one known species of fish who lives in it, the Pearl Mullet, otherwise known as the Van Fish - who look like sardines and fly through the air like salmon sometimes.

The geography of this is all very important to this monster, this Lake is massive, in comparison to Loch Ness, where another monster like this lives, it’s triple the size as well as being a little bit deeper, so if you believe in Nessie - there’s a good chance you would believe in this one too. As well as this, it’s a cut off lake - it doesn’t lead back to any sea and is completely landlocked, meaning that however this monster got in here, it will always stay as it just has nowhere to go unless it can venture onto land. 

There have been no reports of the Lake Van Monster ever going onto land, or being spotted wandering across to other bodies of water - which would be Lake Urmia in Iran, which is pretty far away and is also not one that links back to anything, so it would just be moving from one body of water to another. 

We have no information at all on what it eats, but it’s believed that there is only one Lake Van Monster, and that they have no capabilities to reproduce - so it’s just the one monster living there for potentially hundreds of years.

ORIGIN:

For etymology - it’s pretty simple, Lake Van is where it lives, so it’s the Lake Van Monster. However, if you were curious as to what it is in Turkish, it’s Van Golu Canavari, Golu meaning lake and Canavari meaning monster. 

Its history is a bit more interesting than this though, I promise. The first ever written sighting of the monster was back in 1889 when an Ottoman newspaper reported that someone had been dragged into the lake by an unknown creature - following that they did a sweep of the lake with a scientific survey group and found nothing. 

Before I go into this though, I want to set the scene for Turkiye back in the 1880’s because you’ll notice that I used Ottoman there and some of you may be thinking - what the heck is that? So Turkish history is a bit bloody, and I’ll spare you the biggest details, but the Ottoman Empire was one of the longest running empires in the world - and started in Turkiye. This Empire dominated a lot of the middle east, if you look at the geography around Turkiye, this is where the biggest part of their Empire was, and from the 1320’s to 1920’s, they had control over countries like Egypt, Armenia, Iraq, Kuwait, Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Tunisia, Libya and Algeria. 

Because of this, a lot of these countries have Turkish influence from this time, and when I mentioned our monster at the start of this episode, I did say it was also Armenian - but that usually wouldn’t make sense in regards to its location right? I would more likely be Iraqi, but because of the Ottoman Empire, the Armenian Highlands in Turkiye are still considered to be Armenian as well as Turkish - and we have translations for the monster in Armenian, Turkish and Kurdish, which is the language of people from Eastern Turkiye, Iraq, Syria and Iran - again, mainly due to the spread influence during the Ottoman Empire. 

So, long story short - this monster belongs to most of these countries that I listed, rather than just Turkiye, but it’s mostly considered Armenian and Turkish based on its home location - but interesting world history either way.

Based on all of that, we actually believe the history of this monster goes back to well before 1889, as this would make this monster more of a cryptid than a folklore monster. But the Lake Van Monster is believed within Armenian folklore to be a descendant of a mythical beast, the Vishap. This is an Armenian flying water dragon, who used to kidnap children from humans to steal their souls for their own children. It had the power to create huge storms over the water, including earthquakes, eclipses and whirlwinds when it ascended or descended from the sky. It was worshipped in numerous Ottoman countries as a symbol of fertility, wealth and water - but that eventually soured into a symbol of corrupting power. He was eventually slain by Vahagn, an Armenian mythical hero and he was given the title ‘Vishapakagh’ which means dragon-reaper or reaper of Vishaps’.

There is an Armenian church that is on one of the islands within the Lake that has depictions of a sea-monster in the stone on the outside walls, and so it is believed that people knew of the Lake Van Monster since before this was erected in 915 AD, which was long before any Empire or when our history books tell us this was first spotted. 

However, getting to more recent times - in the 1990’s, this monster really took off within the local media due to a sighting in 1995, as well as an infamous recording of the monster in 1997. This video, which you can still watch on YouTube under ‘Turkey - Pictures of a Lake Monster’ - created a massive interest in the monster throughout the world. It was argued that it could be a large bird or even an elephant, but scientists were quick to tell the public that there are no elephants around this area and that and I quote "It is simply not possible for a creature of the size claimed by witnesses to live in a closed lake like Van’. Camera crews from all over did go and check this out though, comparing it to those mythical legends we know of from other countries, and the original source, Unal Kazak, wrote a book about the monster and has been talking to witnesses since he first spotted it.

Most recently in 2017, a group of divers went to try and find the Lake Van Monster, and instead found a 3,000 year old castle at the bottom of the lake. It’s 14 feet high and almost a mile long, and because of the high alkaline content in the lake, it’s perfectly preserved. They believe that this castle dates back to the Kingdom of Van, which was an ancient civilisation that dated back to the 9th century BC. They also found 1,000 year old gravestones and an underwater cave of stalagmites, as well as a Russian ship that sunk in 1948 - however, no monster I’m afraid.

The most common thought is that the Lake Van Monster could be a plesiosaur like Nessie, or even a Mosasaur - which are crocodilian dinosaurs, however, we then have the same debate that Nessie does - how does a dinosaur this large go for so long without being found? A common thought for this monster is that it’s a hoax - Van is a underdeveloped area of Turkiye in comparison to the luxury tourist resorts or medical tourist areas, and it is thought that this monster was created to pull tourists to a lesser known area of the country to increase tourism revenue and improve lives for people living there. 

However, interestingly - the people from the area are generally considered to be quite superstitious and don’t like to talk about their mythical monster history, meaning this is actually one of the few monsters from Turkiye that we will have on the podcast. Whilst we will cover monsters from around the area and within the Ottoman or Persian empire spaces, and this may include Turkiye, to actually cover one from there is pretty rare. 

Lastly, the other thing I want to mention here for this monster is a question I always get as a mythical monster expert - and that is, is it a cryptid or a myth or folklore monster? Well, this one is a bit of everything and that’s pretty rare. It’s a cryptid in the sense that we don’t have a lot to back this up with through history that is solid, and there are current sightings - however, we know that this links back to Armenian folklore and mythology, making it a kind of inbetween monster, and immediately super interesting to me, and hopefully you too.

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE: 

Now onto modern media, it is covered within a few bits of media here and there - however, of course, I’ll top this up with some lake monster bits from other places too. 

For art, have a look at the statue of the Lake Van Monster that sits on Lake Van - it’s a really cute dinosaur statue so please go smile at the picture of it. Otherwise, check out independent art - but I will warn you that there isn’t much of it!

In movies, we have; Naked Lunch, Beneath Loch Ness, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Beyond Loch Ness, The Water Horse, Scooby Doo and the Loch Ness Monster, Loch Ness, The Loch Ness Horror, Magic in the Water, The Librarian, Incident at Loch Ness, Amazon Women on the Moon & Monsters Inc.

For TV, we have; Animal X, The Secret Saturdays, Destination Truth, Paranormal Caught on Camera for the actual Lake Van Monster, but for other similar cryptids take a look at Primeval, Conspiracy: The Missing Evidence, Phineas and Ferb, The Simpsons, Xiaolin Showdown, Count Duckula, South Park, Doug, Gargoyles, The Family Ness, Inspector Gadget, Popeye and Son, Spongebob Squarepants, Aaaah! Real Monsters, Fairly Odd Parents, Doctor Who, Mystery Hunters, X-Files, The Lost Tapes, River Monsters & Bewitched.

In video games, we have ones such as; ARK: Survival, Club Penguin, Shadow of Colossus, World of Warcraft, Zoo Tycoon, Pokemon, Ace Attorney, Psychonauts, Earthbound, Monster Rancher, The Sims, Super Mario Bros, Mass Effect 3, The Darkside Detectives, Loch Ness, Endless Ocean & Subnautica.

My book recommendation this week is unfortunately not the book written by Unal Kazak because I can’t find it, which is a shame! But I would recommend Lake Monster Mysteries: Investigating the World's Most Elusive Creatures by Benjamin Radford or Dr. C. Lillefisk's Sirenology: A Guide to Mermaids and other under-the-sea Phenomenon which comes out in January by Jana Heidersorf and Dr Cecilia Lillefisk for some great underwater monster stories.

DO I THINK THEY EXISTED? 

Now it’s time for, do I think they existed? 

I’m going to say I don’t know for this one - because it’s the same treatment I give other lake monsters like this. We just don’t know, and realistically, we have more space for this monster in comparison to Loch Ness, which most people are also on the fence about - so it makes sense to give this one as much benefit of the doubt.

Also the Lake Van Monster actually has some sort of historical and mythology backup from the Vishaps, and I really like that about this monster too. I won’t be covering them in their own episode, because that’s about all the information I have on them - but I think they are a great monster to look into if you have a chance.

The one thing that does point me towards not believing is that this is a weird body of water, it’s carbonated and super salty, only one type of fish can live in it, it doesn’t go anywhere - so it has nowhere to hide when we go looking for it. It definitely makes it more difficult to believe in, but until they do a full drain of any of these legend-harbouring lakes, I will remain a believer in most of them.

But what do you think? Did the Lake Van Monster swim about in his lake in Turkiye? Let me know on Twitter!

OUTRO: 

What a cool monster, you know me and my lake monsters by this point - and I really do find them so fascinating, and I love all the folklore and hysteria that comes from them, it’s so great to see as a big folklore fan - and nice to cover one from somewhere that isn’t western for a change too!

Next week, it’s our Holiday special! We’re heading over to the perfectly chilly Iceland and Faroe Islands for something a little hidden, but they do come out at this time of year - make sure you pay your respects to the Huldufólk next Thursday! I promise it’s more seasonal than it sounds - but it should be a great one, and if you’ve seen the Eurovision movie - you should already know what I’m talking about.

Following that, I’m on a break for a week to celebrate the new year and the holidays - so we’ll be back on the 4th January after this next one!

For now, thank you so much for listening, it’s been an absolute pleasure. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give it a rating on the service you’re listening on - I’ve got the twitter for any questions, or suggestions on what monsters to cover next and I’d love to hear from you. The social media handles for Tiktok, Youtube, Threads and Instagram are mythmonsterspodcast, and twitter is mythmonsterspod. But all of our content can be found at mythmonsters.co.uk - you can also find us on Goodpods, Buymeacoffee and Patreon if you want to help me fund the podcast too.

Come join the fun though and share this with your pals, they might love me as much as you do.

But for now, stay spooky and I’ll see you later babes.