VAN, Turkey - Turkey's eastern border province of Van is a hotbed of Iranian travelers, dissidents, and government officials.
NPR has reporters been reporting from Turkey's Van province on the war in Iran. Van butts right up against the snow-covered mountains that separate it from Iran.
During times of peace, however, Van area is well-known among tourists for something else entirely: its cats.
They are striking, white cats famous for a rare trait, in which their eyes are sometimes one green, one blue.
The Turkish government started protecting these cats about thirty years ago. The population of Van cats had dropped to as low as 120 cats, and they are susceptible to various diseases, experience on average a higher rate of deafness. But Turkey now breeds the felines.
About fifty of these Van cats are cared for, here, at what's called the Van Cat Villa, in town. The cats have become a local attraction. Marve Inoglu has come to see them, while visiting from Istanbul.
She says the Van cat likes to live in large groups together. "They are not meant to be pets," she says – though Van cats have been increasingly adopted as part of the Turkish government's breeding efforts.
The cats' carer, Baran Talib Urgan, says unlike most other cats, "the Van cat loves water."
The cats been known to swim in Lake Van. Some Kurdish legends here in Van say the cats are divinely blessed. Other folk tales trace them back to Noah's ark.
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