The cats are notable for their lean, long-legged appearance. They are all-white, sometimes mostly white with amber markings around the tail and ears. Locals to the Van area identify only the all-white type as the Van cat, according to a 1991 BBC documentary, Cats, written and presented by Roger Tabor.
Their most notable genetic characteristic is their almond-shaped eyes that often are mismatched colours. The most valued and valuable members of the type generally have one amber-green eye and one blue eye.
Behaviour
Van cats are known for swimming in Lake Van. This may be the source of the popular but possibly false or exaggerated belief that the formal Turkish Van breed is innately more fond of water than the average cat. Lushington wrote: "Apart from their great capacity for affection and alert intelligence, their outstanding characteristic is their liking for water, not normally regarded as a feline attribute. They not only dabble in water and play with it, but have been known to enter ponds and even horse-troughs for a swim – they soon became famous as the 'swimming cats.' It is unclear if Lushington means the cats of the Lake Van area, or her own Turkish Van standardised breed. Tabor's BBC documentary states: "The reason for fame is that the Van cat is known as 'the swimming cat'.... Here at Lake Van ... these cats do enter it, and swim.
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The Van cat is a landrace (naturally occurring variety), not a formal breed of cat. They can still be found in east Turkey, near Lake Van, although their numbers have diminished (a 1992 survey found only 92 pure Van cats in their native area).
There is a breeding programme for the all-white variety, the Van Cat Research Centre (a.k.a. the Van Cat House),[clarification needed] established in 1993 at the campus of Yüzüncü Yıl University. As of 2006, the center housed about 100 young adults and kittens, and is open to the public for a nominal entrance fee. However, reports have suggested that the living conditions for the cats held there is not optimal, and the programme seems to be ineffective in reversing the Van cats' declining numbers.
Ottoman and modern Turkish
Cat breeder Laura Lushington (co-found of the "Turkish Van" formal breed, from cats procured from various parts of Turkey), wrote of the local Van cats, "they are much loved and prized by the Turks for their exceptional character and unique colouring.
Turkish folklore has it that the Van cat was aboard Noah's Ark, and that as the flood waters receded, Allah (God) blessed the cat with a ruddy patch of fur on its head when it left the ark, after which it made its way to the city of Van via Mount Ararat. Many Van cats are all-white, however.
At the end of the 19th century, Sultan Abdul Hamid II is said to have owned a Van cat, and having one is still seen as a status symbol: a Prime Minister of Turkey received one as a gift, and an ambassador from Greece put himself on a waiting list to get one. Kittens from the breeding programme could be purchased for the equivalent of US$282 in 2011,[full citation needed] and currently the Turkish Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock does not regulate the export of these or any other cats from Turkey. The 1991 BBC documentary indicated that the all-white cats are locally prized in Van, and even coveted by visitors. While most Van cats are feral street cats, tourists have been known to steal pet Van cats from residents, including a shopkeeper interviewed for the show.
During the late 1990s, the Van cat emerged as an informal municipal symbol of the city of Van – an enormous statue of a Van cat and her kitten now stands at the entrance to the city. The cat appears in a locally published comic strip, and in the logos of bus companies, shopping centres, and various other Van businesses.[citation needed]
The mascot of the 2010 FIBA World Championship of basketball, hosted by Turkey, was an anthropomorphised Van cat named Bascat. He had a white coat and odd eyes, one blue and one green, and his head was shaped with design cues from the crescent moon on the Turkish flag.
