The Armenians had a soft spot for isolated places and they built something on almost every island in the lake. For instance, if you have a good pair of binoculars, you might be able to spot a church under the weeds on Çarpanak Adası when in Ayanis. The difference with Akhdamar (map 6) is that its church, after a period of neglect, has been restored. Not as a church though, but as a secular museum, a move which has not been popular with all Armenians. The process, financed by the Turkish state, has been seen by some as a way of boosting tourism while at the same time appropriating the monument. There is no cross on the church, but a huge Turkish flag flutters in the wind nearby. The name itself is evolving, from Akhtamar or Aghtamar (the original Armenian name, harking back to a mythical princess Tamar), into a Turkish-sounding Akhdamar, meaning ‘white vein’. This is a place of worship and permission to the Armenians to hold a service here at least once a year has been granted.

The island lies some 4km from the shore, west of Gevaş. A small flotilla of boats waits for customers on the shore. When one is deemed full, it will leave, which means that the wait can be unpredictable, but there are refreshments available. Returning is easier. No one is allowed on the island at night (24-hour CCTV is coming, and anyway, only a small part of the island can be visited, the rest is fenced off), so there is a general rush to get visitors away at closing time, around 6pm. Rabbits are the only form of life left on the island then.

Monks first came here in the 6th century. The nearby island of Kuş Adası, c. 4km to the northwest, also had a monastery. In the period 915–922, Gagik Artsuni I, King of Vaspukaran, built his principal residence here, with strong defences and a causeway to the lakeshore—which can no longer be traced because of the rise in water level. Nothing is left of his palace and not much of the monastery, which was the seat of the Patriarch of Armenia from 928 until 1895, when it moved to Istanbul. By that time anyway the katholikos was living on the mainland, where Lynch met him, though his grave was ready for him on the island. The Church of the Holy Cross is the only building left. The manuscripts for which the monastery was famous have been dispersed. It is said that the Kurds much appreciated their leather, which they used as soles for their boots.

The church is built in finely-jointed blocks of pink sandstone with rubble filling and is quite small (c.15m by 11m). The original plan was a square with four apses and four turrets in the corners, very much in the Armenian tradition. The central space is covered by a pyramidal roof resting on a polygonal drum; the slightly wider eastern apse accommodates two side chambers. The other features are later. The chapel connected to the north arm dates to the 13th–14th centuries; the gavit, or narthex, to the west, with a low ceiling and originally decorated with frescoes, was built in 1763.

The bell-tower which obscures the outside reliefs, was erected in the 19th century. The fresco decoration inside is all but gone. The reliefs on the sandstone exterior have proved more resilient. Some are merely decorative, with friezes of running animals and abstract patterns with a complex mix of realism and hieratic conventions. Others cover biblical themes, with Adam and Eve, the stories of David and Goliath and Jonah and the Whale. Experts also see inspiration coming from the East, and not always related to the traditional themes of the Christian religion.