Tatvan

History

The citadel of Eski Tatvan possibly dates back to the Urartian period. It was used at least until the 17th century. Sayf al-Dawla, the Arab Hamdanid emir of Aleppo, visited Tatvan in 939/40. The town was historically an important place on the route from Van to Bitlis. By the 20th century, though, Tatvan had dwindled to a mere village, little more than "a cluster of houses by a jetty". It only developed back into a town when transport links improved around mid-century, with the construction of the railway in the 1950s and the improvement of the road to Van in 1964. In the 1980s, T.A. Sinclair wrote that the Denizcilik Bankası (Shipping Company) ran a good hotel on the south side of town, which was often full. The other hotels at the time, he wrote, were in the town centre and were not good.