The caravanserai stands beside the village of Harmandöven, south of the centre of Iğdır, at the junction of the roads to the villages now called Güngörmez, Kızılkule, Kervansaray and Asma, and is usually called the Ejder Caravanserai after the man who built it. The provincial special administration describes it as one of the oldest surviving Turkish buildings in the region. It was raised by Şerafettin Ejder, emir of Sürmari, and served the caravans coming in from Batumi, Tbilisi, Baku, Shirvan, Dvin and Ani.
It is rectangular, laid out east to west, and buttressed on the outside by towers that give it the look of a small fortress rather than an inn. The plan has a three-part nave at the front and a covered three-aisled hall behind it, and the carving is unusually rich — which the administration reads as a record of Anatolian Seljuk trade, organisation and craft. The names of its builders are not known, but the masons' monograms on the stones show that sixteen different stonecutters worked on it. It carries no inscription, has no courtyard, and its portal does not project from the front. It was restored in 2008 by the provincial special administration and reopened to visitors.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Iğdır as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from -3.2 °C in January to 26 °C in July; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June and September; rainfall is heaviest in May (48 mm) and lightest in August (9 mm). Long-term means for 1940-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
