Horhor Camii is a ruin rather than a working mosque: of the building only the southern and eastern walls have survived. It stands near the Horhor gardens of old Van.
Its date is not known. The provincial directorate states plainly why — the mosque has neither a foundation inscription nor a deed of endowment — and dates it to the eighteenth century on the evidence of its architecture alone. The plan was a rectangle wider than it was deep.
What is worth seeing is the stone mihrab set into the middle of the qibla wall. It projects from the wall as a five-sided niche, rectangular in appearance, closed above by a fluted scalloped half-hood and crowned with a muqarnas finial. Painted decoration in root dyes survives on it.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Van as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from -3 °C in January to 22.4 °C in July; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in April (55 mm) and lightest in August (6 mm). Long-term means for 1939-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
