The Turkish Vankedisi Cat

Article written by Jaqueline and Ibrahim Yildirim

Cattery van Yakamoz – the Netherlands

Kardan Adam van Yakamoz TUVxw ( Father of my cat, Tansdale Beyaz Yildiz (Beyaz)(xw61, vankedisi)

The Turkish Van (in Turkish: Van Kedi) is an ancient breed from the Middle East, kept as domestic pets for hundreds of years. They originated in the Lake Van region of Turkey. Lake Van is the biggest lake in Turkey and has several islands, the largest of which called Ahtamar has the remains of the early Christian Church of the Holy Cross built in 910. In 1955 two ladies, Miss Laura Lushington, a journalist, and Miss Sonia Halliday, a photographer, were travelling around Turkey working for the Turkish Tourist Board. One day they noticed that the cats particularly around the area of Van in Eastern Turkey bore a remarkable resemblence to the traditional Angora type, because of their long coats. The cats had auburn head markings and a ringed auburn tail. They were offered two unrelated kittens by their Turkish hosts, a female from south-eastern Turkey and a male from Istanbul, which they brought home to the UK. Both kittens were white with Auburn head markings and coloured tail, and amber eyes. The kittens went through quarantine in England and later the female produced three kittens with near identical head and tail markings. Laura started a breeding program and in 1969 these cats were officially recognised as Turkish Van Cats. However, in Turkey, the Van cat (Van kedisi) was and still is considered to be an all white cat with odd, amber, green or blue eyes . They are protected in Turkey and you cannot take them out of the country.

The first van patterned cats in Britain were auburn and white with amber eyes, and this became the standard for many years, until the introduction of the dilute form (cream and white) and the different eye colours (blue eyed, and odd eyed). More recently other colour variants of van cats have been accepted at championship level since June 2000,  these variants including black, tortie, tortie tabby, and their dilute equivalents. 

Tansdale Beyaz Yildiz (Beyaz)(xw61, vankedisi)

As stated earlier in this article, in Turkey, the Van Cat was and still is considered to be an all white cat. The breed is locally known as the Van Kedi or Van Kedisi. They were and still are considered very special and valuable and it is actually forbidden to take them out of the country, although some people manage to smuggle them out. Turkish Van Kedisi cats are nowadays still bred in the Ankara ZOO and the Izmir ZOO and are also sold in petshops all over Turkey. In the city of Van you can find ‘the Van Kedi Evi' (translation: house of the Turkish Van cat) and also a statue of these pure white cats. You can also find them pictured on telephone cards, stamps, etcetera.

 

As Laura Lushington started a breeding program with the auburn/white cats and because of the fact that years later they were officially recognised as Turkish Van cats, we now actually have two different varieties within the Turkish Van breed:

•  A semi-longhaired cat with a chalk white coat and coloured markings on head and tail.

•  A semi-longhaired pure white cat without coloured markings on head and tail.

Both varieties are from the rugged region of the Middle East centred on Lake Van where the climate varies to extremes. Both varieties are muscular; the strength and power is evident in substantial body and legs. Both varieties conform to the same general type standard of the Turkish Van. There is absolutely no difference between these two varieties; they are indistinguishable as far as type is concerned. The only difference being the coloured markings on the Turkish Van cat, the Turkish Vankedisi being white all over.

 

For shooting a video called ‘The Rise of the Cat', mister Roger Tabor went to Turkey to film the Turkish Van breed in it's natural environment. He noticed that the Turkish people only consider the pure white cats to be real Turkish Vans (Van Kedisi), without any coloured markings on head or tail. Van-patterned cats were present, but they were called ‘sokak kedileri' (moggies). Lois Miles, a breeder in the UK, already new about this and, with help of her friends and the Turkish government, she brought a pure white Van Kedisi (named Garip) to the UK in 1992. She was called ‘Addinsh Layla' and produced several beautiful auburn/white AND pure white kittens. However, inspite of her and other breeders' efforts, unfortunatelly for years the GCCF kept refusing to recognise this pure white cat.

 

Unfortunatelly most breeders lost interest because of the constant refusal of the GCCF and stopped breeding the pure white Van Kedisi. In 2000 there were only about 2 or 3 entire Turkish Van Kedisi's from Addinsh Layla's bloodline left in the UK (one staying with mrs Suzann Lloyd of cattery Tansdale, one with Marianne Upham cattery Yenicizgi). At that time, my (Turkish) husband was (and still is) kind of obsessed by the pure white Turkish Van Kedisi cats and in 2001 we brought two white cats from Turkey to the Netherlands: Yakamoz Yazgulu (female) and Yakamoz Sultan Ahmet (male). We were planning to mate them to Turkish Van cats with coloured headmarkings, to keep the risk for deafness to an absolute minimum.

Yakamoz Sultan Ahmet

Yakamoz Sultan Ahmet was already a young adult when he came to the Netherlands and unfortunately he was neutered after only 2 matings. He produced five kittens. Only one female kitten from his bloodline is still entire and was used for breeding: Ceyhan's Sevgi, a pure white odd-eyed cat. She recently gave birth to three kittens, of which we kept a white blue-eyed female called Zara Sultaniye van Yakamoz, named after her grandfather. Yakamoz Yazgulu, the female cat (from a totally different bloodline) we brought from Turkey, is still entire. In 2003, she gave birth to three kittens; a white boy from this litter called Kardan Adam from Yakamoz, went to Suzann Lloyd (cattery Tansdale, UK) as a stud. Before Kardan Adam van Yakamoz went to the UK at the age of 11 months (PETS) he was mated to an auburn/white Turkish Van female of ours called Bonita van Yakamoz and a pure white blue-eyed male Turkish Vankedi kitten out of this litter called Kar Aslani van Yakamoz went to Amerika (Sharon and Melvin Walcott, cattery Aledo).

Zara Sultaniye van Yakamoz TUVxw

In the Netherlands, until now (June 2005) we still have not been able to convince the FNK (Dutch gouverning council of Catfancy) to recognise the pure white Turkish Vankedisi. Suzann Lloyd and Marianne Upham in the UK really made a big effort to get the Turkish Van Kedisi finally recognised by the GCCF in the UK. A seminar was held and official judges were invited. Finally, on 23 February 2005, they were pleased to announce that the Turkish Vankedisi had been granted preliminary status with the GCCF which meant that they could be registered and shown. I attached the GCCF general standard of points and the registration policy for Turkish vankedisi cats to this article.

 

In our struggle to get the pure white Turkish Vankedisi recognised we have heard many reasons why we should not breed them and why they should not be recognised. Some breeders were convinced of the fact that we would make the markings of the Turkish Van cats slowly disappear. When you study genetics, it is easy to understand that this is absolute nonsense: the pure white coat of the Turkish Vankedisi is caused by the gene W (dominant white). The white coat from the Turkish Van (with headmarkings) is caused by the gene S (Piebold of Whitespotting).

Another reason not to breed the pure white Turkish Vankedisi is the risk of deafness. I must admit there is a certain risk, but you can minimize this by mating pure white cats to cats with coloured headmarkings, so you will not breed kittens which are homozygoot for W. We also use an official BAER-test to exclude deaf kittens or kittens with only 50% hearing from breeding.

 

We think the pure white Turkish Vankedisi deserves its place in Catfancy. It's a long way before they will be recognised and accepted, but we believe it's all worth it.

 

Jaqueline and Ibrahim Yildirim

Cattery van Yakamoz – the Netherlands