Ishak Pasha Palace

Ishak Pasha Palace was completed in 1785 by a local Kurdish dynasty who controlled the caravan route between Anatolia and Persia, and it was built to impress travellers arriving from either direction. It stands alone on a rocky shelf with the plain of Doğubayazıt below and Ararat filling the horizon.

The architecture is a deliberate blend — Ottoman plan, Persian and Armenian ornament, Seljuk stonework — most visible in the carved main portal and in the ribbed dome of the tomb chamber.

It was among the first buildings in the region with central heating: a system of clay pipes carried warm air beneath the floors, which mattered at two thousand metres on the Anatolian plateau. The palace also had running water and its own bathhouse.