Armenia Photo Series

Garni

Amazing Tatev Monastery(Armenia)

Armenia and Photos

Noravank

Noravank

Garni

Sason,,Western Armenia

Road to Khor Virap

 Oh now You are closer to mighty Ararat mountain....Borders were drawn in 1923 between the new Turkish Republic and Soviet Union ..Armenian's beloved mountain remained out of  Armenia.The mountain which is the truly symbol of Armenia.It's hard to imagine symbol out of the border of Armenia .....it's the Mountain to see and think about the centuries that passed.. A few kilometers from Turkish-Armenian border  you notice Khor Virap Monastery.

You look into enormous mountain whose biblical name is derives from the ancient kingdom  of Urartu-an early armenian kingdom....Ararat is powerful.Mighty Ararat is the reason why Khor Virap is the major tourist attraction..Little Ararat left with 3925  metr above even more beautiful ,,,,but without majestic crown of snow on his snow ..Khor Virap is the place that Gregory the Illuminator sat 14 years  in the deep dungeon as now the travelers can climb down..it was the King who imprisoned Gregory for the belief .....But Gregory came out of the dungeon and baptized the King  and Armenia became the world's first Christian  country.

In 642 a chapel was built over the hole....Outside of the Complex is the well-hidden toilet women to the left and men on the right. ..You   see the monks everywhere in Khor Virap....You think yourself what they are thinking looking into mountain which someway seems makes you think wiser ........

Armenia in Photos

Capital Yerevan

In the Soviet years Yerevan underwent massive reconstruction ,following the new plans of architect Alexander Tamanyan to make a perfect city.You will be surprised by how nice Yerevan is feeling the classy European atmosphere here..

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Yerevan has lot of statues and sculptures which makes wandering the streets really interesting.The Arts,music in particular seems quite big here.You can visit the Cascade ,home to a sculpture garden,many restaurants and cafes surrounding the garden a large stairway going up the hill and to the left of the stairway the Cafesjian Centre for the Arts.The most surprising sculpture is the large blue kiwi at the bottom of the stairway.Going up with stairway  you could see across thecity and towering mount Ararat in the background.There are sculptures and statues all the way up.At the top there is a towering monument to soviet victory in WW2… a kind of concrete column with a gold leaf on top.Around you can see Mother Armenia.The 23m tall statue of a female warrior armed with a sword rests on a 50m tall pedestal and overlooks the city. Stalin used to be here too but his statue was removed after his death.

Victory Park was a pretty cool place to hang out. Plenty of locals and tourists are are enjoying the enormous view of Mother Armenia and the city below,teenagers climbing on the military equipment having a photo shoot.Along the city you can see billboards over the roads that cleverly reminded people of the Armenian Genocide,also known as the Armenian Holocaust- hence the comparison in the sign below of the Turkish/ Ottomans of 1915 with Hitler in 1939..It's worth to visit Armenian Genocide Museum and learn.Together with the memorial beside it, the museum is a sober but important place to visit for anyone coming to Yerevan.The Ottoman government systematically exterminated 1.5 million Armenians, most of whom were Ottoman citizens living in what is now Turkey.

 This largely occured during the first world war when eyes were busy looking elsewhere, but was planned years before according to the ‘Young Turks’ policy documents.April 24 is Remembrance Day for the genocide in Armenia, as this date in 1915 marked its official beginning. To not even have it acknowledged by many nations must just rub salt in the wounds. Turkey and Azerbaijan are the only countries who actually deny it, and they threaten economic and diplomatic consequences for those nations who officially recognise it.Beside the genocide museum there is  garden with trees and plaques from groups and nations that do acknowledge what happened.The museum is under ground and above it is a large area featuring two memorials.

This Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex was built to acknowledge the memory of the 1.5 million Armenians who lost their lives during the genocide. It was created during the soviet era, after large demonstrations around the 50th anniversary of the genocide in 1965 called for it to be officially acknowledged. The memorial opened in 1967 but the museum was a later addition, opening in 1995.The memorial consists of a tall slender stele (44m high), symbolising Armenians’ survival and national rebirth, and an eternal flame in the memory of the 1.5 million victims. This flame is surrounded by twelve large slabs positioned in a circle, representing the twelve Armenian provinces in present-day Turkey.It's worth to visit here is a soviet style museum with artefacts found at the archaeological site which is behind the museum on the hill. Particularly interesting in the museum was the over 2000 year old stone pipeline for water. To see how they had carved the stone with joints that fit into each other and also carved rectangular openings along some parts of the pipes to control waterflow and to allow cleaning

.The archaeological site dates from 782BC when Argishti I was king of Urartu (also known as the biblical kingdom of Ararat). The area was discovered in 1950 after a farmer unearthed an inscribed stone tablet and then archaeologists dug in revealing a citadel with courtyards, halls, temples, palace rooms, mural fragments, huge storerooms for wheat, oven pits and gigantic vessels for oil and wine.There’s also a place for animal sacrifices and workshops for making tools. This is all from an era three decades before Rome was built. Really interesting insight this find has given historians about the period.Erebuni was one of Urartu’s most important political, economic and cultural centres. Its location on top of the hill, protecting the kingdom’s northern border meant it was a strategic military centre. Attacks into the northeastern part of the country and military conquests into the north were also launched from here. Erebuni fell to the Persian Achaemenid Empire and then over the years experienced numerous foreign invasions. But the city continued to be inhabited and eventually branched out to become the city of Yerevan.
Soooo .Stay Tuned and visit Yerevan