Day 33 25 May In and around Yerevan

Photo above - Yerevan taken from the Genocide Memorial

City square and national flag

At 9am we st off to Republic Square, which was named as such in 1991 as the country gained independence. There was a Stalin statue here, that was beheaded in 1991 and is now in the museum! The buildings around the square were built between the 1920s and 1970s. There is an Armenian flag on top of one building. The red represents the blood of the fight for independence, the blue is the blue sky and peace, the orange is for Apricots, a major export. The blue is particularly apt as Armenia is the 3rd sunniest country after Crete and Cyprus. It certainly is hot and sunny again today.

Sunday market

We then had a look around a massive street market selling carpets, jewellery, bronze and pottery, clothing etc. Next we drove 20km out of the city towards the south west, to the 'Holy City' of Echmiadzin (70,000 population). This was one of Armenia's former capitals.

Church on Sunday

There is a UNESCO-listed building, the Echmiadzin Cathedral, which forms part of a massive complex of buildings, including a theology college, Bapistry, Pontifical Palace, former royal palace. Monuments etc. As it was Sunday, there were loads of people around, lots were dressed in their Sunday best, some as angels(!), but a lot were just there for a day out in the sun. The area is known as the Armenian Vatican.

Roman style ruins

We headed to lunch at a local cafe and I had a wander around the small town. Afterwards we drove a short distance to the UNESCO-listed 7th century church ruins of Zvartnots. Its remaining columns are set against a magnificent backdrop of the snowy peaks of Mount Ararat.

Recent wars and historical genocide

Returning to Yerevan, we passed a military cemetery with flags flying on all the gravestones. This contains the graves of soldiers who died in the 2020 war with Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh, in which 5000 died. Azerbaijan ‘won’ the war and so still control the region.

Next we stopped at the Tsitsernakaberd Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex and its museum. It represents 1.5 Armenium victims of genocide. This is an amazing museum that tells really well the story of how from the late 1800s, Armenians were persecuted by the Turks, then subjected to a concentrated campaign to cleanse the region of Christian Armenians (as opposed to Muslim Armenians) that rivalled the German campaign against the Jews later in the 20th century. This is a whole piece of history I knew nothing about. The memorial is also very impressive containing a tall needle shaped design representing a blade of grass growing up from the earth, and a flower petal design that houses an eternal flame, all built on a hill overlooking the city.

We then headed back into the city centre and to our hotel. Tomorrow we head out of the city to visit a fortress, a monastery, and do a hike.