DEPARTING ARMENIA

YEREVAN - OCTOBER 2007

WITH A VIEW TO MOUNT ARARAT!


"SANTA FE BAR - There are many bars, restaurants and discos in Yerevan. The Santa Fe, close to the Opera, is a nice esplanade"


"THE CASCADE is a huge white stairwell built into a Yerevan hillside in the 1970s, as a simple ornamental work. It has water fountains, reminiscent of a natural cascade, and several statues. The structure was privatized and Gerard Cafesjian, the new owner, was building the Cafesjian Museum of Contemporary Art at its top"


"THE BLACK CAT from Fernando Botero, «the most Colombian of Colombian artists», waits for the visitors at the base of the Cascade"


"TWO FIGURES by Lynn Russell Chadwick (1914 – 2003), an English sculptor who began producing metal mobile sculpture during the 1940s"


"THE HARE ON A BELL by Barry Flanagan is also on display at the Cascade"




"GOING UP - Views from the different platforms of the Cascade with fountains, flowers and the Opera"


"THE OBELISK, aka «The Impotent's Dream», was built to commemorate fifty years of Soviet Armenia"



"MOUNT ARARAT - Often obscured by a haze, visitors to Yerevan need some good luck to see it. That's what lacked to Tsar Nicholas II, who waited a week to see it, and left saying «Too bad for Ararat. It will not have seen the Tsar!» Here Ararat can be seen at the distance"


"ARARAT - A closer look"



"ARARAT AT SUNSET"



"SOUND AND LIGHT at the Republic Square. From May through October there is a happening in Yerevan: the two and a half hour show at the Republic Square!"


"ZVARTNOTS AIRPORT - The modern terminal. No lounge though; it seems that the airport management is charging too much money and the airlines don't want to pay..."


"ARMAVIA - Armenian airlines"


"CLOUDS - Seen from the British Midland flight"

***

Azer Mantessa was kind enough to make a song with some of my sunset pictures! I'm flattered! Thanks Azer!

ECHMIADZIN, ZVARTNOTS & ARARAT

ARMENIA - OCTOBER 2007

It's known that Armenia was the first kingdom to adopt Christianity as its official state religion. Echmiadzin is since 1441 the centre of the Armenian Apostolic Church, whose official name is «One Holy Universal Apostolic Orthodox Armenian Church»! Headed by a Catholicos - title used by the Patriarch of certain Eastern churches - the Church has its most important complex in Echmiadzin, where the Catholicos Of All Armenians - currently Karekin II - lives, and where the Echmiadzin Cathedral, built in 480, is located!


"ON THE WAY - Echmiadzin (founded as Vardkesavan or Vardgesavan, had its name changed to Vagharshapat by King Vagharsh (117-140)) is the most populous city in the Armavir province, about 20 km west of Yerevan"


"MOTHER SEE OF HOLY ECHMIADZIN - The Main Gate and the Open Air Altar, with their contemporary design, were built in 2001 for the celebrations and events held during the celebration of the 1700th Anniversary of the Proclamation of Christianity as the State Religion of Armenia"


"ECHMIADZIN COMPLEX - The Cathedral is surrounded by a monastery complex, which includes the Theological Academy, the Residency of the Catholicos, the Synod, the library, the book depository, museums and cells. Most of the buildings were built in the 17th-19th centuries. The Cathedral and Churches of Echmiadzin and the Archaeological Site of Zvartnots were included in the UNESCO World Heritage List in the year 2000"





"CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ECHMIADZIN - Echmiadzin means «the place where the only-begotten Son of God descended» and the Cathedral, the oldest in the world, was built in 303 on the very spot where St. Gregory the Illuminator dreamt that Jesus had descended to from heaven to show him where the church should be built. In 618, the wooden dome was replaced with a stone one, making the church much as it is today. The three tier belfry was constructed in the middle of the 17th century (1653-1658), and the rotundas surmounting the apses appeared in the early 18th century"


"ENTRANCE PAINTINGS"


"ALTAR"


"DOME"




"MANOOGIAN MUSEUM - The Alex and Marie Manoogian Treasury House Museum at Holy Echmiadzin has an interesting collection. Amazingly, the most important Portuguese Foundation (the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation) was created after the will of another Armenian - Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian - , who reserved US$300,000–400,000 of the Foundation Assets to restore the Echmiadzin Cathedral"


"TREE AND CATHEDRAL"



"ZVARTNOTS (Celestial Angels) CATHEDRAL is a ruined 7th century circular church located 15 km west of Yerevan, near the town of Echmiadzin. Built by Catholicos Nerses the Builder (641-661), its interior had a form of a cross inscribed not in a rectangle but in a circle. The three storey building was destroyed by an earthquake in 930"


"SUN-DIAL - Modern reproduction of the old sun-dial"



"ZVARTNOTS AND MOUNT ARARAT - Mount Ararat, the sacred Armenian mountain, is nowadays the tallest peak in Turkey"


"ARARAT - The snow-capped, dormant volcano is located near the northeast corner of Turkey, 32 km south of the Armenian border"

LANDED IN CAUCASUS

YEREVAN - OCTOBER 2007

Yerevan, at the western extreme of the Ararat plain, 1,100m above sea level, is the capital of the Republic of Armenia.

Armenia, a landlocked mountainous country in South Caucasus, located at the foot of Mount Ararat and between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, has a long history, with very sad aspects in the years of the WWI and immediately thereafter. The first Armenian Kingdom united the tribes of Hayasi and Armen in the sixth century B.C., and reached its greatest extent under Tigranes the Great, who reigned between 95 - 66 BC. Later, the work of the apostles Thaddeus and Bartholomew set the stage for the official conversion of Armenia to Christianity in 301 A.D., the first country to officially do so, and twelve years before the Edict of Milan signed by Emperor Constantine.

The Republic of Armenia, due to large scale emigration after the December 7, 1988 earthquake and the collapse of the Soviet Union, has now a population of about 3 million, with roughly one million and one hundred living in Yerevan. Today, however, there are more Armenians living outside of its borders than inside.

Legend has it that the origin of the name Yerevan derived from an expression exclaimed, in Armenian, by Noah, while looking in the direction of the site, after the Ark had landed on Mount Ararat and the waters receded: «Yerevats»! However, it is much more likely that the name derives from a 782 B.C. military fortress called Erebuni.



"YEREVAN - First impression is far from being an excellent one, even for someone familiarized with the traditional jokes that were told about Yerevan, Radio Yerevan or similar..."


"HOTEL"


"THE NATIONAL OPERA HOUSE, designed by the architect Alexander Tamanian, was built between 1926 and 1953, as part of a plan to redesign the city. It actually houses the Aram Khachaturian Concert Hall (whose statue is hardly seen in this picture) and Alexander Spendiaryan Opera and the Ballet National Academic Theatre. The Opera and Ballet Theatre holds 1,260 people, and the Concert Hall holds 1,400"



"MASHTOTS STREET - Previously known as «Lenin Prospect», it's the widest street in the centre of Yerevan, with three traffic lanes in each direction. Mother Armenia, a statue in the Victory Park, overlooks Yerevan from the top of the hill"


"MESROP MASHOTS (360 - 440), an Armenian monk, theologian and linguist, is known for having invented the Armenian Alphabet, which was a fundamental step in strengthening the Armenian Church and the government of the Armenian Kingdom. The statue lies in front of the Matenadaran and the letters of the Armenian alphabet are carved into the wall behind the statue"



"MATENADARAN (Institute of Ancient Manuscripts), which in ancient Armenian means «library», is a centre for the study and preservation of Armenian literature. Designed by Mark Grigoryan, it was built in 1957, and is one of the most interesting things to see in Armenia. With massive copper doors, it keeps manuscripts that were respectfully guarded and that played an important role in the people’s fight against spiritual subjugation and assimilation"



"BOOKS - Thousands of Armenian manuscripts perished in invasions and wars, leaving only 25,000 left in the Matenadaran. The rest of them are dispersed in Venice, Jerusalem, Vienna, Beirut, Paris, and the Getty Museum. The most ancient item is a fragment from the fifth century, the most ancient parchment book is the Gospel of Lazarus from 887 and the most ancient paper manuscript dates from 981"


"ARMENIAN CODE OF LAWS"



"REPUBLIC SQUARE - The central square of Yerevan is named Hanrapetutyan Hraparak. It's the main square in Yerevan, and hosts the Marriot Hotel, the Foreign Ministry, and a large fountain in front of the National Art Gallery and History Museum"




"THE NATIONAL ART GALLERY OF ARMENIA, founded in 1921, is considered one of the best museums in the former Soviet Union, and houses the works of famous Armenian artists of the early medieval times through the late twentieth century"


"ARMENIA SACRA is an exhibition entirely devoted to Armenian art, which aims to recognize the brilliance of Christian art created in Armenia, from the conversion of the Armenian people until the end of the 18th century. Organized by the Louvre Museum, it includes not only steles and carved capitals but also khatchkars, stone slabs carved with intricately laced patterns centred on the cross, displayed in their upright position. It was shown in Yerevan in October 2007"