Armenia. Country of mountains and temples

jelll

The most unexpected trip - usually the most pleasant. Probably because if unexciting place, simply refuse, and if you dreamed about for a long time, it may not turn out badly.
And when one day I was told that I'm flying to Armenia, it was impossible to refuse.
About this Transcaucasian country I dreamed of ten years ago, when I worked in the Armenian magazine in Moscow, and was in love with an Armenian girl.
And then another and sister married an Armenian. And I realized that with this country I have some deep connections. But the journey has not evolved, was Georgia and Azerbaijan, but Armenia does.
And three days at the foot of the biblical mountain.

Actually that's the foot, and that's a mountain. Just can not see the ark

Geghard Monastery

Gegard unique temple that they cut out of solid rock

At four in the morning arrival. After either breakfast, or dinner with cornel vodka in a night Yerevan restaurant we go somewhere to the south of Armenia.
In the morning twilight purple outlines of the vast mountains and gorges, and immediately becomes clear that three days is not enough and you need to come to Armenia again and again to experience these places.

History The Long Dark
Retell the story of Armenia even approximately - difficult, or rather impossible. She goes so deep into the darkness of the centuries, trying to understand the intricacies of the Armenian kings vzamootnosheny neighbors lost cause. Names trad-Rimpsime-Karapetov and Tiridates again merge into one big unpronounceable name. And with our guide Rita expressive jan all seem wildly important no exceptions. But at some point the mind is turned off with the thought, "It can not be all important and significant" and accents are lost in the enthusiastic heroic legends.
But there are several important places and personalities of dates by which to pass impossible. For example King Tiridates I in 76 AD, built the only survivor of the territory of Armenia ancient temples. Stately columns of the Temple of Garni towering above the gorge - there worshiped the god Mithras, who is identified with the sun.
Oddly temple broke someone's not intolerant hands, and an earthquake in 1679. And restored in the Soviet period.

Ancient temple - that's the last thing you expect to see in Armenia

For majestic temple found majestic place on the edge of the cliff

Walls and columns carved from local volcanic rocks

Our escort Inna

Another significant figure - also Tiridates, but the third. Generally it is a little rough the name is very popular in the royal dynasty of Armenian kings. So Tiridates first state rulers commanded to Christianity in 301, than Armenia and Armenians are very proud of. Even Rome became a Christian later. Who knows, take the Armenian kingdom and later a world religion on its territory can be preserved more pagan temples. However, the happiness of the king did not bring religion - a few years Tiridates killed.

On waters
Evening ourselves in Jermuk. In Soviet times, it was a well-known resort. Healing water drank everything with great pleasure. But I expect to see polurazgrablennoe Soviet legacy, as happened with most of these places. But Jermuk amaze, the hotel itself is just great, even by the standards of the city, and yet it was free. And in the morning we arrange an excursion to the water. But the most important beauty immediately noticeable. Jermuk through mountain river Arpa and sawed it in volcanic rocks deep gorge. To see all of the most beautiful, you need to go down to the bottom.

Then beat oochen useful sources of water

Well, everything looks very beautiful. Built in the Soviet era

But the need to consume so wildly useful water

Autumn colors - just a kind of madness. Very beautiful. And above all this abandoned sanatorium, built by the Czechs in the last Soviet years. Czechs generally reason to build such a huge ugly building. In Crimea, remember there is sanatorium "Friendship", with the same ugly forms. Or we just do not understand the genius of Czech architecture ...

Very similar faceted rocks are on the Kuriles. And then half the country such

And in one place volcanic rocks washed away and there was a waterfall

Officially called the waterfall and Jermuk, but it seems there are two: "girlish braids." Very similar

And nature has immediately a huge stone bridge. Impressive. And it's all managed to see literally for hours because I had to run farther

Hi bear! Bear of the Soviet past is highly relevant

Armenia as Eden
Rita-jan gives us a book on the history of Armenia. On the first page I read out almost verbatim phrase. It sounded something like this, on the accuracy of the words I can not vouch: "Armenia is certainly a prototype paradise of Eden." This is the birthplace of their people and all Armenians remember and know about it. They live all over the world, in one of Los Angeles, again in the words of Armenian friends, their almost one million. And while they are not dissolved or are lost among others. Generally Armenians love for his country as a phenomenon - sometimes smiling, but often causes a feeling of envy, because we ourselves do not know how. For example, when I read how some disparaging Balbi says something like: "Well, it's our Raska" I just cringe. I am sure that none of Armenians, wherever in the world and lived as if not treated to their roots, would not say this out loud, even if allowed to think such a thing. But it is, digression.

From a conversation with Rita-jan:
- Rita, and what there is endemic in Armenia
- Sevan whitefish!
- But Rita, what it is endemic, you said yourself that he is in the middle of the XX century was brought to the lake.
- Well, it has mutated! - Rita such a trifle as whitefish not confuse - and became endemic! - She adds with fervor.

Just a beautiful landscape on the way from Jermuk

And the mountains and the mountains. Almost the entire country - solid mountain

The most interesting ethnic point - is the relationship between Armenians and Georgians. There are, of course, a separate issue of the Armenian-Azerbaijani history, but any conversation about this topic over the war over Nagorno-Karabakh and the massacre, and in the war as we know there is no right or wrong, everyone has their own strong arguments. Everyone lost. And therefore discuss it in a short article is impossible, and in any case will be misinterpreted. Any episode, any characteristic would be taken out of context and bloody history cause offense or in some, or others. And since I was in Azerbaijan and in Armenia and I enjoyed a mutually in both countries, and I hope to go somewhere else as better their conclusions about the military conflict, I will leave with you. Especially because all showdown in Transcaucasia - pure political game.

But the Georgian-Armenian relations - is a solid "Mimino", only absentee. Exactly how Frunzik Mrtychan and Vakhtan Kikabidze figured out what the best mineral water, as well as the entire population of the two countries mired in endless disputes for supremacy. My favorite topic - who is older and wiser talented. For example, Armenians claim that God first created the Armenian alphabet, carefully cut it from the tree and gave the Armenians, and from splinters obtain Georgian.
Georgians in general are not far behind, and it issued a series of jokes about the Armenians, more indecent than decent.

View Ararat
The canonical form of Ararat - where the foreground gabled roof of the temple. This monastery Khor Virap. But to see it in all its glory, you need to come here in the morning, when the sun shines on the slopes of the mountain and the temple, because in the evening it will all be in the shade. The monastery is located directly above the underground prison in which the Armenian king Tiridates most III contained in captivity for 13 years St. Gregory the Illuminator. But then Tiridates fell into madness, but was healed by Gregory then baptized in 301 and declared Christianity the state religion in Armenia. A year later, Gregory was ordained a bishop. Interesting story of course, caught a holy man, was kept in prison many years, and then here again, and called for treatment.

Temple Khor Virap - still polkitometra and Turkey begins

Shot with a small mountain of the temple. They say there was the ancient capital of Armenia. But nothing to see - just a pile of stones

Above the monastery to climb the mountain and there's really worth to meditate. The whole mountain - and small and large Ararat Ararat (Sis and Masis - as they are called Armenians) in front of me. Spectacle ochumennoe and completely transmitted by the camera. And hear the prayer of the church hymns, and somewhere far beyond the river which forms the border between Turkey and Armenia hardly hears the prayer of the muezzin. Prayer is destroying harmony song Jura Shatunova "Pink Rose" - she heard on the other side of the mountain on which I climbed. There's three guys in black drink on the hood of a dusty behi, and the open doors of toiling Shatunov about roses for Svetka Sokolova ... Trying meditation overlooking the Ararat not stand the test of pop and I go back down.

Of all the temples in Armenia is not enough to write a whole life. And about every detail if you, too, you can get carried away, so that the article is not enough. We should certainly visit Garni - his long gray columns disturb my imagination. More magnificent place to find the temple complex, on a cliff above the gorge, and deep down river winds. Near Herat - here the most famous churches carved into the rocks. On the last day we go to Lake Sevan, in the eponymous town. There is a small peninsula and on the top of a couple of churches. At the bottom of the beach area, but now late autumn, and the people, instead of bathing eats kebabs. When I climb into the icy water swim, meal stops for a few minutes. But it is already a tradition of travel, swim wherever there is a suitable body of water, regardless of the weather.
But in the famous Dilijan, which very close, we do not have time, fellow journalists just dream buy sweets on the market. And I have to submit to the majority.

Temple on the mountain above the lake Sevan