Thursday 17 April 2025 was a HUGE day for me. Yerevan Day. Accomplished my 10km run through the hugely busy twin carriage boulevards of Yerevan in record time. There are too many cars here. In peak hour it takes 30min to drive 5km through the centre. After my run it was a huge 20km walk of the city. It is spread out. Yerevan is one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities. It has been the capital since 1918, the fourteenth in the history of Armenia. The history of Yerevan dates back to the 8th century BC, with the founding of the fortress of Erebuni in 782 BC by King Argishti I designed as a great administrative and religious centre, a fully royal capital. The city was mostly depopulated by the Great Surgun of 1603–05, when the Safavid Empire forcibly deported hundreds of thousands of Armenians to Iran. In 1679, the city was mostly destroyed by an earthquake, and then rebuilt on a smaller scale. In 1828, Yerevan became part of the Russian Empire and in 1915 the site of a horrific genocide by the Ottomans, which I shall mention later. Yerevan is known as “The Pink City” since most buildings are made from pink-coloured volcanic Tuff Rock mined in Armenia. The city is a strange mix of classical and Soviet style buildings. You can easily tell them apart. It is not as cosy as Tbilisi since it is on a plateau. I visited the following attractions: National Opera & Ballet, France Square, Cascades, Central Pedestrian Boulevarde, Europe Square, Yerevan Square (National Gallery, Museum of History, Mariott, Government Departments), Republic Square, Insitute of Architecture, Marketplace Stalls, Circular Park, Saint Gregory The Illuminator Cathedral, Shahumyan Public Garden, Yerevan 2800th Anniversary Park, Russia Square, Yerevan Municipality (Town Hall), St Sarkis Cathedral, Armenian Genocide Memorial & Museum. The highlight was the Genocide Memorial and Museum which is on a plateau of its own overlooking the city. I visited it last so I could spend time there. Had to catch a taxi there given it is 3km from the centre, uphill and by this stage I had topped 30,000 steps on this day.
The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily through the mass murder of up to 1.2 million Armenians during death marches to the Syrian Desert and the forced Islamization of others, primarily women and children. Before World War I, Armenians occupied a somewhat protected, but subordinate, place in Ottoman society. Large-scale massacres of Armenians had occurred in the 1890s and 1909. The Ottoman Empire suffered a series of military defeats and territorial losses, especially during the 1912–1913 Balkan Wars, leading to fear among CUP leaders that the Armenians would seek independence. During their invasion of Russian and Persian territory in 1914, Ottoman paramilitaries massacred local Armenians. Ottoman leaders took isolated instances of Armenian resistance as evidence of a widespread rebellion, though no such rebellion existed. Mass deportation was intended to permanently forestall the possibility of Armenian autonomy or independence. On 24 April 1915, the Ottoman authorities arrested and deported hundreds of Armenian intellectuals and leaders from Constantinople. At the orders of Talaat Pasha, an estimated 800,000 to 1.2 million Armenians were sent on death marches to the Syrian Desert in 1915 and 1916. Driven forward by paramilitary escorts, the deportees were deprived of food and water and subjected to robbery, rape, and massacres. In the Syrian Desert, the survivors were dispersed into concentration camps. In 1916, another wave of massacres was ordered, leaving about 200,000 deportees alive by the end of the year. Around 100,000 to 200,000 Armenian women and children were forcibly converted to Islam and integrated into Muslim households. Massacres and ethnic cleansing of Armenian survivors continued through the Turkish War of Independence after World War I, carried out by Turkish nationalists. This genocide put an end to more than two thousand years of Armenian civilization in eastern Anatolia. Together with the mass murder and expulsion of Assyrian/Syriac and Greek Orthodox Christians, it enabled the creation of an ethnonationalist Turkish state, the Republic of Turkey. The Turkish government maintains that the deportation of Armenians was a legitimate action that cannot be described as genocide. As of 2025, 34 countries have recognized the events as genocide, concurring with the academic consensus.
I stopped by my favourite supermarket PARMA on my way back to the hotel. The very first time I bought food there the lady who served me explained each of the dishes to me and I kept saying YUM YUM – by the end she called me “Mr Yum Yum” !!! Today ended with a scrumptious meal at the TUN LAHMAJO restaurant in the centre of town, run by the same family for over 40 years. The name “Lahmajo” is in fact an Armenian Pizza made of flat bread with fine mince and cheese spread and melted across it. They make the bread on site and bake the mince/cheese in their own pizza oven. I enjoyed helpings of delicious stewed beans and eggplant. Whilst the Georgians love adding walnuts to all their dishes, the Armenians add pomegranate seeds to everything. It was a great night to end our stay in Yerevan and Armenia since the next day was our colossal drive to the Iranian border.
Enjoy the sites and aromas of Yerevan…
The next day was our last in Armenia and the most scenic drive to date. It involved 365km of slow, windy, pot-holed road mostly around the 2000m mark with incredible scenery. I shall let the images below do all the talking. We topped out at the Meghri mountain pass at 2535m marked by two strange structures on either side of the road known as the Gates of Zangezur (Zanger) – these were the original start of the Silk Road in Armenia but now mark the place where a rail connection is proposed between Azerbaijan and the disputed autonomous republic of Nakhchivan. Our drive brought us within 1km of the border to Nakhchivan.
The Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic is a landlocked exclave of the Republic of Azerbaijan governed by its own elected legislature. This region was first inhabited around 1500 BC by the Nakhijevan, who historically are Armenian. The Persians, Armenians, Mongols, and Turks all competed for the region. It was part of Iran in the 16th century and in 1828 fell under Soviet Russia. In 1918, the region came under Ottoman occupation and returned to Soviet Russia as part of Soviet Azerbaijan. In 1990, Nakhchivan declared independence from the USSR as part of an independent Azerbaijan.
It is hard to believe that there can be so many mountains in such a relatively small country. At around noon we arrived at the famous “Wings Of Tatev” cable car which transports you a whopping 5,752 metres to the Tatev Monastery across two mountains. This cable car holds The Guness Book of Records “longest non-stop double track cable car ride in the world” !!! It takes 15 people over 10min to its destination. The views of the Tatev Valley are immense. At the other end is the 9th-century Armenian Apostolic Christian Tatev Monastery located on a large basalt plateau near the village of Tatev. In the 14th and 15th centuries, the monastery hosted one of the most important Armenian medieval universities, the University of Tatev, which contributed to the advancement of science, religion and philosophy, reproduction of books and development of miniature painting. Scholars of the Tatev University contributed to the preservation of Armenian culture and creed during one of its most turbulent periods in its history.
From here we travelled another hour and set up a bush camp in a random valley only 25km from the Armenia-Iran border for crossing early the next day. The campsite was not the best looking but well-shielded from wind. After a great veggie pasta, we all drank the last of our alcohol given it is strictly forbidden in Iran. Sleep came easy but I was sad that today was Easter Friday and I could not observe it properly. What a contrast. I am in a sleeping bag under a tent in the cold and my family are dressed to the hilt attending an iconic Easter Friday Service under the chandeliers of a Greek Orthodox Church. Such is travel. Enjoy the last images of Armenia…
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