Our Trip
Day 6 - May 3
On this day we left Yerevan and travelled to the north. The weather was very unstable, we had both sun and heavy rain.
Armenia is also being called "Karastan" - Stone Land;
"stone deserts" like these can be found in many places
A park of Armenian letters
We had a short stop in one of the Yazidi villages which exist in Armenia. The bus had hardly stopped when already the children came running and begged for sweets. Those who got something from one of us immediately went to the next person. Some of the children even took the sweets from others. We did not experience such a behaviour in any of the Armenian villages we visited, even though some of them were much poorer. One can hardly imagine such a contrast in the behaviour of people!
Like this boy most of the children went from one to the other to beg for sweets
Our next stop was Spitak, a little town which had suffered a lot from the earthquake in 1988. There the international aid had worked almost perfectly. Different countries had donated entire housing areas and a hospital was also rebuilt. On the car park in front of the hospital the bus driver Gagik served coffee, tea and cake for us.
New housing areas in Spitak
After being driven through Vanadzor, another town which suffered severely from the quake, we had a very good lunch in a restaurant in Alaverdi.
The restaurant in Alaverdi
Afterwards we visited the monasteries of Haghpat (in heavy rain) and Sanahin (in sunshine) which are both UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The village of Sanahin is the birth place of the brothers Anastas and Artem Mikoyan. Anastas was a leading Soviet politician and Artem was one of the constructors of the Soviet MiG-21 fighter plane. Therefore on a little square in Sanahin one can have a look at an old MiG-21.
Haghpat Monastery
Domestic pig with young boars - the farmers let their pigs deliberately
graze in the forest, so they mate with boars;
this makes the pork more
tasty
A stone bridge from the 12th century in Alaverdi
Sanahin Monastery
The MiG-21 in the village of Sanahin
The hotel in which we spent the night (unfortunately only one) is something special. It belongs to the Tufenkian Heritage which has been founded by an American of Armenian descent. The special feature about the Avan Dzoraget Hotel in Lori is, for expample, that many orphans from Vanadzor have found work there. However, one wouldn't notice it, the service is just as good as in any other hotel of this category. The hotel itself is very nice and the rooms are cozy.
The hotel
The entrance hall
Our room
Photos by us
©2009 Hermann-Peter Steinmüller & Dr. Barbara Strohmenger
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