Day 56 (21 July)

The city of Yerevan dates back to the founding of the fortress of Yerbuni in 782 BC.

At different stages the city has been under the rule of Romans, Parthians, Arabs, Mongols, Turks, Persians, Georgians, and Russians.

In 1747, Yerevan became the capital of one of the khanates of the Persian Empire. Persian control was gradually being whittled away by the Russians, however, and the city was formally ceded to Russia in the 1828 Treaty of Turkmanchai: "When they occupied the city, the Russians found a dusty settlement of exactly 1,736 single story mud-brick houses, 851 shops, 10 baths, 8 mosques, 6 churches, 7 caravanserais and 6 public squares set within gardens enclosed with mud-brick walls."

Despite the subsequent building boom, Tsar Nikolai, visiting in 1837, described the city as "a clay pot". Six decades later, apparently not much had changed. Russian writer Daniil Mordovtsev characterizes it like this: "Houses of clay and flat roofs, streets of clay, squares built from clay, all around clay; clay, clay, clay."

But there was one elegant respite from the terracotta theme: "Beginning in 1860, the region's Governor General, a Russian named Astafieva, commissioned the first Master Plan for the city. Drawing on the rising wealth of his citizens, Astafieva envisioned a city carved out of the surrounding hills with graceful boulevards and tree lined streets. Astafieva's plan included the demolition of buildings along Berdi Pohots, widening it to a then unheard of 8 meters, and installing a new horse-drawn trolley line. Large mansions commissioned by architects trained in Moscow and St. Petersburg began to line the new Prospect, which was renamed Astafian... It was renamed [again] for the writer K. Abovian in the 1940s."

Our first self-appointed task this morning was to walk the length of Abovian, filling in the bits we'd missed so far:









Left behind from the Persian period is the neighbourhood of Kond, an area of winding roads and mud-brick houses set on top of a hill, and now facing an uncertain future.













This was just a morning's walk. The afternoon and early evening had to be dedicated to that article that exploded back into my life while we were in Athens. I'm fervently crossing my fingers that I've now done all that's necessary until we come to the proofs stage...

We celebrated that hope with some Armenian wine. Made with Khndoghni, Areni, and Kakhet grape varieties, none of which I'd ever heard of, but which combine very nicely.


Day 57 (22 July)

The small town of Garni, about 25 beautiful, mountainous kilometres from Yerevan, is home to a pre-Christian temple, which shares its site with a number of other archaeological curiosities, and enjoys a wonderfully scenic setting.




In what is left of the 1st-century Summer Palace can be seen a stone with a cuneiform inscription attributed to King Argishti I, the sixth monarch of the Urartian Empire, who founded the fortress of Yerbuni.

It reads, rather darkly: "By the greatness of Khaldi, Argishti says, 'I occupied the land of Giarniani in the land of kind Siluni, from the highlands of my enemies when I returned I brought by force men and women.'"


The temple came along several centuries later, and was probably built around 70-80 AD by King T'rdat I, although there is much disagreement about this.

The King T'rdat version, at least, makes for a very good story:

"[T]he Romans were in a protracted battle with the Parthians for control of the Near East, using Armenia as their battleground. Each power propped up or deposed a rival king, until T'rdat I deposed the Roman candidate in the year 54 CE. In retaliation, Rome invaded Armenia in the year 57, razing the capital at Artashat in 58. The Romans were about to annex Armenia outright when their troops were surrounded and defeated by T'rdat's armies at Kharput (Kharberd) in 62. Facing pressure from the Parthians, T'rdat then sued for peace with the Romans, laying down his diadem before an effigy of Nero, promising to receive it back from the emperor in Rome. T'rdat arrived at Rome and received his crown from Nero, kneeling before him and saying,

"'Master ... I have come to thee, my god, to worship thee as I do Mythras (Mythra). The destiny thou spinnest for me shall be mine, for thou art my Fortune and my Fate.'

"Pliny the Elder reported that the Armenian king initiated Nero into certain Magian rites, and it is at this time that the cult of Mythra was introduced into the Roman pantheon. Nero gave T'rdat two million sesterces and Roman engineers to rebuild his capital, which he did, naming it Neroneia in honor of Nero. At the same time T'rdat commissioned a Temple to Mythra at Garni, sometime around the year 66. The site was repaired and enlarged around 72. In addition, T'rdat built a palace for his sister-queen Khosrovadukht and had a Greek inscription engraved in stone referring to himself as 'the sun' ('Helios') and 'supreme ruler of Greater Armenia'."

Whatever its origins, it's a very beautiful little temple.






It's a relatively easy excursion from Yerevan, and the travel planner was quite helpful. You need a conveyance to the point where the marshrutkas depart for Goght, and then the marshrutka itself. All up, the return journey cost AMD 1,400, which you can hardly complain about (although, as always, you need to be prepared for the marshrutka to be incredibly hot and crowded...).

The Garni site was pretty busy, as this is one of the prime excursion destinations from Yerevan. But it's big enough not to feel hemmed in, and we enjoyed breaking up our historical discoveries with a spot of lunch in the shade.