Spring Break Armenia, Day 3

Khor Virap

Our third day in Yerevan broke clear and bright, and we decided to go on another excursion out of town.  This time we took a bus and headed south to a monastery situated smack dab on the Turkish-Armenian border.  Khor Virap is the name of the monastery, which literally means "deep pit."  Sounds lovely, doesn't it?  Well, it's so named for it's biggest feature, two deep pits under one of the chapels, in which Grigor the Illuminator was imprisoned by the Armenian king for 13 years.  It's a long story, and involves the king of Armenia either going crazy or having his head turned into the head of a boar, but eventually the king let Grigor out of the pit, and got himself all baptized and Armenia became the first officially Christian nation, in 301.  

The Yerevan train station, from whence our bus to Khor Virap departed

Self portrait in front of all the loveliness that's visible in the top picture.  Unfortunately, it turned out looking like we just take self portraits in front of fields of dead wheat.

But once we stepped away, this was the view again.  Pretty!

Now they have ladders to climb down into the pit, which is great because you don't get stuck down there for 13 years.  

Sam made it back out in way less than 13 years

Khor Virap up closer

The main church building at Khor Virap

So Khor Virap is an extremely venerated and important church/monastery for the Armenian church.  It's a big draw for pilgrims or visitors looking to climb down into Grigor's pit and light some candles in the church.  But it isn't just the religious that draws folks to this place.  Khor Virap is situated on a hill just a stone's throw from the Araxes River, which winds along the bottom of the mythical Mount Ararat (the big snow covered mountain you see in the picture).  Ararat is a dormant volcano peak, a very tall 5137 meters or 16,854 feet. It's also the mountain on which Noah's ark is said to have come to rest.  Ararat is much taller than any of the other mountains in the area, and on clear days is visible in all kinds of parts of Armenia.  It dominates the Yerevan skyline.  Mount Ararat is the symbol of Armenia, and many, many Armenian households have the same painting of Ararat's greater and lesser peaks (Masis and Sis). There's a catch, though: Ararat may be revered and celebrated by Armenians as their symbol, but it now lies within the territory of Turkey.  The Araxes River basically forms the border between the two countries, closed acrimoniously since 1993 (as a Turkish response to the Armenia-Azerbaijan war in Nagorno-Karabagh).  So Armenians come to Khor Virap for just about their closest look at the mountain that has come to hold so much meaning in their culture.  It seems to me that having the mountain just across the uncrossable border has probably done a lot to make it a more important symbol, and has endowed this place with stronger emotions and hatreds than would otherwise be the case.  This is a big, big mountain, visible everywhere.  Having it just out of reach makes it a something that's easy to grasp in a different sense, as a symbol of all the perceived injustices and the heights they reach. 

Very Soviet-esque statue near Khor Virap.  Looked a little like Stalin as a mountaineer.

Once we'd had our fill of traipsing around the countryside, we hitched a ride back up to the main highway.  It was about 5 kilometers from the highway to the monastery, and while we were prepared to walk the distance, we didn't turn down the offer of two young men who pulled up alongside us and offered us a lift. They were extremely nice and excited that we spoke Armenian.  As we approached the highway, they began to apologize profusely that they couldn't take us all the way into Yerevan.  They wanted to, and would gladly, except that they didn't have driver's licenses and didn't want to risk driving on the main highway and getting stopped.

We said our goodbyes and waited alongside the highway for the next passing bus or minibus to take us back into town.  It wasn't long before one pulled up and we were back to Yerevan.  As we pulled in, Sam's eyes lit up at a sight we passed: a pretzel shop.  Pretzels!  Sam, as you may know, loves soft pretzels.  It's been one of the things he's missed most here.  So what did we do for lunch?  You guessed it: soft pretzels.

Is that joy, or what?

Best day ever.

The rest of the day pales in comparison to soft pretzels, for sure, but we did get some cool pictures out of it.  We wandered through the displays in the puppet theater, looking at the puppets, walked through town some more, ate really delicious khorovats and checked out a cool new-ish monument to an old Soviet movie.

Some of the puppets on display

The puppets really remind me of a lot of the Soviet cartoons and stop-motion animation movies

Hanging out with "The Men"