Garni & Geghard

Garni and Geghard are among the most visited sights of Armenia. They are located in close proximity to Yerevan. The road from Yerevan to Garni takes about 30 minutes. Garni is a village with a population of 8,000 people. Here, on the edge of a high cape is the only pagan temple in Armenia. It was built in the I century BC, and reconstructed in the middle of the twentieth century. A Hellenistic temple like the Parthenon was built in honor of the pagan sun god Mihr. Near the temple are the ruins of the royal residence, the Roman baths of the III century AD and the Christian temple of Zion. The place for the construction of the royal residence was not chosen by chance, it is an excellent strategic point, which was fundamental for high-quality defense. In the Garnia Gorge you can see a unique natural monument - a symphony of stone. Huge 80-100-meter basalt hexagons form an impregnable wall of the gorge.

Geghard Rock Monastery. Literally, the name of the monastery is translated from Old Armenian as a spear. In this monastery until the XIII century kept the biblical spear of fate (Longin's spear). This is a spear, which according to legend, the Roman legionnaire Longinus pierced the body of the crucified Christ. The surviving buildings of the monastery were built in the XIII century, some of the temples and tombs are carved into the rock. In its heyday, Geghard Monastery was a major educational center, and the number of monks reached several hundred.