Yerevan Hotels| Contact us

English Русский

Major Sights

Sights of Yerevan
source: nearyou.ru

Taking into account the age of Yerevan we can suggest that there must be a lot of historical monuments. So that is, but most of these architectural structures are churches of various periods. However, in fact, there are not so much ancient monuments in the city: Yerevan was destroyed by the conquerors for many times and several times was the victim of major earthquakes.

 The most ancient preserved monument is the Erebuni Fortress, which was the cradle of Yerevan. This fortress was founded in 782 BC and this year is considered to be the birth year of the city. Surprisingly, the fortress was discovered only in the mid-twentieth century. After a lot of archaeological excavations, it finally appeared before the residents of Yerevan. Today the part of the ancient settlement has been reconstructed. House ware objects which were found during the excavations were collected in the museum which is opened nearby.

Today most churches in Yerevan represent the reconstruction made after the devastating earthquake in 1679. However, some of them were lost at the beginning of twentieth century, when the Soviet power was established in Armenia: the religious monuments were destroyed and the cinemas, cultural centers, educational institutions were built instead of them.
But at the same time due to researches of architecture academician A. Tamanyan, city acquired its present appearance. Tamanyan, after exploring the landscape of Yerevan and the wind rose, created the master plan of building of the Armenian capital. Yerevan took the form of an amphitheater. According to his plan, many significant buildings, museums, theaters, parks, etc were built in XX century.

One of such objects is the Grand Cascade, being a building-staircase, decorated with lawns, flower beds and original fountains. Many tiers of this building allow having a different view of the city. The upper deck opens magnificent view of Yerevan and a snowy peak of Ararat mountain.

There are also many green areas like Victory Park, Botanical Gardens and many undeveloped hills. Because of the fact that the pink tuff was frequently used as a building material, Yerevan is often called as "pink city". Despite of the fact that the city is located in the heart of the Caucasus, it seems that this is one of the major alpine cities.
 

Major Sights list: