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UNDER
CONSTRUCTION
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W
of the main
highway on the cloverleaf is Gavar
, the marz capital,
founded in 1830 by migrants from Bayazit in Turkey, with city
status since 1850. Till
1959 it was called Nor Bayazit, then Kamo, from the nom de
guerre of Simon Ter-Petrosian (1882- 1922), a “professional
revolutionary” who robbed banks for the
communist |
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Just W of Gavar
is
Tsaghkashen
(founded in 1859) with S.
Hovhannes church of the 9-10th c.
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UNDER
CONSTRUCTION
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cause
and escaped from various Czarist jails.
He died in a car crash in Tbilisi.
Most of Gavar’s
industry is defunct, except for the cable factory.
There is a folklore museum, an airport, and a bishop, who
for lack of suitable quarters spends most of his time closer to
Yerevan. The Early Iron
Age fort of Berdi Glukh
occupies a long, slender rocky hill, now a modern cemetery,
paralleling the Gavaraget stream, behind the Haldi hotel on the
main square. The fort
includes early cave dwellings, towers and an underground passage
to the Gavaraget. Just
S is a large Early Iron Age cemetery.
Urartian inscriptions lend credence to the theory that
this was the center of the ancient Urartian district of
Velikukhi. There are
cyclopean fort remains all around the city, particularly one 5
km E of Berdi Glukh. Bearing
somewhat right on the road at the bottom of the main square
takes one to the suburb of Hatsarat,
with the small domed S.
Astvatsatsin church, built in 898 by the will of Prince
Shagubat Arneghati,
and the 19th c. S. Grigor Lusavorich church
adjoining, which still operates.
Another cyclopean fort also called Berdi Glukh, with a
large tumulus, is on the NE edge of Hatsarat by the modern
cemetery.
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