UNDER CONSTRUCTION

   Next village  NE is Narek  (named  in 1984 in honor of the poet Grigor Narekatsi).

    Before leading E into the  mountains eventually to reach the Azat river valley, the road passes through the small hamlet of Kakavaberd. Technically in Ararat Marz, but more accessible from Garni, the remote valleys of the Azat river and its tributaries   shelter   Havuts    Tar    and Aghjots Vank (S. Stepanos) Monasteries,               Geghi           Castle

(Kakavaberd) and many other interesting complexes and sites. The Garni cobbled road into the gorge is also the route to reach the entrance to the Khosrov Nature Reserve, and an excellent jumping off point for Havuts Tar. The preserve takes its name from King Khosrov III, who ordered the planting of a massive forest to repair centuries of deforestation. The Khosrov Reserve guards at the gatehouse beyond may let you in, if you tell them you are visiting the “Surp” (St. Stepanos church). Just before the guard house, clambering up the hill to the left and back, you will find a footpath that quickly widens, following the contours east about 40 minutes to Havuts Tar Monastery, passing khachkars along the route. A rough dirt track continues down into the Reserve, running upstream along the Azat river. At 5 km from the entrance, where Milli Creek (vtak), runs into the Azat from the left, the road straight across the bridge is closed by a wire (key in house on hill back to left).  Turning left along an even rougher track brings one in 200 m to Baiburt. A simple, single-aisle basilica probably of the 5^th c. stands left of the road among ruins of old dwellings of an Armenian population deported to Persia by Shah Abbas in the 17^th c. There are allegedly pagan period remains in the vicinity. Another few km uphill past Baiburt, on a poor jeep track, is the hamlet of Mets Gilanlar, with a few simple wooden huts. Turning left just before Gilanlar, the road continues to a valley across which (20 minutes on foot) are the evocative ruins of the Aghjots Vank/S. Stepanos Church of the early 13^th century (though founded, according to local legend, by Gregory the Illuminator on the site of the martyrdom of a certain Stepanos, companion of St. Hripsime). Opening the barrier and crossing the bridge to follow the road along the Azat River, one reaches after a few km a fork back to the right, which fords the Azat river and leads S over a difficult mountain track to the hamlt of Kakavaberd and then on to Dvin and the southern part of the Khosrov Reserve E of Vedi.  Just beyond, a fork left leads to Kyorpikend and to Mets Gilanlar and another approach to Kakavaberd.  At approximately 8 km from the Bayburd bridge, a stream across the road forms a barrier to most vehicles. Beyond it on a hill to the left is a ruined hamlet, an early habitation site. Somewhere nearby is a ruined medieval church and cluster of khachkars called Vanstan. On the sheer summit east of the river is Kakavaberd, more properly Geghi or Keghi Berd. This well preserved fortress of the 9^th-13^th c. is attested in manuscripts as a family fiefdom of the Bagratunis, then the Pahlavunis, site of a defeat of the Arab chieftain Beshr by Gevorg Marzpetuni in 924, and where Prince Ivane Zakarian took refuge after his defeat by Jalal ad Din Mingburnu, the last Khwarezm-Shah, near Garni in 1224.  Besides walls and towers, there is a medieval church in the fortress. In the vicinity are the S. Astvatsatsin church of Imirzek and five large dragon monuments (vishap), carved standing stones, with designs of bulls and birds.