UNDER CONSTRUCTION

   A good paved road leads south from Ejmiatsin to the Turkish border crossing point at Margara, now closed.  The road passes Mokhrablur (see above) and a series of farming villages. Vache  (till 1978 Aralikh Kyolanlu, then Griboyedov, named after     the    Russian     writer/diplomat

   Next   come   Aknashen    (till   1978 Khatunarkh Verin, with S. Bardughimeos church; SW of village is ruin of 8th c. building).

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Alexander Sergeyich Griboyedov, who first visited Armenia in 1819, then returned as General Paskevich’s chief diplomat to take part in the Russian conquest of Armenia and Treaty of Turkmanchay.  Appointed Plenipotentiary Minister to Tehran, he was murdered along with the rest of the Russian Embassy staff by a Persian mob in 1829).  SW of the village is a Chalcolithic tell. About four km S of Ejmiatsin, about 150 m W of the main S road to Margara just before a railroad embankment, is a low hill behind a little hamlet, surrounded by an iron fence (gaps in NE side).  This is the Chalcolithic (late 4th Mill. BC) through Hellenistic (4th-1st c. BC) site of Mokhrablur (“Ash Hill”). There are 8 meters of deposits representing 12 distinct habitation layers. Very little is visible, beyond one huge stone block and a wide range of pottery fragments.  The Soviet Armenian Encyclopedia makes the daring claim that Mokhrablur’s central temple, which they say dates to the 10th c. but actually seems to be of the 1st half of the 3rd millennium BC, was the earliest known example of monumental stone architecture in the Soviet Union.