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Most easily reachable from the main Sevan highway rather than the
gorge,
Charentsavan
was founded in 1948 to house workers building the Gyumush hydroelectric
station, called Lusavan, then renamed in 1967 in honor of the famous but
somewhat dissolute poet Eghishe
Charents |
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Inside the greater
Charentsavan boundary is
Vardanavank (until recently Alapars, anciently and perhaps now again Aylaberk). Refounded in 1828-30 by immigrants from Maku and Khoy, the village
center has the General Vardan church, built by Prince
Grigor in 901
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(born Soghomonian in the city
of Kars, who died in prison in 1937, accused of nationalist deviation
(note his photograph, with distinctive nose, blown up on the wall of the
Abovian St. Pizza di Roma, and his house museum on Mashtots Blvd.). Charentsrentsavan waxed fat on
cheap electricity, becoming a major
industrial city. The Charentsavan
machine-building factory, the city’s largest employer, is no longer
booming. Note at the entrance to
the city the bronze “Renaissance”monumental group, inspired by
Charents’s “Curly-headed Boy” opus.
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and
rebuilt in the 19th c.
According
to local legend, one of the stones contains a drop of blood from Vardan
Mamikonian, the hero of the famous defeat of Avarayr on May 26, 451 at the
hands of Persians attempting to restore the Zoroastrian religion in
Armenia.
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