UNDER CONSTRUCTION

   The main West-East  road  to  Spitak, once and potentially in the future an important transportation route from Kars to Tbilisi or Baku, leaves Gyumri to the NE, passing first through the village of Shirak (till 1940 Ghonaghkran, this earlier name in popular          etymology           meaning

   Opposite is a  turnoff  for  Kamo  (till 1935 Haji Nazar, Astvatsatsin church of 1878, named for a romantic but somewhat unsavory revolutionary bank robber).  Two km NW is Chataljur medieval settlement and Khacher Hellenistic site.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

“guest-killer,” after a legendary incident when the locals, warned of their guests’ evil intentions, massacred a group of Persian soldiers quartered in their houses).  There is a S. Hakob church and S. Minas shrine.