Haghpat Monastery

Haghpat sits on a green shelf partway up the side of the Debed canyon in Armenia's northern Lori region, placed so that it would be sheltered and hard to spot from the valley floor. It was founded around 976 by Queen Khosrovanuysh, wife of the Bagratid king Ashot III, at roughly the same time as its sister monastery at Sanahin a few kilometres away. For the next three centuries it grew into one of the great centres of learning in medieval Armenia, and UNESCO listed the two monasteries together in 1996 as the high point of an architecture that fused Byzantine church design with the building traditions of the Caucasus.

The core is the Cathedral of Surb Nshan (the Holy Sign), begun by the queen and finished in 991 by her son Smbat II. Its dome stands on four massive piers, and the outer walls are cut by deep triangular niches, a signature of tenth-century Armenian masonry. Inside, the apse still carries a painted Christ Pantocrator, and a relief on the east gable shows the founder's sons, the princes Smbat and Kiurike, beside Queen Khosrovanuysh. Around it the monks added a small domed church of St Gregory in 1005, a free-standing three-storey bell tower in 1245, a chapel to the Mother of God, a large refectory and a library whose floor was later sunk with clay storage jars.

What makes Haghpat memorable is less any single building than the way they lock together: vaulted halls (gavits) with heavy intersecting arches lead from one church to the next. The grounds are scattered with khachkars, the carved cross-stones of Armenia; the best known, the Amenaprkich (All-Saviour) of 1273, stands in a gallery beside the library.

The complex has survived a great deal. An earthquake around 1130 left parts of it in ruins for half a century, armies passed through repeatedly, and another major earthquake in 1988 caused further damage, yet the buildings stand today largely as their builders left them. Walk to the edge of the grounds for the view across the gorge to the ridges on the far side, which explains better than any plaque why the site was chosen.

Getting there

Haghpat village is about 10 km from Alaverdi, the town in the Debed canyon below, and about 37 km from Vanadzor, the regional centre. There is no direct transport from Yerevan: take a bus or minibus from Yerevan's Kilikia bus station to Alaverdi (or to Vanadzor), then a local minibus up to Haghpat; the last one back runs in the late afternoon, so check times locally. The nearest international airport is Tbilisi (TBS) in Georgia, about 67 km away in a straight line but across the border; within Armenia, Shirak International Airport at Gyumri (LWN) is about 81 km away.