A short story about the journey that opened, surprisingly, the best place on earth.
The first day. The plane was delayed, we barely had time for a transfer. Armenia, Georgia, Turkey, the city of Dugoboyazit, again the border zone.
Finally, we arrived in the ancient Armenian city of Ani.
In the period from 961 to 1045, Ani was the capital of the kingdom of the same name, the borders of which included a significant part of modern Armenia and the east of Turkey. The city stands on a triangular hill formed by the gorge of the Akhuryan River and the Bostanlar Valley, its location served as a natural defense. Ani is called the city of 1001 churches, several trade routes ran through it, and its religious buildings, palaces, and fortifications were among the most technically and artistically advanced in the world.
First Day - we need to climb Ararat in 3 days. Everything needs to be done because we are in the border zone, where there is still a war.
By the way, despite the presence of glaciers, Ararat does not give rise to any river. There is a folk legend that the waters from the glaciers of Ararat flow into the underground lake …
So we climbed 3200, the height of our first camp. It was easy to go, the road was good, which finally spoiled us.
Second day. We got to camp 4200-300. In general, the road was also uncomplicated, at the top a shortage of oxygen was just beginning to be felt. When the temperature below is +40, on the mountain +20 with an icy wind, at night - zero, at the top minus 10 - all this exhausts much more.
We climbed big Ararat, but there is still no less interesting small Ararat. It can be seen either from the side of Armenia or already from the top of the big Ararat. There is a version that the Christian Bible speaks of the mountains of Ararat, and not of one mountain. The interpretation that Noah stopped at that very Ararat arose already in the 5th century. outside of Armenia.
The third day was a day of ambitious maximalism and personal feats. We left for climbing at 12 in the night, reached the summit in five hours.
In the end, they reached the top, took a selfie, took a selfie, even managed to smoke. We started our way home.
Day four. If you don’t know anything about the city of Van, that’s fine. Tours are not sold there olinclusive, it is not included in the top attractive tourist cities. However, the antiquity and fate of this city is admired even by experienced historians.
Van (aka Tushpa) is the capital of the state of Urartu, and then of Ancient Armenia. The photo of the traveler with the tracks is the remains of the old city of Tushpa, and then the Armenian part of the city located here. The scale is astounding.
Now only the fortress of the 9th century remains. She’s generally unrealistic. It’s scary to imagine how much these walls have seen and how much more they will survive.
Van Fortress survived the Armenian Genocide, the pogroms of the Armenian quarters, several terrible earthquakes, but most of all there were devastations in the First World War.
Now Van attracts visitors with cats, samovars and a beautiful lake. The lake and cats are the most amazing of the local wonders of nature. For reference - Ancient Armenia was called the “country of three seas” (lakes Van, Urmia and Sevan), although there were no seas. Van is the largest soda lake in the world and the fourth largest non-perennial drainage lake. However, a beautiful mountain lake is beautiful only outside. The climate here is very harsh.
The water of the lake with salt and soda washes things well, so the locals wash their clothes here. We happened to swim in this lake - it feels like swimming in dishwashing detergent. There lives one single fish, which is caught by the Van cat.
On Van Lake, there is Akhtamar Island with a 9th-century Armenian church - the only church on the territory of historical western Armenia (modern Turkey), the dome of which was crowned with a cross immediately after restoration. And this despite the fact that officially it is a museum, not a church. For Armenians, the church of the Holy Cross remains an ancient holy place: some believers especially come to conduct a baptismal ceremony.
I’ll end with cats.
Near the same Van, lake live Van cats. This breed became widely known only in 1955, before that there were minor mentions in stories and paintings.
The Van cat is famous for being not afraid of water, likes to swim (they haven’t seen it before) in the soda waters of the Van Lake and catch the exclusive Van Trout. Their wool resembles cashmere in composition, so it gets wet badly.
A distinctive feature of cats is different eyes, one blue, the other yellow or amber, a white body.
Until the end of the 19th century, the cat was a symbol of the Armenian liberal movement, further a symbol of Kurdistan in nationalist circles, as well as the beloved cat of Kemal Ataturk.
In general, you probably realized that in Van, almost everything is dedicated to the cat. Since it is forbidden to export Van cats, it remains to buy a silver copy.