Ararat, Armenia — Towns & Travel Guide

What is Ararat known for?

Ararat is central Armenia's plainland province, spread across the flat, fertile valley that shares its name. Its western edge is the Aras river, which doubles as the frontier with Turkey. Across that water rises Mount Ararat, the twin-peaked volcano that gives the province and the whole national imagination their name, though the summit itself lies over the border.

Artashat is the provincial seat. Two lost capitals of old Armenia sit here in the plain, at Artashat and at Dvin. Vineyards and apricot orchards run across the valley floor.

Where is Ararat?

Ararat fills the south-eastern lobe of the Ararat plain, the wide flat valley that opens across central Armenia. The Aras river draws its western boundary. That same river marks the line between Armenia and Turkey, and Mount Ararat stands just beyond it, on the Turkish side, dominating every southward view from the Armenian bank.

The plain is only part of the story. Mountains ring the level ground on almost every side, and the land climbs from the valley floor near the Aras up to the Gegham range in the east, where Spitakasar is the highest point in the province. Rivers cross the flat: the Azat and the Vedi run down off the highlands to join the Aras.

Yerevan lies just to the north. From the vineyards near Khor Virap the snow-capped cone of Ararat fills the whole southern horizon.

What is Ararat like?

Ararat holds the sites where Armenian Christianity began. At Khor Virap, a monastery on the plain within sight of Mount Ararat, Gregory the Illuminator was held prisoner in a pit before the kingdom converted around the year 301. That story is the founding legend of the Armenian church, and Khor Virap against the backdrop of Ararat is the single most photographed scene in the country.

Faith is only half of it. The plain is also wine country, one of the old heartlands of grape-growing in the Caucasus, and the cellars of the Ararat valley turn its fruit into wine and brandy. Apricot orchards spread between the vines.

Armenian is the everyday language across the province, written in its own distinct alphabet.

What is the history of Ararat?

Two capitals of ancient Armenia rose on this plain. Artashat, the Hellenised Artaxata, was founded in 176 BC by King Artashes I, and ancient writers credited its walls to the exiled Carthaginian general Hannibal. It served the Armenian kingdom for close to four centuries.

When Artashat fell into decline, the seat of power shifted a short way north to Dvin, which became the medieval capital and a great trading city. Both now lie in ruins on the same valley floor.

What is the climate of Ararat?

Ararat has a dry continental climate that swings hard between the plain and the peaks. Down on the valley floor near the Aras the summers are hot and arid, the driest lowland in the country, while the surrounding mountains hold snow and turn bitterly cold in winter. Rain is sparse on the plain.

The vineyards depend on irrigation drawn from the rivers rather than on the sky.

How do you get to Ararat?

Nearly everyone comes through Yerevan first. Armenia's main airport sits just west of the capital, and the Ararat plain begins about thirty kilometres to the south, so the province is an easy road trip rather than a destination you fly into. A single highway runs south from Yerevan down the valley toward the Aras and the Turkish frontier, threading past Artashat and the turnoff for Khor Virap.

Local roads branch off it to the wineries and the ancient sites.