Holiday in the Caucasus (13): Tsaghkadzor, Armenia
Our second day in Armenia involved very little travel as we stayed in and out the town of Tsaghkadzor. Our minivan was a slightly larger one with three more seats providing a bit more room. At this height, the temperature was a comfortable 22C. Our problem was our guide who seemed to have improvisation as his guiding principle.
It was only an half hour drive to Lake Sevan. Set some 1,900 metres above sea level and covering 1,240 sq km (some 5% of the nation’s territory), this is the largest lake in the Caucasus and and one of the largest freshwater high-altitude lakes in the world. The impact of local development and climate change means that, in recent years, the level has fallen significantly. In the north-west corner of the lake, we went on an 30-minute boat ride – the first time on our holiday that we had been on water.
Afterwards the programme would have had us visiting a monastery on a hill by the side of the lake (Sevanavank Monastery), but some of the group were not keen on the 227 steps that would have been required to reach the top. So instead our guide took us to a nearby seminary, only for us to find that it was closed.
This enabled an early lunch back in Tsaghkadzor in a restaurant called “Zanazan”. Bizarrely I was served with my dessert first, then the wrong main course came along, and finally the correct main course arrived – but the food was good.
Even more bizarrely, we were then introduced to a friend of our guide who was an Armenian from Iran who had managed to fight in the Iraq/Iran war and both the recent Armenia/Azerbaijan wars. In Azerbaijan, our guide had described the wars as involving the Armenians as the aggressors. Here we were told that Azerbaijan had no claim to the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Next we visited another ecclesiastical site: the town’s Catholic Kecharis Monastery Complex where we were soon joined by a bride and groom plus photographer and drone. Our last activity was to use the ski lift to ascend Mount Teghenis where winter activities are very popular. There was nothing to see but the rides up and down were exciting. For once, we were back at our hotel at a time (4.15 pm) which gave us a decent time to relax before dinner in the hotel.