Historic site · Goris, Goris Community, Syunik
Old Goris (Kyores) Cave Dwellings
Հին Գորիս · Կյորես · Kyores · Old Goris
The abandoned cave quarter of Kyores beside modern Goris, on the left bank of the Vararakn river, where the original town grew in and around a natural cave system.
Where it is
39.5069, 46.3566
Why go
Before Goris was laid out as a planned town, its people lived at Kyores, and armenia.travel describes that settlement as built in and around a natural cave system on the left bank of the Vararakn. What remains is a hillside of caves shaped for living in, at the edge of the modern town, so it needs no long drive from a Goris guesthouse. HIKEArmenia lists the cave dwellings among the landmarks on its route from Goris towards Tatev and Kapan, and Old Khndzoresk, the abandoned cave village further east, makes the natural second visit.
Near Old Goris (Kyores) Cave Dwellings
Historic site
Old Khndzoresk
An abandoned cave village cut into the slopes of a gorge near Goris, with around 2,000 rock dwellings and a swinging footbridge across the ravine.
7 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ
Monastery
Bgheno-Noravank
Reduced to a single small church dated 1062, this Syunik monastery stands on a triangular promontory above wooded gorges east of Bardzravan, its walls carved with ornamental borders and biblical reliefs.
13 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ
Monastery
Great Hermitage of Tatev
A walled hermitage where the Tatev stream joins the Vorotan river, begun in 1660 to replace an earlier hermitage lost to an earthquake, and screened from view by walnut and fig trees.
16 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ
Monastery
Tatev Monastery
Tatev's churches and defensive walls stand on a basalt promontory above the Vorotan gorge in Syunik, reached by road or by the Wings of Tatev cable car from Halidzor, and in the 14th century housed a noted university.
17 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ