Church · Anipemza, Ani community, Shirak
Yereruyk Basilica
Երերույքի տաճար · Yererouk · Yereruyk · Ererouk
The partly collapsed ruin of an early Christian three-nave basilica on a rocky knoll at Anipemza, on the eastern rim of the Akhurian gorge in Shirak.
Where it is
40.4400, 43.6092
Why go
UNESCO's tentative-list entry dates the basilica to the fourth or fifth century and places it among the earliest Christian monuments in Armenia. An earthquake brought much of it down, yet substantial walls still stand on a stepped base, and the knoll beneath is pierced by caves and scattered with the remains of monastic and secular buildings. The name is linked to the Armenian verb meaning 'to quiver'. The ruins of Ani lie only a few kilometres away, across the border. It rewards travellers based in Gyumri who have an interest in early church architecture.
Near Yereruyk Basilica
Church
Talin Cathedral
A roofless 7th-century cathedral in Talin's cemetery, its dome and outer walls brought down by earthquakes in 1840 and 1931, with fragments of apostle frescoes still visible in the apse.
23 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ
Church
Saint Hovhannes Church, Mastara
Mastara's Saint Hovhannes is an early domed church on a square plan, its four projecting apses carrying a polygonal cupola, in a village near Talin that also keeps a carved 13th-century khachkar.
23 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ
Fortress
Dashtadem Fortress
A walled stronghold on the southern edge of Dashtadem village, where an octagonal ring of 19th-century bastions encloses an older keep bearing an Arabic inscription of 1174 in Kufic script.
24 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ
Archaeological site
Archaeological Complex of Horom
Two excavated hilltop citadels near Horom village on the Gyumri–Artik road, with walls up to two metres high above a settlement and cemetery used from the Early Bronze Age to the Urartian period.
35 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ