Nina Hachigian, the special representative of the US embassy for cooperation between cities and states, shared her impressions of her visit to Syunik on her
X microblog.
"I spent the weekend in Syunik in southern Armenia before heading home. What a truly incredible place. The history, culture, lovely people and remarkable natural beauty amazed me. Thread on some of the experience.
The natural beauty of Syunik is astounding, and there is ancient history all around. Armenians and their ancestors have been living here for thousands, even tens of thousands of years. May they do so in peace for millennia to come.
As everywhere in Armenia, there were beautiful old churches in Syunik, as Armenia was the first state to adopt Christianity in 301 A.D. Some of the structures we saw go back to the 400s AD. We took an incredibly long arial tramway to get to one - the Tatev monastery complex.
Zorats Karer, known as Armenia’s “Stonehenge.” We got here as the sun was setting and walked around these magical rocks, estimated to date back to the second millenium, BC. Beautiful and intriguing.
Gyumri is a lovely city. Many of the over 100,000 Armenians who fled military capture of Nagorno-Karabagh/Artsakh in Sept came here 1st. The emptying of that land, where Armenians had lived for thousands of years, is still a fresh, tragic memory for many.
We hiked through old villages dating back hundreds of years, filled with large fruit trees like mulberries and walnuts. Some of the dwellings were caves, natural and carved. In the Soviet era, families were relocated to new villages.
The food in Syunik, as everywhere in Armenia, was fresh and delicious but they have particular regional dishes and lots of mountain tea. I hope to get back here soon," Hachigian stated.
