Yerevan is the capital of the Republic of Armenia and one of the three hubs of the South Caucasus. It’s home to over a million people – the largest Armenian community in the world. In Soviet years, Yerevan underwent massive reconstruction, following architect Alexander Tamanyan’s new plans to make a perfect city. His vision was a neo-Classical town with wide avenues to resembe Paris, Vienna and Saint Petersburg.Central Yerevan is a true jewel of early Soviet architecture. It is also home to some large scale Modern and Post-Modern marvels which are mostly the result of Soviet-Armenian architectural megalomania. In Soviet days Yerevan had already become known as the Pink City as much due to the colour of the stone used for building as for the flamboyant spirit of its young population.Most of tourist Yerevan is concentrated in the centre. The centre is very compact and easily walkable, with endless dining and entertainment options. The rest of the city is mostly sleeping or business quarters, so a typical tourist will not have much incentive to leave the centre. Even though the history of Yerevan dates back to the Erebuni fortress, making it at least 2800 years old, little remains of what was small settlement saving the excavations at Hrazdan river gorge, Erebuni, Karmir Berd and Avan. These sites have been excavated, and the artefacts found are in museums today. Being on a strategically important place Yerevan was a constant war stage for rival Ottoman, Persian and Russian Empires. It has been repeatedly ruined by those wars or natural disasters (e.g. an earthquake in 17th century almost entirely destroyed the town). Few buildings of the old Erivan survived to the present-day Yerevan.At the time of Armenia’s independence in 1918, when Yerevan was made the capital of an independent Armenia, Yerevan was a town of just 20,000. Large scale construction began, which took a more holistic approach under the new city plan laid out by Alexander Tamanyan. The plan involved the demolition of much of what existed, in favour of concentric circles, parks, and taller structures. He planned for Yerevan to become a metropolis of 200,000 people.Yerevan is a very homogeneous city, though tiny Yezidi and Molokan (Russian) minorities exist. Because the population of the city was only 20,000 a century ago, the vast majority of the Armenians are immigrants themselves, from all over the world. From the villages and towns of Armenia, from Tbilisi which was the centre of Eastern Armenian culture before 1918, from Western Armenia as genocide survivors poured in, and even from the Middle East and Europe in a large, post-WWII wave of immigration. Since independence, the city has become the heart of the entire Armenian world, as the divisive communist governments demise has allowed the Diaspora larger in number than the population of Armenia itself, to embrace the city as its own.Many visitors will be surprised to know that Armenia is not just an outcrop of Christianity in the Caucasus, but was the first country in the world to adopt Christianity as a state religion. The king declared Christianity the state religion in 301AD. Christianity has been uninterruptedly practised in Armenia ever since in its own traditions. The One Holy Catholic Apostolic Orthodox Armenian Church, or just Apostolic Church, is the National Church of Armenia. It is very traditional

Airport: EVN Zvartnots International Airport Cities in Armenia

Country: Armenia