Yerevan

Yerevan’s centre was planned in the 1920s by the architect Alexander Tamanian, who laid out the city on a ring of boulevards around Republic Square and a long axis that runs north to the Cascade and south toward Ararat. Most of the historic centre was rebuilt in that plan, in pink and grey tuff, a soft volcanic stone that changes colour from rose to orange as the light changes.

The plan is easy to walk: the Kentron district sits inside the ring, Northern Avenue is a pedestrian street that connects the ring to the Cascade, and Mashtots Avenue runs uphill to the Matenadaran. The Hrazdan river gorge cuts across the west, and beyond it stands the Tsitsernakaberd hill.

The city is at about 1,000 m and it is a hot, dry place in summer and a cold, clear one in winter. The best light for the tuff buildings is at dusk, and on clear mornings and evenings Mount Ararat appears to the south. It lies across the border in Turkey, and many Armenians treat it as a national symbol.

A simple plan works: Kentron and Republic Square on foot, the Cascade and Northern Avenue in the evening, and the Matenadaran and memorial by taxi.

The city’s birth date is 782 BC, when King Argishti I of Urartu founded the fortress of Erebuni on a hill on the south-eastern edge. Cuneiform inscriptions on the site record the founding, and the city celebrated its 2,800th anniversary in 2018.

Urartu was an Iron Age kingdom that controlled the Armenian highlands and left fortresses, canals and inscriptions. After Urartu came the Armenian kingdoms and later the Persian, Ottoman and Russian empires, each of which shaped the city’s growth and its markets.

Yerevan was a modest town under Persian and Ottoman rule, with a fortress, mosques and bazaars. The Blue Mosque, built in the 1760s, is a survivor of that era and the only functioning mosque in the city today.

Yerevan became the capital of the short-lived First Republic of Armenia in 1918, then of Soviet Armenia, and then of independent Armenia in 1991. Most of the buildings you will see date from the Soviet period, but the city’s deeper story is present in the museums and on the hill of Erebuni.

In 1915, during the First World War, the Ottoman government deported and killed a very large share of its Armenian population. Historians estimate that around a million or more people died. Most scholars and many governments call it a genocide; Turkey rejects that term, and the issue remains politically charged.

Tsitsernakaberd, the memorial complex on a hill west of the centre, was opened in 1967, after protests in 1965 on the 50th anniversary demanded a memorial. Its design includes a tall stele, a circle of twelve basalt slabs around an eternal flame, and a wall with the names of places of massacre.

The Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, opened in 1995 beside the memorial, gives the history and testimony. It is a serious and sometimes hard place to visit, and it is worth allowing time and quiet afterwards.

Every 24 April, Remembrance Day, hundreds of thousands of people walk up the hill to lay flowers around the flame. Visit at another time, dress modestly, speak quietly, and do not take selfies at the flame.

Armenian is written in its own alphabet, created around 405 AD by Mesrop Mashtots, a monk and scholar. The alphabet let the Bible and other texts be translated into Armenian within a generation, and it shaped a literary culture that lasted through centuries without a state of its own.

The Matenadaran, named for Mashtots, holds one of the largest collections of Armenian manuscripts in the world, along with texts in other languages. The main building, finished in 1957 in basalt, sits at the top of Mashtots Avenue and is guarded by statues of scholars and of Mashtots himself.

Manuscripts were copied by hand and illuminated with painted scenes, and many were hidden in monasteries or carried by refugees across borders. The tour shows their scale, from tiny pocket volumes to very large gospels, and explains how they were made.

The alphabet is a national symbol: it began with 36 letters, two more were added in the Middle Ages, and the 38 letters appear on monuments, in logos and on souvenirs. In the city you can see them beside the Matenadaran’s statues and in the designs sold at souvenir stalls.

The Armenian table is built on grilled meat, bread, herbs, cheese and vegetables. Khorovats, the barbecue, is the social meal: skewers of pork, lamb or chicken, grilled tomatoes and peppers, and lavash bread. Dolma, vine leaves stuffed with rice and meat, and lahmajun, the thin spiced flatbread, are the everyday dishes.

Lavash, the thin flatbread baked on the walls of a clay oven, is on UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage. You will see it with cheese and herbs at every meal, and sheets of it in the GUM market.

Wine has ancient roots here: a cave near Areni has yielded evidence of a winery from about 4100 BC, one of the oldest known. Modern Armenian wine, from local grape varieties such as Areni, is worth trying in Yerevan’s wine bars. Brandy, made in the Soviet tradition, is the national spirit and a common gift.

Sweet things matter too: dried apricots, gata (a sweet bread) and coffee served in small cups. Meals are long, toasts are frequent, and hospitality is generous. Accept tea and sweets when offered.

Yerevan today is a café city. Terraces line Northern Avenue and Pushkin Street, and locals gather at dusk in Republic Square, on the Cascade and in small squares. The city runs late, and the evening is when most people are out.

Since 2018, when a peaceful mass movement, often called the Velvet Revolution, brought a change of government, the city has also become a centre for technology, design and media. Cafés and co-working spaces in the centre serve a young population and a large number of arrivals from abroad.

The Cascade, a giant staircase of terraces that leads up from Northern Avenue, sums up the change: begun in the Soviet era, finished in the 2000s with the Cafesjian Center for the Arts and a collection of sculpture in the gardens. Climb the outdoor steps or take the escalators inside, and finish at the top terrace at sunset.

For a visitor, the city works best as a base. Two to three days cover the sights; add day trips to Garni, Geghard, Khor Virap and Lake Sevan, and use taxi apps for a cheap and easy way around.