May 24, 2010
Today is day 4 of our journey in our homeland. Today’s trip took us from one end of Armenia to the other and ended in Arstakh. On our way to Khor Virab Monastery, we started to notice the great peaks of Mt. Ararat through the trees and bushes. Everyone became extremely anxious, grabbed their cameras and started taking pictures. Finally, the bus stopped at the parking lot of the church (Park-Astudzo), we ran out of the bus, up the hill to the area where it’s the closest spot to see Mt. Ararat from Armenia, took more pictures, then started heading into the monastery. We learned the story of St Gregory the Illuminator and how he was imprisoned in a hole for 13 years with no light. It was our turn to go down the hole. All the students and most of the parents took the 27 (thanks for counting Lenna) wobbly metal steps down to the dark dungeon. Many of us lit candles and prayed. After heading up the same 27 stairs it was back to the bus and on to Noravank, the 13th century monastery.
After a long bus ride we got to the beautiful church on top of a hill. Once again we ran out of the bus and up the hill to climb the stone stairs of the church. This had 15 steps on each side. All the students sat on each stone step while the parents took pictures with 17 different cameras. Noravank has many different churches; each church has 2 parts, the church and the vestibule. The vestibule has lots of burial tombs. On one of the churches, we saw the only representation of Father God in Armenia. The carved stone has the face of a Mongolian. This was done so the Mongolian’s won’t burn down the church during a war between the Armenian’s and the Mongolian’s. This idea was also used on Shah Apas at Echmiadzin. We had a delicious lunch at a restaurant next to Noravank.
Then, we got on to the bus and to our next destination; Karahundj (pre-historic Stonehenge) in the Sisian Region. The large stones, some as heavy as two tons were placed perfectly to align with the sun and stars. After this short stop, we were on our way to Arstakh. On this extremely long ride, we learned about the great battles the brave Armenian solders fought to reclaim this region. We arrived very late to The Armenia Hotel in Arstakh, we got our room keys, had a quick dinner and off to bed (well not for me, because I wanted to write this blog for you guys).
By Katarena Nalbandian