May 26, 2010
Today we woke up at 7:30 am and went for breakfast at 8:30. After breakfast some of the kids went on the computer for a few minutes to check their e-mails and look at the blog before heading to the monastery of Gandzasar.
Gandzasar is a very big church with a lot of stone crosses. It is located in the Northern part of Artsakh. The church was built in 1238 (13th century). The stone crosses were created before the church was built and are placed on one side of the church. Our tour guide (Maryam) said that there is only one stone cross in Armenia with the design of sun on it and it is located in Gandzasar.
Artsakh has 6 regions: Martouni, Shahoumian, Martakert, Askeran, Shushi and Hadrout. There are many vegetables (tomatoes, cucamber, herbs) and fruits (apple, mulberry, walnut, quince, cherries) that are grown in Artsakh. After lighting candles, and listening to the tour guide, we took lot of group and family pictures and then went to the souvenir shop.
After Gandzasar, we went to a village of Vank near the monastery where there was a zoo and a restaurant in the shape of a boat. There were also lots of walls covered with license plates from Azerbaijan time. We all had ice cream there that was very delicious.
After Vank we went to Nigol Touman house and museum which is in the Village of Gheshlagh. The bus could not go to the village so we had to walk about 1 kilometer to reach there. When we got there, the lunch was ready and we ate great local food (Jengelov Hats, potato and pork kebab and vegetables). After lunch we visited the museum which was very nice and we learned about Nigol Touman, who was an educated man that knew more than 5 languages and was a hero who faught against Turks to save the Armenians.
Later, on our way back to Stepanakert we stopped by the monument of Mamig and Babik and took lot of photos that we will share with you today. It was very exciting and some of us even tried climing on the monument. We also met the students from Alex Pilibos high school from Los Angeles that were visiting Armenia and Artsakh, just like us.
On the roads we saw lots of beautiful hills and mountains and also saw lots of animals like horses, donkeys, sheeps, goats, pigs, roosters and chickens.
Finally, we reached the city of Stepanakert and stopped by the bazaar and we all went for local shops. It was fun to see the people and talking to them and learning about their way of life. We all eally enjoyed our day vey much.
By Areg Ghahraman