St. Stephen's Armenian School

May 30, 2012

Our first stop was at the Vartan Mamigonian statue, it was made in 1978. Vartan was on a horse with a sword in his, the statue was made by Yervant Kochar, a famous sculptor. It was made in honor of his bravery in war.

On our way to a museum we saw Krikor Lousavorich Church. The church is made from rocks, those rocks are from the city of Ani, they came from Ani because part of lost Armenia will always be with them. It is the biggest church in Armenia.
Read the rest of this entry »

May 29, 2012

We started our trip at 8:30.Our first destination was Geghardavank.It was fascinating. It was built in 1215. The churches were carved out of rocks from top to bottom. Inside the church there was a natural spring. People say if you drink from that water your pain will go away. The steeple is decorated with pomegranates, which symbolize new life. In one of the rooms there was a hole in the ceiling so the people can communicate with the other room. The builders also figured out how to make natural air conditioning. In the room with the hole in the ceiling, the alter is built in front of an area with strong gravity. People believed that standing in front of the alter could cure them. In reality the strong gravity took away the pain for a little while.

Our second stop was the temple of Garni. It was built in 100 B.C. by King Drtad the first. It was dedicated to the sun god, Meeher, the Armenian version of the Greek god Helios. It became a nearly incapable fortress, it was also a summer house for Armenian royalty. We also saw their bathtub, it had four rooms. One three were tubs there was a hot water tub, a warm water tub and a cold water tub. The fourth room was hanging room, it had beautiful nearly complete mosaics on the floor.
Read the rest of this entry »

May 28, 2012

Sartarabad was amazing. The 12 bells represent the 12 regions of Armenia. I really liked the bulls. There were 5 eagles all with their backs faced to Turkey. When we walked forward to see the performance we took pictures with the Vehapar and President Sarkisian. We also shook hands with him.

The performance was great. The dancers were amazingly good. After that some people started feeling like they were going to faint. We also met the minister of education.
Read the rest of this entry »

May 27, 2012

It’s day 10 ,we walked to the Metro train station. We took a train to the Yeredasartagan station. It’s called Yeredasartagan ,because in English Yeredasartagan means youth/young , and a lot of the universities are in the area of the station.

Madenataran was huge. It was made in 1957. The statue in front is Mesrob Mashdots and his student Goryoun kneeling in front of him. He is kneeling in front of him because he wrote his biography. Madenataran looks like a church because it has a lot of books. It has 17,000 books, 15,000 in Armenian and 2,000 are in different languages. Next to the door are 6 of our famous people. Examples are Anania Shiragatsy and Movses Khorenatsy.
Read the rest of this entry »

May 26, 2012

When we were going to Lori, we stopped at the Armenian alphabet. Each person stood at their letter and took a picture. It was so cool to see the alphabet in 3D. We took a class picture on the S,V because of our school name. On the way we also saw three mountains, Ararat, Arakadz and Ara’s Mountain. It was a beautiful and bright day out. I wish it was like this when we went to Khor Virab. They were really pretty!

We also went to a market to get some food. We got the world’s best bread! It was so good, it was speechless. They made it fresh from the tonier. Under the bus we saw a cat. We didn’t want to touch it, but we did give it food. We gave it some bread. When we gave a piece of sausage and the cat swallowed it down in one bite. After a little we named it Lavash cause all we gave it was lavash.
Read the rest of this entry »

May 25, 2012

Today we went to Alexander Tamanyan’s statue. When you first walk in you see all these pretty statues, but we only saw one statue that was of Alexander Tamanyan.We first went to the other side of the museum and we saw a beautiful flowery hedge in the middle of all the statues. They were very interesting to look at. We noticed that the Alexander Tamanyan statue had a map of Yerevan made as a sun. The streets going across were as a circle in a sun formation, and the streets going in colums were the suns’ rays. After, we went see the museum, but unfortunately it closed. So instead we went up for pictures. When we were going up we took the escalators. There must have been at least 15 escalators row after ,row after row. When we finally reached the top of Kascad there was a tower inside of different colored crystals. It was very cool because they were in different shapes and sizes. When we went out to the top floor of Kascad, we saw a beautiful sight of Ararat. I was sort of hoping that we would see the small mountain and big, but we only saw the big part.

We went to the Yerevan school and saw all the kids. When you would enter the school there would be paintings hung up on the wall. The school was much bigger than ours. They had like four buildings that were sort of like districts. After the teachers and some students showed us the slide show (they had made for us) we then went outside to play basketball in the basketball court.
Read the rest of this entry »

May 24, 2012

Today, we departed for Yerevan. Shushi was very nice, but we were all happy to go back. On our way we stopped at Berdzor to plant trees and plant our roots in Kharabagh . Trees are very hard to plant, but they are so useful to the environment and the economy. We should appreciate the work people go through to plant these beautiful and useful trees.

Our next stop was the tramway ride to the monastery of Datev. Everyone was so excited, but nervous to ride on it. We finally went out though and enjoyed the breath taking views of Datev and its surroundings; the trees, forests, sky, and mountains. The tramway ride was pretty steady; this gave us ample time to enjoy the scenery.
Read the rest of this entry »

May 23, 2012

Today we went to the Shushi Museum, since we didn’t go yesterday. Today was raining too, but we persisted. We saw a lot of pottery and rocks. We also saw a 3-D map of Shushi’s liberation plan. There was a plaque that was in memory of my dad, Vahe Mahrokhian. I felt very proud. We also saw a picture of the St. Ghazanchetsots church at the time of the liberation. It was very cool to see.

Next, we went to the first tank that entered Shushi during the attack. We said a poem called Artsakh. I think we said it very precisely. The tank was so cool. I couldn’t believe how easy it was to get down when it was so hard to get up.
Read the rest of this entry »

May 22, 2012

Today we went to the school of Khachadour Apovian in Shoushi. We met the fifth graders there, and became friends with each other. We sang and recited poems for the fifth graders there. They also sang and recited poems for us too. Then, we gave each other telephone numbers and addresses, so we could keep in touch with each other.

Then, we walked to the church called Sourp Amenapergich. The church was built in 1868. The church had held manuscripts in hermit rooms under the alter. This church has been a weapon storage for the Azeris, until 1992 when Shoushi became liberated by Armenian freedom fighters. We visited a room under the church, that when you stand in the center of the room and say something looking up, the words will echo through the room. When we left the church, it started to hail on us very badly. The hail was very big and hard. We managed to reach the bus in the hail and rain. When we went in the bus, we sat down and went to the Shoushi Grand Hotel, to eat lunch. When we finished eating lunch, we went to Amaras.
Read the rest of this entry »

May 21, 2012

Today was so exciting because we went to Gomidas’ Aiki. I thought that only Gomidas’ gravestone is there, but I was totally wrong. There is so many intellectuals’ gravestones that you name it and you see it. We took a lot of pictures that it was getting annoying! There was even a bench that said Yerevan on it in Armenian. It was so cool!

On the way to Artsakh, we went to Khor Virab. At the bottom of the church were two dungeons and in one of them Krikor Lusavoritch was thrown in it. One dungeon was big and the other was small. Everyone was scared to go in (including me). I was really scared, but my mom told me that this is once in a lifetime thing, and after when most of my friends went, they told me it’s soooooo cool.
Read the rest of this entry »

May 20, 2012

Today I woke up very tired. But I remembered that we were going to Echmiadzeen, so it made me happy. Echmiadzeen is Armenia’s oldest church. It was built from 301 to 303. Until 1920, Echmiadzeen was known as Vagharshabad. At Echmiadzeen’s 16th century the church got miniature.
Read the rest of this entry »

May 18, 2012

Today we are waiting tediously, but excited to go to Yerevan, Armenia. Near the gate, we already see Yerevan printed on. We all filled in our journals today, for the first time! We are waiting impatiantley to go on the plane and get to Hayastan!! Everybody is so excited! Today at night , we arrived finally in Yerevan! Yay!
Read the rest of this entry »