Gyumri
Armenia · Shirak · 1550 m
Description
Gyumri (Գյումրի) is the second city of Armenia and keeps the largest quarter of nineteenth century black tuff townhouses in the country, built by a merchant class under Russian rule and carved with a local stonework that has no equivalent elsewhere. An earthquake in 1988 killed around twenty five thousand people here and flattened the Soviet blocks while much of the older stone town stood, and the recovery took thirty years. It has a reputation across Armenia for humour, for its own dialect and for its craftsmen, and the Kumayri old town is slowly being restored street by street.
Length of stay
Recommended length of stay: 1 to 2 days (optimal 2 days)
Travel season
Best time to visit: May – September
- Jan
- Feb
- Mar
- Apr
- May
- Jun
- Jul
- Aug
- Sep
- Oct
- Nov
- Dec
Highlights
- Kumayri old town and its black tuff houses
- Vardanants Square and the twin churches
- Dzitoghtsyan Museum of Social Life
- 1988 earthquake memorials
- Black Fortress on the ridge
- Mother Armenia statue and the hill park
- Gyumri craft workshops and the metalwork
- Sergey Merkurov house museum
- Marmashen Monastery on the Akhurian gorge(Day trip)
- Gyumri bakeries and the ponchik pastry
Getting there
- Airports:
- LWN
- Train stations:
- Gyumri