Anushavan
A quiet village at the foot of Aragats

What is this place

Anushavan is a small village in Armenia's Shirak Province, set on the north-western foothills of Mount Aragats, about 23 kilometres south-east of the provincial centre, at around 1,720 metres above sea level. A little over two thousand people live here, where the silence of the mountain air is broken only by grazing flocks and the wind.

Anushavan spreads across the high fields on the north-western foothills of Aragats, where the sky feels close and the winters are long and snowy. Its elevation of 1,720 metres shapes the whole character of the village: cool summers, clear distances, and a landscape in which the stone houses seem to have grown straight from the ground. Today around 2,070 people live in Anushavan, a calm rural community, part of whose families descend from settlers who came from Western Armenia.

The village was formerly known as Pokr Parni. Its people have long worked the land, growing grain and fodder crops and raising livestock, living to the unhurried rhythm of the highlands, where the turning seasons firmly set the calendar of work.

Anushavan preserves monuments of history and culture — the Church of Saint George (Surb Gevorg) and the Surb Nshan chapel of the 12th-14th centuries, modest but living reminders of local history. For the traveller, Anushavan is not a showcase landmark but a chance to glimpse everyday life in a Shirak village far from the tourist trail, and to feel the unhurried rhythm of the Armenian highlands at the foot of Aragats.