Arpeni
Catholic village near Mount Berd

What is this place

Arpeni is a small Armenian-Catholic village in Armenia's Shirak Province, sitting at about 1,920 metres near Mount Berd, northeast of Gyumri. Around 276 people live here, and the village's defining landmark is its large Catholic church.

Arpeni rests on the highlands of Shirak, about eleven kilometres northeast of Gyumri and close to the villages of Torosgyukh and Pokrashen. Mount Berd (formerly called Shishtapa, 2,255 metres) rises nearby — a peak that people from the surrounding villages have long treated as a place of prayer. The village was founded in 1852 by settlers from Iritsu in the Alashkert district of Western Armenia; until 1978 it was named Palutli, and since October 2016 it has belonged to the Sarapat community. The population is small, about 276, and life still revolves around livestock and farming, with potatoes and beekeeping.

Arpeni is one of the Shirak villages with a notable Armenian-Catholic population. Its heart is the large Catholic church completed in 1910, one of the biggest Catholic buildings in the Ashotsk district. The building has suffered repeatedly from natural disasters: the 1988 earthquake hit the village hard, and in 2013 the roof collapsed under heavy snow. Locals informally divide the village into Old and New Arpeni — the newer part was rebuilt after the earthquake.

Today Arpeni appeals to travellers heading into mountainous Shirak for quiet and an authentic rural Armenia: the stone Catholic church, views of Mount Berd, the clean highland air at nearly two thousand metres, and the unhurried rhythm of a Catholic farming community.