Bagravan
A quiet village by the Akhurian

What is this place

Bagravan is a small village in Armenia's Shirak Province, spread along the left bank of the Akhurian River at roughly 1,460 metres. Once known as Norshen, it is a calm farming corner about forty kilometres from Gyumri.

Bagravan sits on the broad Shirak plateau, where fields and pastures run down to the Akhurian River that marks the border between Armenia and neighbouring Turkey. Its elevation of 1,460 metres gives the place a changeable mountain climate, with hard winters giving way to a short but grass-rich spring. As across much of Shirak, the villagers have long lived by grain growing and livestock raising.

By tradition, the families of Bagravan descend from settlers who moved here in the late 1820s from Alashkert, Basen and Mush. The village keeps the memory of those roots and of the hard pages of the twentieth century: a memorial to local men who fell in the Second World War stands at its centre. Among its modest landmarks are a church with khachkars (carved cross-stones) and a small chapel of Surp Hambardzum (the Ascension).

The Gyumri-Yerevan railway runs through Bagravan, and the local railway station is one of the stops along this line through the Akhurian valley. For a traveller this is above all a chance to see everyday, non-touristy Armenia: the population is small, around 802 at the census, and the quiet and the wide views over the borderland plains stay with you.