Dzithankov
A quiet village below Aragats

What is this place

Dzithankov is a small Armenian village in Armenia's Shirak Province, set on the western slope of Mount Aragats at about 1,740 metres. Today a little over thirteen hundred people live here, working the land and keeping livestock.

Dzithankov sits in the Ani Municipality of Shirak Province, roughly 37 kilometres south of Gyumri and a few kilometres west of neighbouring Lanjik. Until 1966 the village was called Bagirhana (Bazirkhan); the old name was changed during the Soviet era, as happened with many villages across Shirak. Its elevation of 1,740 metres and the open slopes of Aragats give it a cool, windy climate, with a long winter and a short, clear summer.

Life here is quiet and tied to the soil: the broad Shirak fields are sown with grain and fodder crops, and households keep livestock. The population has shifted over the past century, from more than fifteen hundred residents before the war to around 1,308 today.

Dzithankov's main landmark is the 19th-century Holy Mother of God Church, a modest stone sanctuary, along with a surviving memorial cross in the village. For the traveller, Dzithankov is worth a quiet stop on the way through greater Shirak, with no museum bustle but real mountain openness at the foot of Aragats.