Vayk
A town on Armenia's southern road

What is this place

Vayk is a small town in the Vayots Dzor province of southern Armenia, strung along the Arpa River at around 1,300 metres above sea level. The M-2 highway from Yerevan toward Sisian and Goris runs straight through it, so many travellers first meet Vayk as a stop along the way.

Vayk lies roughly 140 kilometres south of Yerevan and just over twenty kilometres from the provincial centre of Yeghegnadzor. Ringed by mountains to the north and south, the town stretches in a narrow band along the left bank of the Arpa River, which sets the rhythm of the whole valley. At about 1,300 metres, winters here are snowy and summers mild and cool, something you sense at once in the clear mountain air.

The town has a long but modest history. The settlement here was once called Soylan; during the Soviet years it bore the name Azizbekov, and it took its present name, Vayk, in 1990, on the eve of Armenian independence. Town status came later, in 1995, during an administrative reform that placed Vayk within the Vayots Dzor province.

At the entrance to town, visitors are greeted by the Saint Trdat Church, a modern building with a distinctive silhouette and carved wooden doors. About a kilometre west of town, an old seventeenth-century bridge crosses the Arpa, and traces of ancient settlements have been found in the surrounding area. Local life rests on farming, livestock and roadside trade, and a well-known company producing wine and dried fruit operates here as well.