Lori is the green and mountainous north of Armenia, a country of forests, mists and deep gorges. Here the road dives into the Debed canyon, beech slopes close over the river, and on every ledge stands now a church, now a fortress, now an abandoned copper-smelting village. This is the rainiest and the most "Georgian" land of the country in spirit: from here Tbilisi is closer than Yerevan.
Above the Debed gorge, facing each other, stand two monasteries — Sanahin and Haghpat, inscribed by UNESCO on the World Heritage List. From the 10th–13th centuries they were centres of learning: here they copied manuscripts, taught at the academy, carved khachkars. Downstream lie the basilica of Odzun, the rock-cut Kobayr, the gold-bearing Akhtala with its frescoes, and on the plateau above the canyon — the ruins of the Lori Fortress (Lori-Berd), capital of the medieval Tashir-Dzoraget kingdom.
The heart of the province is Vanadzor, Armenia's third-largest city, which grew in the Pambak valley as an industrial centre. To the north lie Stepanavan with its famous arboretum and Tashir, to the south-east the copper towns of Alaverdi and Tumanyan. And Spitak entered history forever as the epicentre of the 1988 earthquake — the town was rebuilt, and it lives again.
«My homeland is the mountains of Lori, where the clouds cling to the peaks, and in every gorge a fairy tale is hidden.»
On this page — the province's settlements (with weather on click), the main monuments, routes and chronicle. Sanahin, Haghpat, Dsegh, the Debed gorge — each with its own time and its own character.
