Yenokavan Village

Yenokavan (Arm: Ենոքավան), Tavush Marz

Yenokavan (568 p) lies N of the road, on either side of the Sarnajur (formerly Tala) river. West of Getahovit is the ruined Iritsi Aghbyur medieval settlement with church and cemetery. Until 1935 called Krdevan, Yenokavan was named after early Communist Yenok Mkrtumyan, who founded the first party cell in the region. On the S. edge of Yenokavan, perched on a rock overlooking the scenic gorge, is a small church with medieval tombstones. About a km S, down inside the gorge, reachable only on foot, is an Astvatsatsin church of the 13th c. Some 17 km W is the Okonakhach church. There are anciently inhabited caves in the breathtaking river valley, with fantastic hiking, rivers, caves, and forests. A local guide can take you around, feed you and set you up at a campsite for a reasonable price. At the NE end of the village overlooking the gorge is the 6-5th c. BC Astghi Blur with cyclopean walls and a huge tomb field. The main dirt road through Yenokavan bears right and up the ridge, traversing the starkly beautiful mountain pastures of the Ijevan Mt. Range*. This road, passible April-November (barely) by street car, serves various yaylas inhabited only in summer, and leads in some 66 km to the main Azatamut-Noyemberian road just S of Noyemberian. This may be the best road to Samsoni Monastery. Eight km NW of Yenokavan on this road, atop a hill, is Berdategh Early Armenian cyclopean fortress. Somewhere toward the Noyemberian end of the road is a village called Gomshavar with, 2 km E in a spot called Dondar, remains of a Bronze Age settlement.

Source: Rediscovering Armenia Guidebook