Stepanavan & Around

Introducing Stepanavan & Around

Stepanavan sits on a plateau above the steep-sided gorge of the Dzoragets River, fabled for its fine summer weather and, less proudly today, as one of the centres of Armenian communism. The area has been a site of settlement for millennia, on fertile fields above the river. The town is quiet, but it’s a nice place for a wander (away from the usual monumental Soviet centre) and the locals are friendly.

An early cell of the Bolsheviks led by local lad Stepan Shahumian operated from hideouts and caves before the revolution. Shahumian died in a lonely corner of the Turkmenistan desert with the other 26 ‘Baku Commissars’ in 1918, later sanctified in countless memorials across the region. (The Baku Commissars were Bolshevik leaders in the Caucasus in the early days of the revolution.) A rather dashing Shahumian poses on a pedestal in the main square, Stepan Shahumian Hraparak.

Last updated: Mar 24, 2009