CENTRAL MARKET, GOY MOSQUE AND HRAZDAN GORGES

By continuing the Machtots Avenue, lined with tall buildings of the Stalinist era lined with pink tufa, whose alignment is broken by the concrete blockhouse of the Museum of Modern Art (No. 7), the animation is buzzing, pointing to the central market. Speaking about the Assyrian temple, this imposing building (2 300 m ² of concrete) dating back to the 1950 s is located on the site of the old bazaar. Opposite, once hidden in a courtyard of buildings and now reported by a porch covered with polychrome enamelled enamelled, the minaret and dome adorned with tiles of the blue mosque (Goy, th century), fully restored, vividly recall the Byzantine past of Yerevan. As for the majestic palace of sardar, it would be hard to recognize it behind the grey walls containing the cellars of the wine combinat Ararat which took its place since the 1930 s, at the end of Machtots Avenue, overlooking the gorges of the River Hrazdan. From the ancient Persian-style town, it remains only the small «red Bridge» (Karmir Kamourdj) which spans the river since the th century, and the cars naturally prefer the large modern bridge Hakhtanak («victory»). The latter, crossing the gorges of the Hrazdan, leads to the imposing 1915-arches building that houses the famous brandy of brandy and, beyond it, at Hrazdan Stadium, at the foot of the Verdoyante green hill recognizable at the arrows of the genocide that the crown. On this side of the gorge, under the church Sourp Sarkis (Saint-Serge, th century), some ancient stone houses in the crafting balconies still bear witness to the persian origins of the city. At the end of Machtots Avenue, you go down the street Grigor Loussavoritch to return to the place of the Republic, speaking this time on its west side, reported by the monument to the hero of Communist Armenian, Stépan The. Beyond this proletarian art specimen, a refreshing note is given by the fountain of fountains - which has 2 750 jets of water (as much as the Yerevan years in 1968) - finished by a square of grass that leaves nothing to guess about the heavy presence of the statue of Lenin.