Travel Guide Achtarak

At 1,100 metres above sea level, in the southern foothills of the Arakadz, Achtarak is a pretty town with a pleasant climate and a relaxing and picturesque green setting, on the banks of the Kazakh river, spanned by a beautiful ogive bridge. It has kept several beautiful churches from the Middle Ages, but is still marked by Sovietism, rather discreet however, the charm of the place has not escaped the elite of the time, who liked to meet there in confidential addresses. Gateway to central Armenia, Ashtarak also gives the easiest access to the Arakadz, which is already revealed in all its majesty, as underlined in his Journey to Armenia (Ed. Mercure de France) the Russian writer Ossip Mandelstam, who stayed there in the 1950s: "From the village of Achtarak, suspended from the murmur of the water like an iron trellis [...] the foothills of the Alaguez (editor's note: the Turkish name for Arakadz) are accessible and it is easy to get there on foot. The lava is captive there in earthen mounds. One moves there as if in butter... ». From his hotel in Yerevan, the Russian writer specifies that he had "formed an absolutely false image of the Alaguez. I thought it was a monolithic link. In fact, there is a set of folds that unfold into tiers. At the measure of the cleavage of the slopes, the rough organ of the diorites swirled like an alpine waltz ".The scenery has not changed, the nature has remained wild and the infrastructures are rare. To conquer the Arakadz, from Achtarak, unless you are a good walker, you don't need mountaineering equipment, at least not as far as the Kari Litch lake, at 3 200 m. A good 4X4 will take care of it, on the other hand, cars or taxis running on natural gas, as is often the case in Armenia, will have more trouble, and will sometimes stop along the way! Horses are still an option, as Achtarak has a riding school. In winter, the very heavy snowfall makes the road almost impassable