CARAVANSERAIL

Visible from the road leading to Yerevan, on a vast plateau gently sloping down to the Ararat plain, it gives only a vague idea of the past splendour. The three low arches of orange tuff were the first level of what was once a caravanserai. It reminds us that in the Middle Ages Aruch was a stopover on the Tabriz-Dvin-Kars trade route and the Silk Road. Caravanners stopped at this caravanserai, a three-nave building from the 13th-16th centuries, whose corner walls are reinforced with turrets.