Travel Guide Gavar

Founded in 723, this large agricultural village, languishing on the shores, then closer to the lake, was called Nor Bayazit until it was renamed Kamo, an Armenian Bolshevik, in 1959, a promotion that was accompanied by a typically Soviet urban development. The capital of the province of Gegharkunik, the city that today bears the name of Gavar, and whose inhabitants are renowned for their "anekdots", has retained its appearance, even though it is organized around the central square, where a large domed church built in 1848 in the national style stands. Of its medieval past, it has only preserved, in addition to the neighbouring cemetery of Noradouz, the 9th century Sourp Asdvadzadzine church, and in its suburbs, the Sourp Hovannes church (rue Nalbandian), a rustic building from the same period topped by a rotunda.