The Tatev monastery

One of the most famous sights of Armenia is the Tatev monastery. There is a famous cableway called  Wings of Tatev to the monastery but in March there are no tourists and it was closed for maintenance. The day before a taxi driver found me, organized a bed to sleep and in the early morning we drove up to the monastery.

Also if you are not interested in monasteries you should go there because the landscape is breathtaking.  (OK, if you don't like monasteries, reconsider to go to another country ;-) ) Driving to the monastery and back are 2000 m altitude. The road was only partly asphalted this explained the quite high price for the taxi. But it was worth it to learn about the country. The driver became a fried and we are still in contact.
It is really crazy how Armenia works or why not. He is a teacher but his salary is too low  to life from that. The taxi brings more money. That is sad because what is a country without natural resources without education? However, as I already learned if you are a clever guy you don't have a chance in Armenia because without either bribing or knowing the right persons you cannot start a business, build a house, buy land etc. I am not exaggerating when I say it is kind of a criminal state. There are people acting out of the laws suppressing others. For example you have to pay for electricity, water etc. like in every country but when you don't get fresh water and complain your family members will get problems. Even teachers might be put under pressure to give your kids bad grades. So even when you don't get the good you are paying for, it is not an option to go to court unless you have monay to bribe a judge. Yes, this affects other countries too, but I haven't seen the level of Armenia in other countries yet. In a further post I will report more about this because now, after 3 years distance in writing this, it still pisses me off.

However, let's enjoy the landscape with Lion Sphere - Caravan.

View over the Vorotan gorge from the monastery.

 

 The building at the lower left is the Tatevi Anapat monastery.

This is the road up from the Vorotan river to the monastery. One climbs 500 m with this street.

The monastery was important for the Armenian society because of its university. In its best times 1000 monks lived there. This is hard to believe because the monastery is so small. Today only a few monks live in the main monastery.
Despite my taxi driver is a teacher he is not interested in history. So it was me who explained him things despite he had been there a hundred times. We arrived early and there were monks preparing some food. I was not shy and asked them. While translating my driver learned this way about the monastery. Since there is a lot of literature, I refer to it and just post some images:

The entry building contains the oil press.
On on top of it is the St. Astvatsatsin church.

The oil press.
 

The spring building besides the entry building.
 

Right side of the Poghos-Petros Church with the Grigor Tatevatsi mausoleum and the St. Grigor Lusavorich church.

The Gavazan. a pillar from year 906.

One of the houses where the monks live today.

 

The monks already ate.

The refectory has no oven, only this open nice to make fire.

 

This hall was mainly used as dormitory

The dormitory is  directly at the big wall.

The main church St. Pogos and Petros

View towards the refectory and kitchen buildings.

Entry of the main church.

As usual the churches are bare.

Ruins of the school building.

I could not resist to ask what they are doing with the cableway and it turned out they are experts from Austria. They had to change a cable. When I remember correctly they were using a short rope to keep the main rope tension and were splicing a broken cable part to replace it. Here is a video from the company that built the ropeway.

Splicing the cable fibers.

Cable to keep the rope tension