Haghartsin Monastery

Covered up in a verdant valley 13km upper east of Dilijan, Haghartsin was worked between the tenth and thirteenth hundreds of years and has three houses of worship: one named for Gregory the Illuminator another for the Virgin Mary and the third for St Stephen. There are dazzling khachkars, a sundial on the mass of St Gregory, a demolished gavit and a refectory with a staggering angled ceiling.

The cloister was worked by request of two siblings, rulers of the Bagratuni kingdom, and their family seal can be seen on the back of St Stepanos. A current reclamation of the site financed by the Sheik of Sharjah in the UAE has seen the congregation structures lose their notable patina, and numerous guests locate their splendid and gleaming appearance unsettling. Most likely they will mix once again into their encompasses later on.