Travel to Goris

Goris today has about 25,000 inhabitants and is mentioned in chronicles with names such as Kores, Kiores, Zanghesur and others. This settlement was declared as a city in 1885, and since 1870 became the administrative center of the province Elisabetpol. The region is characterized by a wide valley and is divided by a river Vararakn, sometimes also called Goris, on the eastern and western sector. The town itself is situated at an altitude of 1400 m. above sea level.

The considered territory has been inhabited since the Paleo-Neolithic era and according to most sources, the number of existing caves around Goris has a little more than ten thousand. There are rock formations of thousands of years by formed by different natural events, known as the burghers, or pyramid, which give a special charm to the area surrounding Goris.

The fact that human settlements existed here since ancient times is confirmed by archaeological finds of miscellaneous ceramic facilities dating from the Bronze Age. During the excavations were found a variety of tools, weapons and a diversity of tools made of basalt and obsidian.

The ancient city is disposed on the left bank of the river in the valley to the north-west of Mount Coot and in the past this was a village of Syunik region Haband. Some of the scientists to rely that Goris, together with the villages of Goru, Goraik and others were mentioned in the records of the historian Stepanos Orbelian. But the fact that in the Middle Ages, Goris was unquestionably the most important crossroads in the way of Nakhichevan – Zanghesur, Arzakh Merzkaspian not leaves any doubt. It was along this road transported the salt of Nakhichevan.

During the 17th – 18th centuries here were moved Melik-Husseinyans family. And the more active development of Goris begins in the 70s of the 19th centenary, when under the king’s decree it became the administrative center of the province Zanghesur.

Limited by the flow of the river valley of ancient Goris did not give the opportunity to expand the city, and in this regard on the another bank of the river was established a New Goris.

The first general plan of the city was designed by the German architect, the second background has been created later in 1948 by architect P. Khoyezyan, and the third one- in 1973 by the group of Armenian architects. A characteristic feature of the city are the straight streets and houses structure created from basalt and tuff.