Visited – August 2013

Lake Sevan lies roughly 70 km Northeast of Yerevan, Armenia’s capital.  It’s the largest lake in the Caucasus region and one of the largest high altitude lakes in the world, however its size has been reduced substantially by human intervention. It remains a very popular day trip destination, as well as the largest freshwater reserve in the Caucusus and although the water in the lake is on the chilly side, you can swim here in the summer.

In the 1930s, a program was initiated to partially drain the lake, introduce new species of trout and plant trees on the recovered land. This was accomplished by deepening some of the river beds and creating underground drainage tunnels. Work was delayed by World War II and after partial completion, finally stopped after the death of Joseph Stalin. Still, some damage was caused as water level dropped by 19 meters and the lake started “blooming” with algae.  To this day, there are attempts made to restore the lake to its original state with some success.

There are beaches of along the entire shore of the lake, but we only had time to wade our feet in the water (pretty cold even in August, but not too cold to swim if you wanted to). There is also a National Park near the lake, but we headed North to Haghpat and into Georgia and didn’t have time to explore it.

We did visit Sevanavank, which used to be an island monastery, used as a place of exile for wayward monks. The receding water turned its island into a peninsula and made the monastery more accessible. The original monastery was comprised of two churches, both of which had been destroyed. There are, however, two more churches, Surp Arakelots and Surp Astvatsatsin, which had been built later and are still standing. In fact, the monastery is still an active worship site and the churches are worth an inside look. Also, be sure to check out the khachkars along the church walls.

Whether you do it on the lake or in Yerevan, don’t miss a chance to try the Ishkhan, Lake Sevan’s endemic trout.