The monastery of Khor Virap with Ararat in the distance. The closed Turkish-Armenian border runs a few hundred metres beyond the monastery
PHOTOGRAPHS JUSTIN FOULKES @justinfoulkes
AFTER 150 DAYS AFLOAT ON the water, Noah, his family and all the animals heard a loud crunch as the Ark hit dry land. They had arrived on a little island – which, as the waters receded, turned out not to be an island at all, but the tip of an immense mountain. The mountain was called Ararat, and it towered high over a rocky landscape.
After some months the world was dry again, and Noah’s family and animals descended (many seizing the opportunity to trot off to warmer and/or more exotic parts). But legend tells that Noah’s great-grandson, Hayk, stayed put in this stony land, and founded Armenia. It would become the first Christian nation on Earth.
The monastery of Noravank dates from the 12th century, and is said to have once housed a piece of the True Cross
After 4,500 years, the biblical deluge has turned to a light drizzle as my plane lands in Yerevan, the Armenian capital, but the importance of Ararat has not been forgotten.
At the border control, a guard pauses from playing solitaire on his phone to ink my passport with an Ararat-shaped stamp. Travelling into Yerevan among Soviet-era tower blocks, the taxi passes the stadium of FC Ararat (the Man United of Armenia), and the Ararat Cognac factory. Among the wide boulevards of the city centre are the Ararat Restaurant and the Ararat Hotel – where, according to TripAdvisor, some rooms smell of cigarettes (possibly Ararat brand cigarettes). In the cafés around the Opera House, you can use Ararat-adorned banknotes from the ATM outside AraratBank to buy Ararat Beer and Ararat Wine, excessive consumption of which may mean you’re admitted to Ararat Medical Centre. And close by is the clock tower of Government House, which bears the national crest: Ararat etched in stone.
A drover on a country road in Lori Province, northern Armenia.
A range of modest-sized peaks surrounds Yerevan, and on cloudy days you might spend some hours working out which one is Ararat. But this is a mistake: seeing the real mountain entails tilting your head a little higher and squinting at the sky until a patch of brilliant whiteness appears – not clouds, but a glimpse of an immense snow-capped summit, wildly out of proportion to everything else in view. On days when it is visible, Ararat is hypnotic in its vastness: taller than any peak in the Alps and most other things this side of the Himalayas.
Ararat stalks visitors to Yerevan: lingering among the laundry lines, playing peek-aboo behind shopping malls. For millions of Armenians, it is the first thing they see when they open their curtains in the morning, and the last before they go to bed. It is a key to understanding this ancient country.
Father Sahak Martirosyan standing inside the church of Surp Karapet at Noravank monastery