Monastery of Hayrivank

 Heading southeast from Sevan along the south side of the lake the road passes through Ltchashen, site of the discovery of the Bronze Age burial chariot now on display in Yerevan's State History Museum. It is about 22km to the Monastery of Hayravank; it can be seen on a knoll to the left of the road overlooking the lake. The monastery and surrounding rocks are all conspicuously covered with reddish-orange lichen. The monastery consists of a church from the end of the 9th century, a gavit from the 12th and a small chapel. The topography of the rather cramped site with the ground falling away quite steeply has resulted in the south and west arms of the church being no longer discernible from the outside, as the gavit and chapel had to be built forming one continuous wall with them. As with the churches at Sevan the tambour is octagonal but here the church exhibits some fine interior carving and the multi-coloured interior of the dome is also striking. Every interior wall of the gavit is covered with carved crosses. There are several attractive khachkars at the monastery and just north of it can be seen the scanty remains of a fortress occupied from the Bronze Age until medieval times.

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