Tatev Monastery is imbued with deep cultural and historical significance

We’re huddled excitedly inside Wings of Tatev, the world’s longest reversible cable car, a 5.7-km engineering wonder that spans a spectacular gorge connecting Halidzor village in southern Armenia to Tatev village. Careening at a vertiginous 18,871 feet in the tramway, which features in the Guinness World Records, we soak in a surreal landscape of dramatic gorges, flower-spangled pastures and pine forests threaded by hiking trails. Mountains, crowned with swirls of vanilla, hunker into the blue sky.
 
The handsome Syunik province in the south Caucasus region of Armenia, a pint-sized country of three million wedged between Georgia, Turkey, Iran and Azerbaijan, is a popular attraction for visitors. Located 280 km from the capital city of Yerevan, Syunik’s biggest draw card is the ninth-century UNESCO World Heritage Site of Tatev Monastery. And we can’t wait to see it. 
 

The idyllic Syunik province is a big draw for tourists in Armenia

Disgorged from the cable car after the 30-minute breathtaking ride, we emerge blinking into the Caucasian sun at Tatev village. The air is as crisp as an apple. The vistas look like they have been plucked from a glossy coffee-table book with photographs air-brushed to delight us.
 
After walking for about half a kilometre, past ruddy-cheeked locals selling exotic snacks, we arrive at Tatev Monastery, which crowns a basalt plateau on the edge of the Vorotan Canyon. The scene seems straight out of a Van Gogh painting. The tuff volcanic rock confection — with exquisite pillars, edifices and arches — is silhouetted against lush valleys cradling marshmallow clouds. The surrounding mountains seem to march across the horizon like a stone army on the move; every heave and thrust etched against an azure sky.
 
Though Armenia is peppered with over 4,000 ancient pagan temples, churches and monasteries, Tatev Monastery is deeply revered as a place of religious, spiritual and historic associations.
 
“Tatev is known as the bishopric seat of Syunik and played a significant role in the region’s history as a centre of economic, political, spiritual and cultural activity,” our local guide, Sira, informs us as we perambulate the monastery’s stony edifice accented by turrets and arches. In the 14th and 15th centuries, Tatev Monastery housed one of the most important Armenian medieval universities, the University of Tatev, a great crucible of learning and for the advancement of science, religion, philosophy, reproduction of books and development of miniature painting.
 

Locals selling exotic snacks

The monastic complex covers a large area hosting a number of sites — the ruins of
 
St Eustathius Church, an oil press, defensive walls, an old gate and spring, the east gate, St Astvatsatsin Church, stables and student dormitory, a pilgrim inn, the Tatev Matenadaran-Museum, cells and rooms, kitchen, bakery, bishop residence, bath, an 18th-century school, a library, dining hall, a belfry and a mausoleum.
 
As we gaze up at the monastery’s upright pendulum, or the Gavazan, Sira explains that the strong structure even survived a devastating earthquake in 1931 when everything around it — the cathedral, St Paul-Peter Church, the porch and the belfry — was flattened to the ground. It was restored in the 1990s.
 

The head priest and the façade of the monastery

The Church of Saint Paul-Peter is the largest building of the complex. Built by Bishop Hovhannes in 895, it was consecrated in 906 and named for the relics of St Paul and St Peter buried here. The church’s beautiful dome is believed to be one of the highest in Armenia. We check out the church’s northern façade where images of the church’s sponsors — including Syunik’s erstwhile Prince Ashot and his wife, Shushan — are carved. Its eastern façade is marked by sweeping arches emblazoned with long snakes (symbolising luck in local culture). The guide points to the entrance’s upper echelons where the clever monks were believed to stash the monastery’s treasures.
 
“An outstanding feature of the monastery is the oil mill built in the 18th century where the monks produced large quantities of oil from seeds,” we’re told as we file into a cavernous, multi-tiered oil mill now converted into an interactive museum. We’re transported back in time as we explore the various machines and presses that were part of the monastic culinary heritage in the Middle Ages.
 
We next join the church service where colourfully attired and beatific priests are reading from texts. The devotees stand in hushed silence, their eyes closed, heads covered. Some are praying fervently; others have tears rolling down their cheeks.
 
At the tour’s end, Sira points out the “Devil’s Bridge”, a natural travertine bridge located just below Tatev Monastery in the 500-metre gorge of the Vorotan River. Over millennia, wind and water have chiselled the natural wonder, polishing and piercing the petrified lava. Warm, salubrious springs are ringed by stalactites of amazing colours. The intrepid can descend to the river to see the secret grottos underlying the springs.
 
As we exit the monastery, dusk is daubing the surrounding mountains in lavender, while mist is sweeping in like a curtain drawn after a riveting stage performance. We leave the magical Tatev monastery awash with a sense of wonder and spiritual well-being.