| AshtarakAshtarak is the administrative capital of Aragatsotn. It is a city of republic subordination (from 1970), stretched out on the banks of river Kasakh 20-km northwest from Yerevan. It plays a great role as in national economy so in the cultural economical life of republic. There are industrial group of enterprises, vine processing departments, textile factory, institutes of physics investigations, radio-physics and electronic AN ARM, number of cultural-instructive establishments.
About Ashtarak’s rich historical past eloquently evidence the great number of historical- architectural monuments in its territory such as the church Tsiranavor (V c), the Karmravor church (Astvatsatsin, VII c), the church Marine (1281) and the church Spitakavor (XIII c).
In the eastern part of the town, in the ravine of river Kasakh, a three-bay bridge is situated built in 1664 over which crossed the old road from Yerevan to Ashtarak. The forms and the dimensions of the bays of the bridge are stipulated and different because of the considerable overfall of the heights of two banks. The left and the middle bays have lancet shape and the right one-semicircular form accordingly: 14,5,9 and 7,5 m high.
The bridge is blend with the picturesque ravine of Kasakh. Not far from the bridge the lay ruins of another, probably more ancient bridge (XII-XIII cc).
Many national dwelling houses peculiar to the early belt of remarkable compositions, with high mastery decorations of on entrance portals, vaulted corridors and balconies also preserved in Ashtarak.
The best examples of Armenian sculpture art appear to be the khachkars of open-worked carving on the middle-aged cemetery in the northeastern outskirts of the town.
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