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SE of Kamaris is Geghashen
(till 1935 Chatghran, till 1967 Hrazdan), with various shrines and a
ruined church; inhabitants came from Ispahan, Alashkert, Khoy in 1829-35
and 1870. |
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Abovian, a new industrial city
founded in 1963 on the site of the early village of Elar, was named after Khachatur
Abovian, Yerevan school inspector, climber of Mt. Ararat, and founder of modern Armenian
literature 1809-1848?-his
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mysterious
disappearance, perhaps at the hands of Czarist authorities fearful of
Europe-inspired revolutions, has never been explained). Abovian is laid out ambitiously with wide
streets and high-rise
apartments. The ancient village of
Elar, a key site at the time of the Urartian conquest, occupies a hill
just S of town, but has been almost entirely obliterated by the modern
cemetery (chapel of S. Stepanos). Elar
was inhabited from the 4th millennium BC, as attested by
chamber tombs and other finds. An
Urartian cuneiform inscription of Argishti I refers to it as Darani.
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