Sevan, the Cracked Lip Mountain, and Tufenkian hotel (Summer 2015)

YARP hello from Elise! Today I’m going to tell you about Lake Sevan and the mountains of Armenia. Let us start off with Lake Sevan. In fact, I am at Lake Sevan right now. Sevan is a mountain lake with beaches. Because Sevan is a mountain lake, it has clear/non-salty water.

Sevan is surrounded with villages. I am at Tsapatakh, one village with a great view of Sevan Lake. My hotel, Tufenkian, is built right on the edge of Tsapatakh. Tufenkian is not so far from Sevan, so my family and I usually walk to Sevan to watch the sunset.

At Sevan, I take off my shoes and let the water splash over my feet as I collect cool rocks to take back to America. At Sevan there  are a lot of them. I found one that was all grey like an ordinary rock, but it had a white circle around it. Some of the rocks are even colorful! There are rocks with grey (your ordinary rock), green, a cool color, and sometimes even blue! (your extraordinary rock color).

Lake Sevan is surrounded with hills and mountains. Some of the mountains have green rocks. The mountains with green rocks mean that they have copper in them. One thing that is intresting about those rocks is that they make the road green! Those mountains even used to be copper mines. Another mountain is called Cracked Lip mountain (also known as Arayi Mountain). Cracked Lip mountain got its name a very interesting way. There used to be a big lake on the top of this mountain. Well, Cracked Lip mountain was a dormant volcano so its top was flat but a little deep. When the water started to flow down the mountain, it created a path. That path makes the mountain look like it has a cracked lip. That is how Cracked Lip mountain got its name.

As I said, the hotel where I stayed in is named Tufenkian.  The hotel’s name is “Tufenkian” because Mr. Tufenkian is the man who created it. The hotel is designed to be part of the village. The hotel is made of rocks. When Mr. Tufenkian started making his carpet factories, he decided to share Armenia with other people outside Armenia so he also built hotels.  Tufenkian built the hotel so the people in the village can have a job. Plus, 80% of the workers in the hotel are from the village. At the hotel, there is a swimming pool, chess, checkers, and each room at the hotel is two-storied. The beds are super soft and you can even rent a bike!

These are all the great things about Sevan and the mountains of Armenia. Armenian just isn’t the same without mountains and rocks. At Sevan colleting rocks, at Bjni exploring caves, and at Tufenkian, resting at a swimming pool, I just can’t leave all these things behind! Armenia is a wonderful place and I just can’t believe that I still have to go to America.