Handpicked experience · Yerevan
Yerevan, Armenia
A city that can name its founding year, stone that turns rose at dusk, a Soviet stairway finished with private money, and a plinth that outlived its first occupant.
Squares and facades under floodlight, when the stone is at its best colour
Regular halts for photographs and for catching your breath on the steps
A guide explaining how the centre came to be laid out this way
Street life in the hours when the city is actually out in it
Two to three hours on foot through central Yerevan after dark, with a guide, taking in the lit squares and avenues, the long stairway on the north side and the streets in between. Easy pace, paved throughout, with a few flights of steps.
An evening walk rather than a sightseeing march: regular stops, stories, and time to look at things. The route stays in the centre, so nothing is far from anything else, and there are cafés and street vendors along the way if you want to break for something. Nothing inside a museum is included; this is a tour of the city as it is being used.
Yerevan can name the year it was founded, which almost no city can. In 782 BC an Urartian king built a fortress on the hill at the eastern edge of the modern city and cut an inscription recording the fact. The stone survives. That makes the place twenty-nine years older than Rome, and the city held an official two thousand eight hundredth birthday in 2018.
Almost everything here is faced in volcanic tuff quarried from the surrounding country, and it holds colour in a way concrete does not. In flat midday light the buildings read as beige; as the sun drops they go rose, then a deeper red, which is why the place is called the pink city. Walking it in the evening is walking it at the hour the material was chosen for.
The vast limestone stairway climbing the northern slope was started in the 1970s as a Soviet civic project, and it was still unfinished when the union dissolved. It sat half-built for years before private money completed it as a sculpture garden, with escalators running inside the structure alongside the outdoor steps. There are five hundred and seventy-two of those steps if you take them on foot.
The ring roads, the radial avenues and the square at the centre are all from a single master plan drawn up in 1924 by the architect Alexander Tamanian, who reorganised a provincial town into a neoclassical capital built of tuff. Much of the old town went in the process. His statue stands at the foot of the stairway, bent over the plans.
The figure on the hill above the city is a woman with a sword, put up in 1962. She stands on a plinth built for a statue of Stalin, which was taken down at night and replaced. The pedestal is original; the occupant is not.
The walk is on pavement with some stairs, and evenings are cooler than the daytime even in summer. Food, drinks and anything bought along the way are your own. Cancellation is free up to a day ahead.
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Two to three hours at an easy pace, on paved streets with a few flights of steps. Stops are frequent, so it suits most levels of fitness.
It was founded in 782 BC, recorded in an inscription cut by the Urartian king who built the fortress. That is twenty-nine years before Rome, and the city marked its two thousand eight hundredth year in 2018.
Because the buildings are faced in volcanic tuff, which shifts colour with the light. Beige at midday, rose as the sun drops, deeper red at dusk — which is exactly when this tour runs.
A Soviet civic project begun in the 1970s and left unfinished when the union collapsed, later completed with private money as a sculpture garden. It has five hundred and seventy-two steps, with escalators inside the structure for anyone who prefers them.
Because it is. An architect named Alexander Tamanian drew the ring roads, radial avenues and central square in a single 1924 master plan, rebuilding a provincial town as a neoclassical capital in tuff.
A woman holding a sword, raised in 1962 on a plinth originally built for a statue of Stalin, which was removed at night. The base is the original one.
No — the route passes cafés and street vendors, but anything you buy is your own. The tour covers the guide and the walk.