Yerevan

Yerevan - darkometer rating : 3 - The capital city of Armenia , and home to the country's premier memorial about the Armenian genocide. The city also has a couple of different dark sides, one of them a general feature, namely a disastrous contemporary city planning characterized by demolition of old architecture and ruthless construction of new faceless modern monstrosities. Yerevan can serve as a good base for explorations and tours to other parts of the country too. > More background info > What there is to see > Location > Access and costs > Time required > Combinations with other dark destinations > Combinations with non-dark destinations > Photos More background info: With just over 1.1 million inhabitants, Yerevan (or Erivan) is the smallest of the capitals of the three "official" Caucasus countries (those of the "unofficial", break-away provinces, o.e. South Ossetia, Abkhasia and until 2023 Nagorno-Karabakh , are a lot smaller still). Like the other two, however, it has changed and expanded a lot over the course of its history – and is still changing. One aspect I found all the Caucasian capitals had in common when I visited the region in summer 2010 was the impression of construction work going on everywhere. But only in Yerevan did it involve as much demolition work too. The Soviet era had already brought significant change to the old city, and not for the better. To this day, the main feature of Yerevan is rows and rows of apartment blocks of a distinctly Soviet, i.e. depressingly bleak style. Only in the immediate centre, especially along Abovyan Poghots, some of the grander buildings of the tsarist era were left standing and are still there today, though often not in a particularly well-kept state. But much worse still: in the side streets in the heart of Yerevan, the current city planners seem determined to demolish what even the Soviets had left standing.