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3rd day. Visit to St. Hripsime church - surprisingly harmonious building, it is considered to be preserved back from the beginning of the 7th century. Then we visited the first-throned Echmiadzin - the main cathedral of the Armenian Apostolic Church - there were lots of visitors and photo-video reporters. The thing is that the funeral liturgy dedicated to the Armenian genocide of 1915 began across the country just on that day and we appeared to be in the very epicenter of this event. An unforgettable impression was left by church music - solemn, majestic and very beautiful! At the end we were able to witness the patriarch himself - the Catholicos of all Armenians Garegin II, blessing all the parishioners, and correspondingly our group that was a good sign. Then we headed to Garni, the place famous for the preserved temple of the Sun (I century BC). Gegard is located not far from not far from Garni - a unique, half-carved into the steep mountain "Spear Monastery" (according to a legend, the apostle Thaddeus brought here the spear with which the Roman soldier Longinus pierced the body of the crucified Christ). Everything impressed me much there - lots of mysterious caves in the most unexpected places, dark cells directly in the stone array, huge halls with high ceilings, pillars and stunning acoustics, mysterious tombs, stone staircases, springs flowing just inside the rock rooms. Here we were lucky again - when we were inside one of the cave halls, suddenly a monk appeared out of nowhere, stood in the middle of the hall and not paying any attention to anybody, sang a short, but very solemn hymn or psalm, and then just as suddenly disappeared. Because of the unique acoustics the impression was simply amazing. We returned to Yerevan full with emotions, had dinner and went to sleep sick and tired.
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