The Ruined Churches of Ani

Up on a plateau inward the remote highlands of northeast Turkey , 45 km away from the Turkish edge urban core of Kars , lies the crumbling ruins of unopen to forty-odd churches , chapels together with mausoleums. This expanse was i time a glorious walled urban core called Ani belonging to the Armenian Kamsarakan Dynasty , who established base of operations hither inward the fifth century. As the urban core grew inward size , ability together with wealth , it became an of import trading hub , together with yesteryear the 11th century , the urban core boasted to a greater extent than than 100 ,000 citizens. During its heydays , it was known every bit “the City of Forty Gates” together with sometimes “the City of a Thousand And One Churches.”

Ani’s golden historic catamenia of wealth , peace together with prosperity came to an goal alongside the expiry of the Armenia ruler King Gagik I , afterward which the urban core gave agency to a string of invaders starting alongside the Byzantines , followed yesteryear a ruthless massacre yesteryear the Turks , the Kurds , the Georgians , together with thus the Mongols who left the urban core devastated inward 1236. Although Ani continued to be for unopen to other 6 centuries it was picayune to a greater extent than than a modest town. By the fourth dimension the Europeans discovered Ani , it position abandoned for nearly a century alongside slap-up heaps of stones for old buildings. Ani’s almost visible monuments today are the dozens of one-half standing churches.

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The Church of the Redeemer , completed before long afterward the twelvemonth 1035. It had a unique design: 19-sided externally , 8-apsed internally , alongside a huge fundamental dome laid upon a tall drum. The church building was largely intact until 1955 , when the entire eastern one-half collapsed during a storm. Photo credit: Romel Jacinto/Flickr

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