Meghri

Meghri lies in a deep valley at the very south of Armenia, where the Araks river marks the border with Iran. The climate here is unlike anywhere else in the country: pomegranate, fig and persimmon grow in the gardens, and the summer heat is closer to Mesopotamia than to the highlands.

The town's two seventeenth-century churches are its treasure. St. Hovhannes and the Holy Mother of God are painted inside with vivid geometric and floral ornament in red, blue and ochre, a folk idiom quite different from the austere stone interiors typical of Armenian churches.

Fortress walls and watchtowers still run along the ridges above the roofs, a reminder of how long this valley served as a frontier. The drive south from Goris over the Meghri pass is among the most dramatic roads in the Caucasus.