Stepanakert is the capital of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (the Republic of Artsakh). The climate here is warm and temperate, while the nature strikes with its beauty.
Half of the city consists of new European-style buildings erected after the war, and the other half is represented by the old picturesque neighborhoods. The outline of the city was designed by Alexander Tamanyan, a prominent Armenian architect, who developed the master plan of Yerevan. A city walk won’t take hours, while its architecture will charm by a combination of the old and new. When shopping in the market of Stepanakert, it’s not only fresh fruit that you should taste and buy, but “zhengyalov hats” – a local specialty of flatbread stuffed with a variety of greens and herbs – a visiting card of the Artsakh cuisine. Right at the entrance to Stepanakert, stands the famous red-tuff monument “We and Our Mountains”, erected in 1967 in commemoration of the centenarians of Karabakh. People call the statue of an old couple simply “Tatik and Papik” meaning “Grandpa and Grandma”. It wasn’t by accident that this monument was erected in Artsakh, for the region used to be the first in the USSR in terms of the greatest number of people who lived beyond the age of 100 years.
