Gyumri is the city with the most character in Armenia. The country's second city and the capital of the northwest, it has a historic centre of black and red stone with a melancholy beauty, an artistic and craft tradition that fills it with workshops, galleries and musicians, and a legendary sense of humour: Gyumri people are known all over Armenia for their wit and their gift of the gab, and the city prides itself on being the capital of jokes and irony. It is bohemian, authentic and deeply human.
But Gyumri is also a city marked by tragedy. On 7 December 1988, a devastating earthquake struck northwestern Armenia and destroyed a large part of the city, then called Leninakan, killing tens of thousands of people across the region. Strikingly, many of the solid 19th-century stone houses held up, while the poorly built Soviet blocks collapsed. For decades Gyumri carried the scars of that day, and its slow, brave recovery is part of its identity today.
This guide helps you get to know Gyumri in a practical way: how to get there from Yerevan (the train is an outing in itself), what to see in the historic Kumayri district and Vardanants Square, how to approach the memory of the 1988 earthquake with the respect it deserves, and where to enjoy its art scene, its cafés and its food. It is a one- or two-day escape that shows a different Armenia from the capital's: tougher, snowier and with an unmistakable soul.
Gyumri, Armenia's second city, has very ancient roots (the settlement of Kumayri is mentioned more than two and a half thousand years ago), but its present form took shape in the 19th century. After the Russian annexation, in 1837 Tsar Nicholas I renamed it Alexandropol (in honour of the Tsarina), and the city became an important Russian military stronghold on the border with the Ottoman Empire, as well as a thriving centre of trade and crafts, with its core of black and red stone houses. In Soviet times it was called Leninakan and was the republic's second city, an industrial and cultural hub. On 7 December 1988, the Spitak earthquake devastated it, causing tens of thousands of deaths in the region and destroying much of the city; many old stone houses withstood it better than the Soviet buildings. It got its historic name, Gyumri, back in 1992. Today it is a city of art, crafts and humour rising from its wounds. That story of frontier, splendour and earthquake is told on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The northwest of the highlands: the medieval fortress of Amberd perched on the slopes of Mount Aragats, the country's highest peak, and Gyumri, Armenia's second city, built of black and red stone, which rose again after the 1988 earthquake as a capital of art and humour.
Read the history of Aragatsotn and Shirak: the northwest →They depart from Erevan, 87 km away. If you book from this link we earn a commission and you pay no more.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Up on the high, cold Shirak plateau, in north-western Armenia, people have lived for a very long time. The settlement that grew into Gyumri, called Kumayri, appears in sources more than two and a half thousand years old. Some historians link it to the Cimmerians, the steppe people who swept into the region in the 7th century BC, and its name may come from them. Whatever its exact origin, the area has been lived in without a break since antiquity, thanks to its pastureland and its place on the routes of north-western Armenia.
For centuries, Kumayri was just one of the many villages dotted across this border region. It rose and fell with the empires that fought over Armenia: Persians, Byzantines and Arabs, and later Ottomans and Persians again. The Shirak plateau is exposed and has a harsh climate. It was frontier land, and the people who lived there had the hard life of the borderlands, caught between invasions and changes of ruler.
Kumayri's fate changed completely in the 19th century. As the Russian Empire pushed into the South Caucasus, this frontier village became a strategic stronghold. What had been one more village was about to become a city, and one of the most important in all of eastern Armenia.
The Russian Empire fought wars against the Persians and the Ottomans in the early 19th century, and afterwards the Shirak region came under Russian rule. Kumayri sat right by the border with the Ottoman Empire, so it became a key stronghold. In 1837, Tsar Nicholas I visited the town and renamed it Alexandropol ('city of Alexandra') in honour of his wife, the tsarina. A new imperial city was born.
Alexandropol grew quickly. The Russians built a large military garrison and fortifications to guard the border, including the imposing Black Fortress. But the city was much more than a barracks. It became a thriving centre of trade and crafts, one of the most important in the Caucasus. Wealthy Armenian merchants built mansions of black and red volcanic stone. A whole class of craftspeople (blacksmiths, goldsmiths, potters, weavers) made the city famous for the quality of their work. That is where Kumayri's beautiful historic quarter comes from. We can still admire it today, with its more than a thousand stone buildings from the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Alexandropol was also a lively cultural centre in those years, with theatres, schools and a busy artistic life. This was when the city's character took shape, and it still defines the place today: cultured, creative and proud of its crafts. Its people also had a humour and wit that would make them legendary across Armenia. It was a cosmopolitan frontier city, proud of its stone and of its people.
The 20th century brought new names and new regimes. Armenia was briefly independent (1918-1920) and then became part of the Soviet Union. In 1924 the city was renamed Leninakan in honour of Lenin, and it became the second city of Soviet Armenia after Yerevan. Under the USSR, Leninakan was heavily industrialised. Large factories were built, especially textile mills, and they made it a major economic hub. Its population grew to more than 200,000.
Alongside its industry, the city kept its cultural life and built on it. Leninakan remained a capital of Armenian art and humour. Famous painters, sculptors, musicians and actors came from there. Its people's wit became so proverbial that it gave rise to a whole genre of jokes about the 'leninakantsi'. Laughing at everything, even their own hardships, was their way of facing life in a city with a harsh climate and an often difficult fate.
Soviet expansion had a dark side, though, and it would come to light in tragic fashion. Next to the solid stone houses of the imperial era, whole neighbourhoods of prefabricated concrete blocks went up in a hurry, many of them poorly built. Nobody imagined then that the quality of those buildings would become a matter of life or death for tens of thousands of people one cold December morning in 1988.
At 11:41 in the morning on 7 December 1988, a powerful earthquake struck north-western Armenia. The epicentre was near the town of Spitak, which was almost wiped off the map, but the disaster reached across the whole region. Leninakan, the country's second city, suffered enormous destruction. In barely half a minute, much of the city collapsed. The death toll was never established exactly. Estimates say the earthquake killed between 25,000 and more than 50,000 people across the area. Hundreds of thousands were left homeless in the middle of winter, with temperatures below freezing.
The tragedy revealed a bitter truth. Many of the old, solid stone houses from the imperial era withstood the quake. It was mostly the poorly built Soviet blocks that collapsed and buried the people inside. The poor quality of those buildings drove the death toll far higher, and it became a painful symbol of the system's failures.
The disaster moved the world. The Soviet Union was in the middle of perestroika, and for the first time in decades it accepted international aid on a large scale. Rescue teams, doctors and supplies arrived from dozens of countries. The catastrophe was also a political turning point, because it came just as the Armenian national movement was on the rise. For Gyumri, 7 December was etched into memory for ever. In the city's square, clocks stopped at 11:41 quietly mark the moment everything changed.
Gyumri's recovery was long and painful. The earthquake came just as the Soviet Union was falling apart. The first years of Armenian independence (from 1991) were extremely hard, marked by war, blockade and economic collapse. For years, thousands of families went on living in temporary shelters and metal containers, known as 'domik', in very poor conditions, while rebuilding moved slowly. Many people emigrated as well. For decades the city carried the visible scars of that day.
In 1992, now in independent Armenia, the city got back its historic, ancestral name: Gyumri, which comes from the ancient Kumayri. Little by little, with huge effort and with help from the Armenian diaspora and international organisations, the city was rebuilt. Damaged churches were restored, such as the great Surp Amenaprkich on Vardanants Square. The stone historic quarter was rehabilitated, and places like the Black Fortress were brought back to life, now as a cultural centre.
Today Gyumri is rising again on what was always its strength: its art and crafts, its character, and a sense of humour that can laugh even at tragedy. Its craft workshops, galleries, bohemian cafés and stone historic quarter have made it an increasingly popular cultural destination. The memory of the earthquake is kept alive with restraint and respect. Armenia's second city has been battered by history and nature many times, but it is still standing, proud of its stone, its people and its unmistakable soul.
