The Black Fortress of Gyumri: the round basalt fort the tsar raised against the Turks and which today is a concert hall

On the hill to the west of Gyumri, where the city ends and the plateau begins, there is a building like nothing else in Armenia: a drum of black stone 50 metres across, with five-metre walls, no windows and a single door, which looks like a castle and is a gun emplacement. This is the Black Fortress, Sev Berd, the artillery fort Tsar Nicholas I ordered built in 1834 to watch the Turkish border, this part of Armenia being newly conquered, and which has gone from garrison to warehouse, to ruin and, since 2016, to concert hall. It is the place from which the city is best seen, with Mother Armenia beside it, and the explanation of why Gyumri exists. This guide tells the history, the building, the view and the practical side.

Why it is here

Russia took this part of Armenia in 1828, after the war with Persia, and with the Turkish border 50 km away it needed a stronghold: in 1837 Nicholas I came in person to found Alexandropol, which he named after his wife, and the defences were built between 1834 and 1847, with a large fortress on the hill, barracks and, at the highest point, this round fort whose guns covered the Akhurian plain and the Kars road. It was the base of the Russian army in the wars with Turkey of 1853, 1877 and 1914, when troops set out from here for Kars and Erzurum, and later a Soviet barracks, with the Turkish border closed across the river. The black basalt it was built with is the stone of Shirak, the same as the old houses of the city, and that is why it is black.

The building

It is a circular fort of the kind Russian engineers built in the 19th century, round in plan so the artillery covered every angle: a two-storey ring of basalt walls, with gun ports outward and vaulted galleries inward, around a central courtyard where the garrison formed up, and a single door towards the city. The 1988 earthquake, which killed some 25,000 people in the region and brought down half of Gyumri, cracked it but did not bring it down, which in a city of collapsed concrete blocks became an argument. It stood abandoned for twenty years, and between 2010 and 2016 it was restored as a cultural centre: the courtyard is now an amphitheatre with a stage and the galleries exhibition rooms, and there are concerts in summer, with the acoustics of a stone cylinder.

The view and Mother Armenia

Beside the fort stands Gyumri's Mother Armenia, a statue of 1975 with sword in hand looking towards Turkey, in a park with the Second World War memorial, and from the esplanade you see the whole city at your feet, the plateau as far as Aragats and, to the west, the Turkish border and the ruins of Ani, the medieval Armenian capital, across the Akhurian river 40 km away, on a clear day. It is Gyumri's sunset spot.

How to visit

It is twenty minutes on foot from the centre, up the avenue that leaves Vartanants square westwards, or five minutes by taxi; the exterior and the Mother Armenia esplanade can be seen at any hour and the interior opens in daytime as a cultural centre, with a small entry fee and with concerts and exhibitions worth checking in the city programme. Gyumri is 120 km from Yerevan, two and a half hours on the train from the central station or two by marshrutka, and the fortress is the upper part of the walk through Gyumri's historic centre, to which a whole day is given with the square, Kumayri and the museums.

Frequently asked questions