Kobayr: the monastery hanging over the Debed with Georgian frescoes

The road that runs down the Debed canyon, between Vanadzor and Alaverdi, passes the village of Kober, and above it, on a ledge of the rock wall among trees, you can make out a roofless church. This is Kobayr, a monastery of 1171 that you climb to on foot in twenty minutes and that, unlike Haghpat and Sanahin, nobody has fully restored: the apse with its frescoes is still open to the sky, grass grows inside and a bell hangs from a beam between two trees. It is the most photogenic of the Debed monasteries, and the quietest.

Armenian and Georgian

It was founded in 1171 by a princess of the Kyurikian family, the kings of Lori, as an Armenian monastery. A few decades later it passed to the Zakarians, an Armenian family in the service of the kingdom of Georgia, who converted the monastery to the Georgian, Chalcedonian rite, and so it remained for two centuries. That is why the inscriptions on the churches are in Georgian and the frescoes follow the Byzantine model, with standing saints and a Deesis in the apse, rare in an Armenian church. It is a place that tells, on one wall, how mixed the two churches were in the Middle Ages.

What you see

The main church, with the apse standing and the rest of the vault fallen, so that the frescoes are seen from outside, with the canyon behind. A second, smaller church, a refectory, a bell tower and mausoleum of the Zakarian family and remains of cells. All in ochre stone among trees and ivy, with the river at the bottom of the gorge. In recent years the apse has been consolidated and the paintings cleaned; it is worth checking what state the works are in.

How to get up

You park by the railway line, in Kober, and climb a path of earth and steps between houses and vegetable plots, twenty or thirty minutes uphill. Closed shoes and water; in summer, better in the morning. There is no ticket office and no opening hours. At the end of the path the monastery appears all at once.

How to fit it in

It is on the route of the Debed monasteries, 160 km from Yerevan and 20 from Alaverdi, so you see it on the same day as Haghpat, Sanahin and Odzun. If you come from Vanadzor, you can stop first at the Stepanavan dendropark and then drop down into the canyon. Kobayr, Haghpat and Sanahin make a full day.

Frequently asked questions