
Erivan Fortress or Yerevan Fortress (; ''Yerevani berdë''; , ''Ghaleh-ye Iravân''; ''E'rivanskaya krepost' '') was a 16th-century fortress in
Yerevan
Yerevan ( , , ; ; sometimes spelled Erevan) is the capital and largest city of Armenia, as well as one of the world's List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Yerev ...
.
History
The fortress was built during the
Ottoman rule in 1582–83 by
Serdar Ferhat Pasha.
The fortress was destroyed by an
earthquake in 1679. After the earthquake, the Safavid
governor of Erivan, Zal Khan, asked the Shah for help to rebuild Erivan, including the fortress and the Palace of the Sardars.
In 1853, the fortress was ruined by another earthquake. In 1865 the territory of the fortress was purchased by Nerses Tairyants, a merchant of the first guild.
Later in 1880s, Tairyants built a brandy factory in the northern part of the fortress.
The fortress was completely demolished in 1930s during the Soviet rule, although some parts of the defensive walls still remain.
Description
The Erivan Fortress was considered to be a small town separate from the city. It was separated from the city with large and unwrought space. The fortress was rectangular with a perimeter of about . It was walled on three sides; on the fourth (western) it was flanked by the
Hrazdan River
The Hrazdan (, ) is a major river and the second largest in Armenia. It originates at the northwest extremity of Lake Sevan and flows south through the Kotayk Province and Armenia's capital, Yerevan; the lake in turn is fed by several streams. In ...
gorge. The gorge on the north-western part of the fortress had a depth of 300 sazhen (640 meters). As it was considered inaccessible it was not walled. The earth mound was considered as a wall.
The Erivan Fortress had three gateways on its double line battlements: Tabriz, Shirvan and Korpu. The walls had towers like old eastern castles. Each wall had an iron gate, and each one had its guard. The garrison had about 2,000 soldiers. There were 800 houses inside the fortress. The permanent residents of the fortress were local Muslims only. Although Armenians were allowed to work in the markets during the day, they had to lock up and return to their homes in Shahar (the main town) at night.
Interior
Sardar's Palace
The
palace
A palace is a large residence, often serving as a royal residence or the home for a head of state or another high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome whi ...
was in the north-western part of the fortress. The palace hanged on the Hrazdan gorge. It was a square wide building with many sections. The harem was one of the biggest sections, it was long and wide. It was divided into many rooms and corridors. This palace was built in 1798 during the reign of Huseyn-Ali khan's son, Mahmud.
All palaces built previously had been destroyed whenever the khans built a new one. The last was built in 1798 in Persian architectural style, containing "Shushaband-ayva" ("A Hall of Mirrors"), whose cornice was covered with colorful glass. The ceiling was decorated by the pictures of sparkling flowers. And in the walls of the hall were eight images drawn on the canvas:
Fat′h-Ali Shah,
Huseyn-Ghuli and Hasan,
Abbas Mirza
Abbas Mirza (; 26 August 1789 – 25 October 1833) was the Qajar dynasty, Qajar crown prince of Qajar Iran, Iran during the reign of his father Fath-Ali Shah Qajar (). As governor of the vulnerable Azerbaijan (Iran), Azerbaijan province, he played ...
,
Faramarz
Faramarz () is an Iranian legendary hero (''pahlavan'') in Ferdowsi's ''Shahnameh'' ("Book of Kings"). He was son of Rostam and at last killed by Kay Bahman.
The book Faramarz-nama, written about a hundred years after Shahnameh, is about Farama ...
, etc.
After the capture of Erivan by the Russians, in one of the halls of the palace,
Aleksandr Griboyedov's famous comedy, ''
Woe from Wit
''Woe from Wit'' (, also translated as "The Woes of Wit", "Wit Works Woe", ''Wit's End'', and so forth) is Alexander Griboyedov's comedy in verse, satirizing the society of post-Napoleonic Moscow, or, as a high official in the play styled it, "a ...
'', was performed by the military garrison with stand by of the author. A marble memorial plaque which commemorates the performance is in the
Yerevan Ararat Wine Factory, which currently occupies the location where the fortress once existed.
File:Yerevan Sardar Palace.png, The interior of the Saradar Palace
File:Palace of sardars yerevan.jpg, Interior of the Kiosque of the Sirdars
File:Wall decoration of Erivan Sardar Palace.png, A detail of wall decoration of the Sardar Palace, 1828, by an Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a Boundaries between the continents, transcontinental and landlocked country at the boundary of West Asia and Eastern Europe. It is a part of the South Caucasus region and is bounded by ...
i artist Mirza Gadim Iravani
Harem and the bath
The inner walls of khan's harem were covered by marble, with colorful patterns. There was a swimming pool (measurements were 15 sazhen (32 meters) in length, 4 sazhen (9 meters) in width and 3 arshin (2,1 meters) in depth).
Mosques
There were two late Safavi era mosques inside the Erivan Fortress. One was Rajab-Pasha Mosque; the other was
Abbas Mirza Mosque. The ruins of Rajab-Pasha Mosque remained until the beginning of the works of reconstruction of Erivan in 1930s.
Rajab-Pasha Mosque
This mosque was built in 1725 during the reign of Turkish Rajab-Pasha khan. It was a 4-columned arched big building with beautiful exterior. During the Iranian rule it was used as an arsenal, because it was a Sunni mosque, and the new owners, the Iranians, were Shia Muslims. In 1827, this mosque was converted to a Russian Orthodox church, and named after the Holy Virgin.
[ Hakobyan, Tadevos]
ԵՐԵՎԱՆԻ ՊԱՏՄՈՒԹՅՈՒՆԸ (1500–1800 ԹԹ.
(English: ''History of Yerevan (1500-1800''), 1979, Yerevan State University
Yerevan State University (YSU; , , ), also simply University of Yerevan, is the oldest continuously operating public university in Armenia. Founded in 1919, it is the largest university in the country. It is thus informally known as Armenia's ...
. p. 370
Abbas Mirza Mosque (Sardar's Mosque)
This mosque was Shia and was built in the beginning of the nineteenth century, during the reign of the last khan of Erivan Khanate Huseyn-khan. It was a Shia mosque, called “Abbas Mirza Jami”, named for the son of Huseyn-khan. The façade was covered by green and blue glass, usually found in Azeri-Iranian-style architecture. After the capture of Erivan by the Russians, the mosque was used as an arsenal. During Soviet times the mosque, along with other religious structures (Armenian churches, temples and monasteries) was derelict and currently only the frame of the mosque has been preserved.
Website of the Government of the Republic of Armenia
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Gallery
File:Երևանի բերդ 04.JPG, Preserved parts of Erivan fortress
File:Музей истории Еревана 2023.05 3.jpg, Erivan fortress model in Yerevan city museum
File:Музей истории Еревана 2023.05 2.jpg
File:Serdar's Palace near Erivan.jpg, View of Erivan palace from Hrazdan river
File:View of Sardar palace, Erivan castle, Zengi valley.png
File:(BL) BRIDGE AND FORTRESS OF ERIVAN.jpg, Bridge and the fortress of Yerevan
File:Yerevan fortress model.jpg, Yerevan fortress 3D Model
See also
* History of Yerevan The history of modern Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, traces its roots back to Erebuni Fortress
an ancient Urartu, Urartian fortified monument from which also the modern city of Yerevan derives its name. The earliest reference to Yerevan in the me ...
* Erivan Khanate
The Erivan Khanate (), also known as , was a Khanates of the Caucasus, khanate (i.e., province) that was established in Afsharid dynasty, Afsharid Iran in the 18th century. It covered an area of roughly 19,500 km2, and corresponded to most o ...
References
{{Castles in Armenia
Buildings and structures completed in 1583
Buildings and structures in Yerevan
Castles in Armenia
Demolished buildings and structures in Armenia
Forts in Armenia
Military history of Yerevan
Armenia–Iran relations
Erivan Khanate
1583 establishments in the Ottoman Empire
Qajar castles
ru:Эриванское ханство#Эриванская крепость