Ararat (in Armenian Masis) is a volcanic massif consisting of two extinct volcanoes: Big Ararat and Small Ararat. The distance between these two volcanoes is 11 km. The height of Big Ararat above sea level is 5165 meters, the distance of the mountain from the foot to the top is 4365 meters. Big Ararat from 4250 meters and above is covered with eternal snow. The height of Small Ararat above sea level is 3927 meters.
Khor Virap monastery in Armenia against the background of Mount Ararat
Big and Small Ararat
Ararat valley
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It is not known when Ararat erupted for the last time. Scientists suggest that this could have happened in the 3rd millennium BC. In some sources, you can find information that the eruption of Ararat was in 1840 and was accompanied by an earthquake, as a result of which the monastery of St. Jacob and the village of Arguri, located on the mountain, were destroyed. Since then, there have been no permanent settlements on Ararat. However, in 1840 the eruption was phreatic, i.e. it took place under the water table and there was no lava ejection from the volcano.
Historically, Ararat belonged to the Armenian people, but as a result of the war between Armenia and Turkey in 1920 and the Moscow Treaty between the USSR and Turkey, Ararat became part of Turkey.
Khor Virap monastery in Armenia against the background of Mount Ararat
View of Ararat from Yerevan - capitals of Armenia
Now Ararat is 32 km away from Armenia. Despite this, Ararat is depicted on the coat of arms of Armenia.
Coat of arms of Armenia
In response to the protest of the Turkish government against the fact that the coat of arms of the Armenian SSR depicts Ararat, which is not a part of Armenia, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR Georgy Chicherin replied: "The flag of Turkey depicts a crescent moon, but the moon is not part of Turkey."
If you look closely at the coat of arms of Armenia, then on the top of Mount Ararat you can see Noah's Ark, which, according to the Bible, stopped “in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat” (Genesis, Chapter 8).
The belief that Noah's Ark is still on the top of Mount Ararat is reflected in Josephus, who wrote in the first century AD: “One part of the ship can still be found today in Armenia. There people gather resin for making amulets. The Armenians call this place "the pier", where the ark remained to lie forever, and show the parts that have survived to this day. " Marco Polo, who drove past Mount Ararat in the 15th century, wrote: “You should know that in this country of Armenia, on the top of a high mountain, Noah's Ark rests, covered with eternal snows, and no one can climb there, to the top, especially since the snow never melts, and new snowfalls add to the thickness of the snow cover."
The belief that the top of Ararat was inaccessible to humans existed even after the professor of the University of Dorpat Johann Friedrich Parrot conquered the top of Ararat, which at that time was part of the Russian Empire, in 1829. After the ascent, two of the Armenians accompanying Parrot claimed that they had climbed to a great height, but not to the top.
Climbing Mount Big Ararat
In the summer of 1916, a Russian lieutenant Roskovitsky discovered Noah's Ark on the top of Ararat, almost completely frozen into the ice of the lake. The ark was carefully measured, drawings of its main structural parts were made, and it was photographed in full and in parts. However, a revolution soon began in Russia and the documents of Roskovitsky's expedition were lost.
This incident was not the only one when Noah's ark or traces of its presence were found on Ararat. For example, in 1974, the Americans took photographs of Ararat from a height of 4600 meters. The photographs taken with multiple magnifications clearly showed an object lying in one of the crevices of the mountain, very similar in shape and size to the ark.
Despite numerous testimonies, Noah's Ark on Ararat still remains semi-mythical. At the same time, in 1959, thirty kilometers from Ararat, an ark was discovered, which coincides in size with the biblical one. It is possible that this is the real Noah's ark, and not the one that people are looking for in vain on the top of Big Ararat.
