The world's longest non-stop double-track cable car — 5.7km through the Vorotan gorge to a 9th-century monastery on a volcanic plateau above the abyss, surrounded by 300m basalt columns
Tatev is a village and monastery complex in the Syunik Province of southern Armenia — the Tatev Monastery (Tatevi Vank, founded 895 CE), perched on a basalt plateau above the confluence of the Vorotan and Zangezur rivers, surrounded on three sides by gorges 200-300m deep. Access is by the Wings of Tatev (Tatevi Bikner) aerial tramway — the world's longest non-stop reversible double-track cable car (5.7km, 12 minutes, the record verified by Guinness World Records in 2010 when it opened), descending from the town of Halidzor on the main Goris-Kapan highway into the Vorotan gorge and ascending t…
The Tatev Monastery was founded in 895 CE by the Armenian bishop Soukias, built on the site of an earlier 4th-century Christian structure on the volcanic basalt plateau above the Vorotan gorge. Tatev became the seat of the Syunik Diocese and one of the most important intellectual centers of medieval Armenia: its scriptorium produced illuminated manuscripts, its school of philosophy (the most significant in Armenia in the 13th-15th centuries, associated with the scholar Hovhannes Vorotnetsi and his pupil Grigor Tatevatsi) drew students from across the Armenian world, and its library held sever…