Above the spring a church to be discovered - a monument to the past, a church in a cave - there is that kined of Christian temple among many others in the Crimean Riviera. Their architacture is varied: Byzantine, Russian, Gothic, ancient. The history of many of the Orthodox Christian churches is inter-twined with the great dynasty of the Tsars, the Romanovs.

In the streets and bouleward`s of Yalta can be found an impressive Lutheran kirk, a Polish Roman Catholic churches, an Armenian Orthodox church and many others, comfortably situated surrounded with exquisite landscaping. Their exterior and interior will attract your attention! Now with mosaics of Italian craftsmanship and elegants cupola murals. Now with skilful stone-carving, magnificient iconostasis, and multi-colored stained - glass windows.

Armenian church in Yalta resembles remotely an ancient temple Ripsime (VII-XIIcc.) in Echmiadzin. The building constucted in 1909 - 1914 by architect Ter-Mikelov according to the drafts of the famous artist Surenyants, is situated on a steep slope of a mountain.

The front entrance and approach to it is arranged in a witty way. On the southern front there is a richly decorated false entrance in a shape of a broad arched niche. A gracefull staircase surrounded by cypresses leads from the temple gates to the place before this 'entrance'. Going up the stairs you can see the whole temple at once - compact as if it was carved from a monolith. The temple is crowned by a hexahedron temp made of the same stone on an elegant drum.

At the end of the climb suddenly appeared one more staircase which lead to the real entrance on the western side of the church. Clearness and purity of the style, simple decorative detailes combined harmoniously of the rigid sparingly decorated entrance make impression.

Amazing skill of a decorator, perfectly polished stone are seen in every square meter of the fronts of the church. The interior does not concede to the exterior of the church - with its dome painted by Surenyants and its marble inlaid icon. Sketches of the temple, external decor and internal furniture were executed by the Armenian painter, the schedule and the theatrical artist Surenjanz (1860-1921).

At seven-year age Vardgez Surenjanz has drawn on memory the Fountain of tears. His distant relative I.K.Ayvazovsky saw a picture and awarded young talent with a box with paints, than determined the destiny of the boy who became a big painter. Vardgez created scenery to the ballet "Corsair" and the opera "Demon" in the Mariinsky theatre, to performances of the Moscow Art theatre. Surenjanz illustrated about 40 literary works, including the story «Hadgi Murat» by L.N.Tolstoy and the fairy tale “Ashik-Kerib” by M.J.Lermontov. The cycle of illustrations of "Bakhchsarai fountain" by A.S.Pushkin was devoted to I.K.Ayvazovsky.

The artist has become famous as the talented translator - he knew Russian, English, German, Italian, French, Spanish, Persian and Turkish languages.

The building was suffered during the Great Domestic war (WWII). The local lore museum was placed there in 1960th. Several scenes of films "Holiday of Sacred Jorgen", "Botfly", "Three fat men", "Board and sword" were created there. You can get there by direct flight to Simferopol or through Kiev or Odessa.