The Yerevan City Council granted the Hrazdan Gorge the status of a specially protected natural area on October 13, placing 236.26 hectares of the river canyon that runs through the center of the capital in the category of protected landscape.
The decision also approved the boundary description and map of the area and a temporary management program. City officials have said it makes Yerevan the first municipality in Armenia to create a specially protected natural area of its own.
The designation became possible only after the National Assembly amended the Law on Specially Protected Areas of Nature in late June, which gave the city the power to act by council decision. Work on giving the gorge protected status started in 2022.
Sirarpi Haykazyan, head of the Environmental Protection Department of Yerevan City Hall, presented the motion and told the council that the gorge’s existing infrastructure is largely worn out and its water polluted, and that neither can be worked around. Access is mostly by car at present, and pedestrian access is planned.
“Hrazdan Gorge, as a ‘protected landscape,’ must have a management plan,” she said.
Writing that plan will take a long time. An organization has been selected through a tender announced by the Asian Development Bank, and until the plan is adopted the city will run interim measures meant to hold the gorge in its current condition while opening it to recreation, letting visitors “connect with nature while minimizing the impact on biodiversity and ecosystem processes,” Haykazyan said.
Hotels and Apartment Blocks Are Barred, and the Restaurants Already There Are Undecided
Hotels and buildings, including apartment buildings, will not be permitted in the protected area.
Councillors pressed on what happens to what is already standing. Iosif Kubatyan of the Azgayin Progress faction called the project excellent but said it had come too late, since the gorge as such no longer exists, and asked what would become of the restaurants and of large structures built on riverbed land.
Haykazyan said no restaurants would be rebuilt in the gorge. Kubatyan answered that they had been put up long before any of this.
“The restaurants were built before you,” Kubatyan said.
Deputy Mayor Armen Pambukhchyan, who chaired the session, said he could not say at this point what would happen to them or when, and that the question would be taken up later.
Arshak Sargsyan of the Mer Hayastan faction said he would vote for the measure but wanted deadlines, asking about the children’s railway, sidewalks, broken trees and an old rusted kiosk. Haykazyan said 22 projects have been drawn up, including one for the children’s railway, that the kiosk most likely falls under the unauthorized structures the plan refers to, and that deadlines cannot be set yet.
A Quarter of Yerevan’s Red Book Plants Grow in the Gorge
About a quarter of the 33 plant species in Armenia’s Red Book that grow anywhere in Yerevan are found in the Hrazdan Gorge, and threatened species are still being discovered there.
The justification put before the council lists vulnerable animals in Armenia’s Red Book living in the gorge: 4 invertebrate species, 2 lizard species, 3 snake species, 9 bird species and 2 bat species. The Yerevan stretch of the Hrazdan River holds 6 fish species.
Riverside forest belts run along the lower and upper stretches of the canyon with mountain steppe vegetation above them, and the document describes it as one of the least disturbed areas left in Yerevan. It also records invasive species spreading through the gorge, including tree of heaven and box elder, which are displacing native growth.
The Decision Lands Days Before Armenia Hosts COP17
Haykazyan described the measure as a commitment tied to COP17, the United Nations biodiversity conference Armenia is hosting in Yerevan later this month.
“The adoption of this draft will be a very important decision ahead of COP17,” she said the day before the vote.
The Government Is Spending 172 Million Drams on the Gorge Separately
The Cabinet approved 172 million drams, roughly 456,000 dollars, for Yerevan City Hall on April 9 to improve the gorge, with landscaping, a promenade, rest areas, platforms for sporting events, a space for outdoor film screenings and a cafe.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Mayor Tigran Avinyan visited the site in the Arabkir district in September 2025 to review the plan. Avinyan called the project part of the concept for the reconstruction and reconfiguration of the gorge, and said the city had studied the gorge’s flora and fauna and identified areas designated as cultural heritage.
