Lake Sevan

The largest lake and the most important source of fresh water in the Caucasus is located in Armenia at an altitude of almost 2,000 meters. His name is Sevan.

For a long time, it was believed that Sevan got its name because of the black walls of a monastery built on the shore of a lake of igneous rock (in Armenian, "sev" means "black" and "vank" means "monastery"). But thanks to an amazing find – a stone with an inscription carved on it in the 9th–7th centuries BC - it turned out that such an interpretation is nothing more than a folk etymology. In fact, the word "sevan" comes from the Urartian "sunia", which translates as "lake".

The length is about 74 km.
The maximum width is 32 km.
The area is about 1240 km2.
The maximum depth is 79.9 m.
The average depth is 26.8 m.
The volume of water is 36.088 km3.
The height above sea level is 1898 m.

There is a legend about how Sevan appeared in the mountains of Armenia.

Many years ago, plowed fields stretched in all directions in this place and paradisiacal gardens bloomed luxuriantly. And he watered these lands with icy water from a small spring. It was pouring out of the ground in such a strong stream that, having collected water, they always locked it with a huge stone so that no disaster would suddenly happen.

But one warm evening, a windy beauty came to the spring. She sang songs to him, and he answered her with his clear voice. She danced a dance to him, dipping her feet into the icy water. And in response, he hugged her, leaving drops of his water on her white skin. When she left, the beauty did not close the spring, and when she returned home, she went to bed as quickly as possible. The spring beat all night with a strong stream, the spring sang all night with its sonorous voice. The streets were filled with water, and the water was rising to the thresholds of the houses. People ran out of their houses and rushed away. Only the beauty was sleeping to herself, she didn't hear anything.

And then the old man roared in a terrible voice: "May the one who caused this become petrified!"
And suddenly the beautiful woman woke up, jumped out onto her porch in her clothes, and froze like a stone in front of everyone.
And the water went on and on, driving them away. And the water kept coming and coming, filling everything. And the blue expanse remained here, and the stone island sticks out above it.

Lake Sevan has an unusual shape and looks like two drops of water that fell side by side. The big "drop" is Big Sevan. It has a flat bottom, neat shores and a depth of no more than 30 m. A smaller "drop" is Maly Sevan: a deep part of the lake with uneven "ragged" shores. It is from Maly Sevan that the whole of Armenia drinks water – this is both the honorable mission of the lake and its tragedy...

At the very beginning of the 20th century, issues of how to efficiently use the waters of Sevan began to be actively discussed. That's when the project arose, according to which it is necessary to reduce the depth of the lake. It was estimated that a huge part of the water, evaporating, "disappears", and the reason for this is the lake's too large mirror. As a "measure", it was proposed to "lower" Sevan by 45 meters.…

To realize this idea, various plans for the use of water have been developed and research conducted for 20 years. All this time, the water level in Sevan was kept at around 1935 m.

According to the project, which was eventually approved, by 1980 the water level in Sevan was supposed to drop by 55 m, while the surface area was reduced to 80 km, and the volume of water to 5 cubic km. If the plan were implemented, only Maly Sevan would remain from the whole lake.

In 3 years of successful project implementation, the water level dropped by 10 m at once! At the same time, wastewater discharge into Sevan increased, which very soon led to periodic blooming of water and a general deterioration in its quality.

Already in the 50s, it was decided to revise the water level reduction project. 10 years later, a new plan was proposed, according to which it is necessary to "transfer" water from Arpa and Vorotan to Sevan. As a result, it took 23 years to build a tunnel into the reservoir on Arpa, from 1981 to 2004. After its opening, the water level in Sevan gradually began to rise by 2-3 tens of centimeters per year.

Sevan has always been rich in fish, even rare endangered species, such as Sevan trout (or ishkhan), have been found here. Fish farms located along the shores of the lake were engaged in breeding ishkhan, thanks to which it was possible to feed the entire region with fish and provide jobs for several hundred people. But today the Sevan trout is on the verge of extinction – and not only because of the artificial lowering of the water level in the lake, but also because of the whitefish, crucian carp and crayfish brought here.

It turns out that raising the water level in Sevan is no longer enough. It is also important to regulate the population of various fish species in the lake and clean up the water: now Sevan is polluted not only with sewage, but also with heavy metals due to the opening of mining enterprises. The participants of the Association of Lake Regions, which will begin its work in the near future, will be ready to propose a set of measures to solve these and other problems.

The main attraction of the lake was and remains the Sevanavank Monastery. Despite the fact that the monastery looks formidable and impregnable, it is always open to visitors.