Jermuk

Jermuk sits at around two thousand metres in a forested gorge, and its hot mineral springs made it the most famous spa town in the Soviet Caucasus, with a row of large sanatoria built to treat digestive and metabolic conditions on prescribed courses. The name is on bottled water sold across the region. In the drinking gallery in the middle of town, taps deliver the water at a series of different temperatures from thirty to fifty-something degrees, and the routine is to work along them with a cup, tasting the increasingly warm and mineral results. A waterfall drops seventy metres in a wide spread that gives it the local name of mermaid's hair, forest walks lead along the gorge, and the air at this altitude is cold and clean.

History

The name means warm mineral spring and first appears in the 13th-century history of Stepanos Orbelian, but a cyclopean fortress and an 8th-century basilica show the area was settled long before; the princes of Syunik, who ruled it from the 10th to the 13th century, held its springs to be healing and built pools here as a holiday retreat, near a branch of the Silk Road. From the 16th century it was under Safavid Persia, a time of war in which many villages were ruined and their people scattered, and the town, also called Istisu, took back the name Jermuk in 1924 and later became one of the Soviet Union's popular spas (Wikipedia, Jermuk).

The landscape

• The drinking gallery - taps of mineral water at ascending temperatures.
• The waterfall - the wide seventy-metre fall known as the mermaid's hair.
• The sanatoria - the Soviet-era spa buildings and their treatment programmes.
• The gorge forest - walking trails along the river below the town.

When to go

May to October is the pleasant season, with autumn colour in the gorge; winter is cold and snowy and the town becomes a modest ski destination. Sanatorium treatment runs on courses of a week or more, though day access to pools and the gallery is possible.

Practical notes

This is a Soviet-style medical spa, so the buildings are large, dated and institutional and the clientele is largely older Armenians on prescribed courses; visitors expecting a boutique wellness hotel will be surprised. The mineral water is strongly sulphurous and an acquired taste. The town itself has little charm beyond the setting.

Nearby

Noravank and the Areni caves are on the road back west; Selim pass and Sevan lie north.