Oghjaberdi Mountains

Voghjaberdi is a ridge, not a peak — 12 km of tableland running between the Jrvezh and Mushaghbyur rivers, its highest point reaching 2200 m near Garni village. That height, and the flat-topped shape at the crest, are what set it apart from the plateau around it.

The rock underneath is folded clay-sandstone, mixed with volcanic debris and finished off with a cap of lava. Erosion has done the rest. Up top it's hilly, wavy in places, almost flat in others. The south and southwest faces drop away steeply, cut by dry valleys and ravines where mudflows and landslides happen. The north side is gentler — it eases down, unhurried, into the Kotayk plateau.

Nobody lives on the ridge itself. People use it: pasture on the dry slopes, hayfields and arable land where the ground allows, mountain steppe holding on at the summit. It's working land, plain and simple, not scenery.

Voghjaberdi lies in Kotayk region, by Garni village, roughly 20 km east of Yerevan in a straight line.