Shinuhayr Kusanats Anapat

Shinuhayr Kusanats Anapat (nunnery of Shinuhayr, literally "virgins' desert-monastery") sits at the southern edge of the old village site of Shinuhayr. It was founded in the 17th century, and by 1669, when the Armenian merchant-traveler Zakaria Aguletsi visited, it held 60 nuns.

A building inscription records that the main church, Surb Astvatsatsin (Holy Mother of God), was built in 1676 by mahtesi Azaria of Agulis, with the architect Usta Murad of Vaspurakan carrying out the work. It's a three-nave basilica with one pair of cross-shaped pillars, a semicircular apse flanked by rectangular side chambers, and a gabled roof. In 1720, Hovhannes of Tsghna and his son Astvatsatur added the refectory on the south side, covered by two vaulted arches.

By the late 17th century the complex had become a center of manuscript copying, and its population of nuns passed 100 — a colophon in a Gospel written here in 1694 credits the nun Hripsime and notes 120 nuns in residence at the time. The 18th century brought decline: when Catholicos Abraham III Kretatsi visited in 1735, only 20 nuns remained and the buildings were half in ruin. In the late 19th century, a parish school with classrooms opening onto a shared gallery was built inside the complex.

The nunnery lies in Syunik region, near Tatev, at the southern edge of the old Shinuhayr village site — roughly 176 km east-southeast of Yerevan in a straight line.