Blue Mosque
Persian mosque of blue-tiled domes, once a Soviet planetarium, now Yerevan's oldest surviving house of worship.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Blue Mosque in Yerevan opens underneath its smaller dome, where Soviet planners once dimmed the lights and projected painted stars over the spot where worshippers had knelt facing Mecca. Built in the 1760s by Hoseyn Ali Khan, Persian governor of Yerevan, it was once the grandest of eight mosques in the city and the only one Armenian writers, including poet Yeghishe Charents, fought to save from demolition. From 1937 to 1982 the whole complex served as Yerevan's history and natural history museums, with a planetarium projector installed in one of its halls. Stand in the courtyard on the same stone paving and listen for the call to prayer.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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