🇦🇲 KOND ~ The Forgotten Village That Refuses To Disappear! – Yerevan : Armenia

A step back in time through Yerevan’s oldest neighbourhood… where narrow winding lanes, centuries-old homes and hidden courtyards tell stories of old Armenia!

THIS PLACE IS SO INTERESTING!…

How can a neighbourhood survive for centuries in the middle of a rapidly modernising capital, yet remain seemingly forgotten by the very city surrounding it?

Kond has struggled with poor infrastructure and living conditions… Many of its streets are still unpaved, and the neighbourhood has a rather haphazard look, with homes built over the years in all sorts of styles, often without any real plan or order by the residents themselves

GENERAL INFO

📍 LOCATION: Kond Historical District, Kentron, Yerevan, Armenia
🏘️ AREA: Approximately 16 hectares
📅 HISTORY: Historic settlement with surviving urban layout dating back at least to the 18th century
⛪ MAIN ATTRACTIONS: Saint John the Baptist Church, Tapabashi Mosque remains, traditional houses, historic courtyards and narrow alleyways

⚠️ REMEMBER: Kond is a living residential neighbourhood. Respect people’s privacy, ask permission before photographing residents or entering courtyards, and don’t enter abandoned or unsafe buildings.

LOCATION

Kond is one of Yerevan’s oldest and most fascinating neighbourhoods, its located on the hillside just west of the city centre, put walking shoes on as its a bit of a walk up and around the narrow streets

Funny enough, Kond is located right near the 5 star luxury hotel and Seven Apartments – a stark contrast to the homes of the Kond area

Narrow streets that are all cobblestone or roughly made, take care when walking around Kond

KOND FROM ABOVE

THE HISTORY ~ A VILLAGE THAT REFUSED TO DISAPPEAR

I did a bit of a walk through of part of Kond on this day… and its exactly the same as I remember exploring it here the first time I came to Armenia in 2003! It hasnt really changed much

There is a particularly interesting story here!

Dating back to the 18th c. Kond has survived centuries of political change, Soviet redevelopment plans, property disputes and repeated promises of reconstruction. And, as of November 2026, its future is still being debated!

There is a kind of beauty to the ruins or kond… the bright green of the leaves against the browns and neutrals of the buildings

Kond is one of the oldest neighbourhoods in Yerevan

As you walk around the area, you feel like you have left the city and in another country altogether!

KOND comes from the Armenian word for a rounded or elongated hill, and it sort of sits there and over looks the rest of the city & during Persian rule, the neighbourhood was known as Tapabashi

Then there are dumping grounds on the outside where there is rubbish dumped, but in general the area is cleaned and doesnt smell its like its part of its design…

Houses here were built organically with no general layout and you can see that as you walk around its so obvious, courtyards shared by groups of homes and buildings leaning on each other, yet so unique and beautiful

The residents were of all demographics that lived here

WHY HAVENT THEY KNOCKED KOND DOWN?

Im too scared to ask this as I dont want to hear “oh, they planning on doing it this year” or something like that

There are a few reasons… property ownership, legal complications, failed redevelopment schemes, heritage protection and the residents themselves.

Kond has been tagged for redevelopment for so long now, even through Soviet period, there has been talk that planners wanted to clean up some areas and create modern developments

In 1978, plans were published to remove parts of the district and build multi-storey developments…. Nooooo…. And during the 1980s, there were also talks to transform Kond into something resembling Paris’s Montmartre, like an artistic and cultural quarter in Yerevan…

Id rather a transformation than a destruction tbh

After Independence of Armenia, knocking or changing Kond became even harder…

In 2006, Kond was declared an area of public eminent domain, and a private developer, Downtown Yerevan CJSC, became involved in a major redevelopment scheme

In 2007, 200 families signed an agreement to recieve new apartments in exchange for their Kond homes, but this came to a halt for some reason

Some residents actually gave their homes before even recieving their apartments! Doh!

PAST HURTS… e.g NORTHERN AVENUE PROJECT

There is so much distrust between the people and the government due to past experiences… Im not surprised!

The people who were displaced by the Northern Avenue project were never offered apartments in the newly constructed “elite” buildings there; rather they were given money and expected to pick up and move to cheaper parts of town. Their sense of injury is like a dying fire that flares up from time to time. They organise regular protests in front of the Mayor’s Office. They are angry about the amount of compensation they have received, and demand additional sums, as well as a return of the 10 percent that was taken out of the compensation in taxes, an amount that totals 1.7 million US dollars. It is hard to say what solution, if any, will be found to the problem.

The troubled situation regarding Northern Avenue alerted dozens of Kond residence and brought them to the Mayor’s Office in the fall of 2004. The mayor listened to the delegation and promised, “The appropriation of the area will not begin until the questions of every last person who lives in Kond have been looked into.”

This actually shows why exisiting residents are finding it hard to give up their homes or agree to any new agreements due to this past experience

Were the homes given to residents by the government?

So not all the residents were gifted these homes

Some have lived here for generations after inheriting their homes, others arrived from western armenia in 1915 and set up homes here

During the Soviet period, property arrangements changed considerably. Some residents occupied state-owned or allocated housing, while others retained or acquired homes through different legal arrangements

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, there were some contractual issues

One of Kond’s longstanding problems is that ownership of a house does not always translate into clearly documented ownership of the surrounding courtyard or land 🤔

In March 2026, Yerevan’s mayor met residents to discuss this issue…. Approx 900 properties had been inventoried, and more than 670 applications had been submitted to restore or legalise property rights…

Thats a massive amount of homes in a small area that needs to be legalised and ownership problems solved!

And this explains why its not so easy to just buy and knock down and modernise this area…

During the Persian period, a mosque was built here, dates back to 1687

The Kond conspiracies and unanswered questions

1. Are developers waiting for the residents to give up?

Kond sits on some of the most expensive land in yerevan and im sure investors are scratching around to see how in the hell they can buy this land and start modernising and building asap!

There is a lot of distrust amongst the locals in the area

2. Are some houses worth considerably more as plots than as homes?

Are residents sitting on their crumbling properties waiting for the land value to rise? Well, yeah most probably… who knows but I wouldnt be surprised! (Id prob do the same lol)

3. Is there an older city underneath Kond?

There must be something underneath!!

Kond has a long history, and archaeological discoveries in old Yerevan have revealed much older settlement remains

There are stories around underground passageways, structures, cellars in old folklore

WHAT IS HAPPENING TO KOND IN 2026?

On 26 June 2026, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan chaired a meeting about Kond’s future. The following day, he visited the neighbourhood with Yerevan’s mayor and other officials and met residents…

The proposed approach is a public–private–community partnership, focusing on:

• Preserving Kond’s historic and cultural heritage.
• Improving housing conditions for residents.
• Modernising water, electricity and other infrastructure.
• Improving pedestrian access and the street network.
• Encouraging tourism and small businesses.
• Making the neighbourhood economically sustainable.

💰 How much are houses in Kond worth?

A few examples were listed on list.am for sale!

After doing some research, its mainly because of the land that the properties are expensive because of the location, but there is a lot of unrest if you buy because there is no way knowing the future and there is no long term stability, so for living, youre taking a risk, but who knows what this government will do in the coming years

In 1793, members of the Ter-Grigoryan family helped finance a water supply from the Getar River to the courtyard of St John the Baptist Church. This supplied clean water to the people of Kond

Its a topic of much debate as if they modernise this area of Yerevan, like they did with Northern Avenue, it… will…. All… be… GONE… all this history, not particularly beautiful fine, but holds so much history and cultural value

1 of many Kond graffitti which is part of the “Kondgallery” which is a part of urban art project “yerevantropics” launched by Sergey Navasardyan started in 2018 and its aim is to transform Kond into a vibrant center for contemporary urban art!

Heres an example I found :

80-year-old Vanik’s had his home seized by the government once before, when the Dvin Hotel was built. He received no compensation. He moved to new land near the church and built a new house. Now this house is to be leveled too. Vanik is determined not to let that happen; he’ll be waiting for the first person who tries to enter his house with an axe.

A lot of the people live in dilapitated situation without modern conveniences, but are too scared to

The Geghamian family of meliks (i.e. Armenian nobles) ruled the area of Kond

There are many small corridors leading into shared courtyards which connects families together

A living area with laundry flying around like flags lol

The original residents who first came here were refugees fleeing from war or poverty mostly from western armenia

OLD KOND PHOTOS

It is perhaps the closest thing Yerevan has to a living open-air museum – except that people still call it home

Even with its amazing historical significance, Konds future is not apparent, whats going to happen? Especially since now Yerevan is modernising at such a fast pace and Kond is going to be swallowed up in some way or another, but are the residents going to be looked after and is the history of Kond going to be protected?

Because if we lose this area, a really unique and historical part of Yerevan will be lost and die and that, is a really sad thought as more and more sterile modern bleak boring buildings begin to rise up around the area and make this once unique city, the same as any other modern city of the west 😔

16OCT26