Masis, Armenia

Masis (Armenian Մասիս ) is a city in the Central Armenian province of Ararat, which is a trade hub, railway station and residential development for the 14 kilometers northeast historic city of Yerevan important.

Location

Masis is at 854 meters above sea level in the wide valley of the Aras, which marks the border with Turkey, and on the left bank of the Hrazdan, the water runs from Lake Sevan, flows through a gorge in Yerevan and flows a few kilometers south of Masis in the Aras. The alluvial plain south of the city is crisscrossed by irrigation canals and is used for intensive agriculture. On kleinparzelligen fields thrive vegetables ( watermelons, tomatoes, eggplant ), grapes and fruit trees, especially apricots and peaches. In numerous ponds between Masis and the villages Ranchpar ( six kilometers to the south) and Sayat Nova ( four kilometers west ) is operated as in other areas of Arasebene fish whose yield is sold in the capital. There are some villages in problems with the supply of drinking water, because too much water is derived from deeper dug artesian wells for fish tanks.

From Yerevan Masis can be reached on the motorway developed as M2. At the junction, the western exit leads to Masis; eastward branches off the M15 which encircles the city of Yerevan east of Masis on Nubarashen to Abovyan. In the center of Masis, the H13 between the neighboring villages Marmara 's in the east and Sayat Nova in the west with the H12, which leads south from the highway exit to Ranchpur to the Aras crosses. The nearest towns of Masis at the M2 to the southwest are Artashat (14 km) and Ararat ( a further 17 km). Masis also means one of the villages that grew together in a long chain drag on the road parallel to the highway from Yerevan Artashat direction.

History

At the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, a 160 square kilometer district Zangibasar was created from parts of the former districts Echmiadzin and Artashat in December 1937. How does the district also contributed its 31 villages and settlements predominantly Turkic names, the residents were in accordance with the majority of Azerbaijanis. To 1949, the Soviet administration in the district. The Soviet government distrusted the Azerbaijanis who lived right on the Turkish border and ordered the relocation of Zangibasar.

For the subsequently settled Armenians in 1950 Masis was re-established as a city. Masis is the Armenian name of the immediately across the border nearby, sacred to the Armenians Mount Ararat. The historian Moses of choirs are in the 5th century, the name origin again, which is still observed today as a folk etymology. Thus, Masis is derived from Amaziah, a descendant in the sixth generation of Japheth, who survived as one of the three sons of Noah, the deluge. Amaziah (now Amasya ) is also the ancient name of a city in Asia Minor. After three generations on Amasia Aram was born, from which the foreign name for Armenians was, who call themselves Hajer. So this holds at least the Armenian historian Vardan Arevelci together in the 13th century. Apart from the Ararat carry two more mountains in the historic Greater Armenia named Masis. The Nekh Masis ( Nex Masis, pronounced " Nech Masis " today Suphan Dagi ) north of Lake Van on projects such as the Ararat clear the surrounding area and was therefore well placed in the early Christian period to the deluge myth in conjunction. Masis seems an Armenian loanword from Persian with the meaning to be "bigger" " enormous."

Cityscape

In Masis lived in January 2008, according to official statistics 22,138 inhabitants. In the socialist era Masis was an important railway junction on the route between the Georgian Soviet Republic to the north, and the decommissioned by the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in 1990 after connecting Nakhchivan to the south. Towards the east, a railway line branches off to Yerevan and Lake Sevan. The station is about two kilometers west of the center.

The streets of downtown were created in a substantially uniform rectangular grid. The central intersection of the wide main roads with the stop for Marschrutkas is surrounded by the post office and other public buildings and some grocery stores. Agricultural products of the region in the street sale are offered in smaller side streets. The main residential areas are characterized by five-storey blocks of flats cheap created from the socialist period with an average of every 50 housing units. Attractions, there are none.

At the edges, especially towards the south, the settlement structure is rural. On unpaved roads are spreading there -storey detached houses, which are surrounded by vegetable gardens before they go into open fields. There are some wood processing industries, others produce paints and varnishes.