YEREVAN, JULY 31, ARMENPRESS. The Australian News.com periodical published a magnificent article dedicated to the capital of the medieval Armenian Bagratuni Kingdom Ani. Among other things, the website introduces the photos of the city’s ruins made by travel blog Yomadic. “Armenpress” introduces the article in its entirety.

"Founded more than 1600 years ago, the ancient city of Ani was once one of the world’s greatest metropolises. Today it sits in crumbling ruins, its former glory a distant memory.

Sitting deep in eastern Turkey, thousands of kilometres from bustling Istanbul, Ani lay on several trade routes and grew to become a walled city of more than 100,000 residents by the 11th century.

At its peak, Ani was a city of opulence, magnificence and architectural wonder. It was the citadel, former capital and heart of the great Armenian empire.

Known as the city of 1000 churches, its religious buildings, palaces and fortifications were among the most technically and artistically advanced structures in the world.

All of its buildings were constructed using local volcanic basalt that was easily carved and came in a variety of vibrant colours from creamy yellow, to rose-red to jet black.

In the centuries that followed its peak, Ani and its surrounding region were conquered hundreds of times by Byzantine emperors, Ottoman Turks, Armenians, nomadic Kurds, Georgians, and Russians.

By the 1300s the city was in steep decline and completely abandoned by the 1700s.

Largely forgotten for over 700 years, its crumbling ruins were the victim of looters and vandals, Turks who tried to eliminate Armenian history from the area and poorly managed archaeological digs.

Today Ani sits on the border of Turkey and Armenia, whose diplomatic relations have been frosty at the best of times. However it remains a historically important site where you can see a still-standing 1000-year-old mosque. The Cathedral and its domed basilica represent the city’s progressive architecture and the Church of the Holy Redeemer that was built in 1035 remained largely intact until 1955.

Here are the incredible photographs from travel blog Yomadic showing the beautiful ruins of one of the world’s greatest cities."