Exploring The Cave City Of Old Goris Armenia.

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]So, we are in Goris.

[00:00:03]And it's a very beautiful town.

[00:00:06]Built right in the valley and along the mountains here.

[00:00:11]They lived in the cave dwellings in Armenia um here in Goris up until the early 20th century when the Soviet army relocated them and forced them out of their lifestyle that they had known for over 2,000 years. So, they were relocated to New Goris. Why did they care how they were living? was abandoned.

[00:00:39]I have no clue as to why they cared.

[00:00:42]But there were residents in those cave dwellings until the '70s.

[00:00:47]So, we are here going to look at these cave dwellings here.

[00:00:52]And you know, it's so interesting. They have a lot more new roads here in Goris than last time when I was here.

[00:01:02]So, we're going to go for a little hike through the mountains and check everything out.

[00:01:09]It's going to be pretty cool.

[00:01:25]Now, these are like used as little storage unit spaces for residents of Goris here.

[00:01:36]There's tons of little snails that They're coming now.

[00:01:40]You got them all?

[00:01:44]These are worms. Beautiful wildflowers are starting to grow.

[00:01:49]Hey, let's go, guys.

[00:02:03]Quite the view.

[00:02:14]What is it?

[00:02:21]So, people used to live in these caves.

[00:02:25]See some right here.

[00:02:29]Pretty cool.

[00:02:31]All these caves.

[00:02:49]This is so amazing.

[00:02:52]Okay, leave them on this side.

[00:02:57]This is like the most beautiful place.

[00:03:00]Okay, Wesley, hold her hand.

[00:03:02]Pearl, come here.

[00:03:05]What do you think of this beautiful place?

[00:03:17]It's so beautiful here. I've never been anywhere like this.

[00:03:21]You can see the caves over here.

[00:03:28]There as well.

[00:03:57]Up here on the mountain you can see the church here in New Goris.

[00:04:11]And let's just zoom out so you guys can see the whole town.

[00:04:16]This is the whole town.

[00:04:24]So, I believe at this time and around the first couple weeks of May is the best time to come to Goris because at this time you're going to see all the beautiful wildflowers that are here.

[00:04:37]My kids are obsessed with seeing all these snails around everywhere. What did you find?

[00:04:43]Oh, a bone. Okay, cool.

[00:04:48]So, um we're out hiking here in the mountains and visiting the crosses on top of the mountains and all of the uh cave dwellings.

[00:05:02]And yeah, it's good It's great to be able to take my family here for the first time ever.

[00:05:06]They've never come to Goris before and it is one of my favorite cities in Armenia.

[00:05:11]And I really think uh this is what real Armenia is to me.

[00:05:17]It's Goris, you know.

[00:05:19]It's Dilijan, it's Sevan, Gyumri.

[00:05:23]Yerevan's great, but if you really want to experience what is Armenia stay out of the uh big city.

[00:05:31]Also, in Goris you'll find a lot of interesting architecture.

[00:05:36]The houses are made of stone.

[00:05:39]Looks like it was built on top of a little like It's really interesting.

[00:05:45]Yeah, it was built into it.

[00:05:51]It's a big house, too.

[00:05:55]And this is so cool. This is the other side of the house that's built into the rock.

[00:06:02]It's really unique.

[00:06:05]We're at Goris Cemetery and we're going to take a walk through the graveyard and see what we find.

[00:06:13]>> [crying] >> Some caves where people used to live here.

[00:06:33]Look at these ones.

[00:06:36]You'll see that um Armenian cemeteries have like big pictures of their loved ones on the tombstones.

[00:07:04]That's different than in America. They don't usually have big pictures of you know, their deceased relatives, but Guys, let's go up this way.

[00:07:37]Hey, guys.

[00:07:48]So, you want to show the old church up there that we're going to walk through?

[00:07:53]What happened?

[00:07:55]What happened?

[00:08:04]So crazy.

[00:08:06]So beautiful.

[00:08:09]I wonder what life was like for them back then.

[00:08:13]Had to have been crazy living in these caves.

[00:08:24]You know, they have those things called the fairy chimneys.

[00:08:27]Is what they call them, those pillars with the with the houses inside of them as you see over here. They're pointed pillars of rock.

[00:08:43]And uh anyway, people lived in them.

[00:08:48]And uh some of these caves they date back many centuries, possibly even to uh pre-Christian Armenia times.

[00:09:01]And uh they were expanded over time into these livable spaces.

[00:09:07]And during periods of invasion locals use these caves as natural fortresses and shelters since they're easy to fend and really they're harder to defect to detect from afar.

[00:09:23]So, basically everyday life up until recently, surprisingly, people lived in these caves or cave homes well into the 20th century.

[00:09:35]Families carved out rooms, added doors, and even kept animals inside during the winter.

[00:09:41]And then we had the Soviet transition in the mid-1900s during the Soviet era the residents of these caves were relocated to modern Gyumri cell town of Goris, which is why the cave area is now abandoned.

[00:09:57]We're really close to where all the caves are where people used [screaming] to live.

[00:10:02]Here's one. Let's look inside, Pearl.

[00:10:04]Come on. Let's go.

[00:10:06]Let's look inside the cave.

[00:10:09]You guys want to live in here? Should we make a house and just live in here?

[00:10:13]Oh, interesting.

[00:10:16]Do you guys want to live in here and we can build your beds over here?

[00:10:20]>> Yeah.

[00:10:21]And we can have our fire right here.

[00:10:25]They have a little shelf.

[00:10:34]Somebody used to live in here.

[00:10:37]They used to have huge big Armenian families that would live in these big caves.

[00:10:45]William, let me see.

[00:10:47]>> [crying] >> So, you're telling me that like these big Armenian families would have like 10 plus kids, they were able to survive like this and now we're complaining about having big families with dishwashers, microwaves, washing machines. They So, they had their living space here and they also had animals as well.

[00:11:16]I don't know. Maybe that's another level.

[00:11:18]There's an old milk jug down there.

[00:11:29]There are other levels up there, but we don't know how to get up there.

[00:11:47]Somehow these kids got all the way up there.

[00:11:59]Is it cool in there, guys?

[00:12:05]Are you guys staying dry from the rain?

[00:12:11]Go in, guys.

[00:12:14]Go in.

[00:12:34]There's Mommy down there.

[00:12:41]So, we're in one of the cave dwellings here in Goris up above the cemetery.

[00:12:52]Kind of crazy, but it's really cool.

[00:12:55]It's starting to rain, but we're determined we want to look at these caves up here.

[00:13:02]Let's hurry, guys.

[00:13:04]Starting to get a little bit rainy.

[00:13:08]You tired? You can go back with your dad if you want.

[00:13:15]I'm so tired walking up these mountains.

[00:13:21]We're getting close. There's another cool one right here.

[00:13:25]Oh, no. It's starting to rain.

[00:13:29]Oh, no.

[00:13:31]I'm so out of shape, apparently.

[00:13:34]>> [sighs] >> Oh my goodness.

[00:13:36]This is crazy. Ruby, you coming?

[00:13:40]Okay, we're almost there.

[00:13:41]You can see the window up there.

[00:13:46]Some more caves over here.

[00:13:49]All right, we made it.

[00:13:55]Oh, there's an old bed here and a window.

[00:14:00]And a fireplace.

[00:14:02]Guys, can you believe people used to live in these?

[00:14:10]What is that?

[00:14:11]Just look.

[00:14:13]Flashlights.

[00:14:16]Oh, there's a window.

[00:14:18]What's up there, guys?

[00:14:21]We're going to get caught caught.

[00:14:24]Maybe that's where the Oh, that's where the chimney went out. Where the smoke hole goes out.

[00:14:30]Guys, look at this view. This is so cool. All right, guys. Let's go check out the other cave over that way to the left.

[00:14:38]Careful. Go slow.

[00:14:41]This view is amazing.

[00:14:45]Oh, we didn't see this side of the cave.

[00:14:50]I don't know what this was for. Maybe for animals or something.

[00:14:54]Okay, we're going to go down to this little cave and then I think we'll be head back to the car before we get soaked.

[00:15:03]Careful, guys. Don't get the the don't do not get stuck in the rose bushes.

[00:15:14]Look at this, guys.

[00:15:16]This is so crazy.

[00:15:24]I want to look at the cave.

[00:15:27]Is it small?

[00:15:29]This is probably where grandma and grandpa lived. It's a little house.

[00:15:35]Okay, 1 second, guys.

[00:15:37]Want to check out this cave.

[00:15:41]Oh, wow. It is small.

[00:15:45]So wild to be somewhere where so much uh history was taking place and now they're all abandoned.

[00:15:53]You can see up here that they had built a little fence for animals or something.

[00:16:00]Kids found another old home.

[00:16:03]Okay, guys. I'm coming.

[00:16:09]Oh my goodness.

[00:16:11]Is it really nice?

[00:16:14]Okay, 1 second.

[00:16:22]Guys, this is so cool.

[00:16:24]There probably was a huge family of 15 living in this once upon a time.

[00:16:37]There's the window.

[00:16:40]Another one.

[00:16:43]Found some cows.

[00:16:47]Okay, guys. Let's head back. It's starting to rain hard. What?

[00:16:52]Kids are trying to check this one out. We're headed back.

[00:16:56]It's way too rainy now.

[00:17:00]Found one more cave.