The Abandoned Airport In Zvartnots, Armenia
robschofield/FlickrThis abandoned airport was once a luxurious port for elite travelers.
In the 1970s, this now abandoned airport was the height of luxury — located at the crossroads of Asia and Europe and regularly hosted Kremlin VIPs.
A posh eatery sat inside the tall control tower, and people from across the USSR and beyond traveled in style at Zvartnots airport, located just outside Armenia’s capital city of Yerevan.
Once the star of postcards and tourism pamphlets, Zvartnots saw its last flight in 2008 and began its fall into disrepair in 2011.
Today, windows are broken or missing altogether, and the grand entrance hall is disintegrating. Soviet-era posters still hang on walls of cracked marble, while stubs of old tickets and other paperwork are scattered about. The escalator stands motionless.
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Former airport maintenance manager Karen Torosyan remarked, “This airport was the best of its kind. When I worked here it was always busy. It’s sad to see it like this, but time moves on”.
But architect Anahit Tarkhanyan, the daughter of an architect on the team that constructed Zvartnots, is on a mission to fight its demolition, saying, “The airport has been stolen from the people. It’s part of our heritage and history.”
