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The Surp Hach (Saint Cross) church is one of the jewells of Armenian architecture. It is situated in the beautiful place some kilometers away from the southern shore of the Lake Van in Eastern Turkey.

The church was built by the architect named Manuel in 915-921 AD, during the rise of Vaspourakan Kingdom. It was intended to be a part of a summer residence of the King Gagik Artsruni.
Aghtamar church is richly decorated with bas-reliefs depicting apostles, saints and the scenes from the Old and New Testaments.
The church is encircled by four friezes with vegetative ornaments under the windows; vine and scenes of agricultural works above the windows; running animals and male faces on the roof edges and the drum.

During 2006-2007 the government donated 1500000$ to fund the renovation of the Church. The photo was taken before the renovation.

You can read & find more pictures of this & other Armenian churches in eastern Turkey on my web-site:

http://www.westernarmenia.net/index.files/Akhtamar_Armenian_Church_en.htm

Sorry but there is many pages in Russian.
However you can use
http://babelfish.altavista.com/
to translate it to english.

Hope you like it.