The cave is almost completely dark when you step inside. Paintings disappear into the shadows, the stone walls are hardly visible, and instinctively one wants to reach for their phone’s flashlight. But painter Zhirayr Martirosyan asks his audience to wait. As the darkness slowly begins to dissolve, a shelf emerges, then a canvas leaning against the rock. Sunlight still pours through the open doorway, but something else has changed: the eyes have adjusted.

Martirosyan’s art studio occupies just one of more than 10,000 caves scattered across Goris and its surrounding gorges. A century ago, thousands of people inhabited these caves — Martirosyan’s own father was born in one.

An ‘ingenious’ form of architecture

According to Vardan Sargsyan, the director of the Aksel Bakunts House-Museum in Goris — commemorating the Goris-born writer who was executed in 1937 by the Soviet authorities — anyone born in the area before the 1960s would have been born in a home located within the gorges.

‘The original dwelling was always the cave itself’, Sargsyan tells OC Media, adding that, ‘Later, families expanded the entrance by adding stone or wooden structures in front of it, gradually enlarging the house. The cave came first, and the built additions followed’.

Over time, more stone and wooden rooms were added, particularly by the beginning of the 20th century. As construction techniques became more modern, each generation extended the house a little further outward. People in the village Karahunj still live in houses like this. When entering what looks like a modern home, one is first met by older stone rooms, and at the very back is the original cave.

‘It’s an ingenious form of architecture’, Sargsyan says.

As in other places, a hierarchy existed: large families or those with greater resources resided in the bigger caves, often those with multiple rooms, while poorer families were left with the smaller spaces. Other caves served as public spaces, where community gatherings could be held or cultural events organised — there was also even a prison.

One of the most remarkable examples of this community was the cave theatre. Resembling a miniature version of a contemporary theatre, it is believed that there were special structures for placing the chairs inside the cave. Near the entrance stood a two-story stage with remarkable acoustics, thanks to the unique design of the structure and the type of rock in which it was carved. It remained in use until the 20th century. Even today, when locals celebrate Bakunts, events often begin at the cave theatre.

The local culture was not just limited to the caves and their surroundings. Indeed, Martirosyan tells OC Media that his great-grandfathers were famous ashughs (folk poet-singers) who would tour abroad, including to Iran. There, they would perform in front of the shah, receiving gifts such as sazes, traditional long-necked string instruments still popular in Armenian folk music today.

‘There was a real life in the cave’, Martirosyan says.

Beginning around 1870, the modern town of Goris began to be built on the plain directly across from the old cave settlement. People from different parts of Syunik gradually moved there because it was safer and more convenient. There, they built new houses, which is how the modern town of Goris emerged.

Meanwhile, the old cave village slowly emptied. Starting in 1930, the Soviet authorities began providing housing to families in order to encourage their movement away from the caves. By the 1960s, the last inhabitants had moved out, including Martirosyan’s father, who was only five-years-old when the family left for Baku. Locals, many of whom were left without a job after moving, then began using the abandoned caves to keep livestock or as a garbage dump.

The same happened with Old Khndzoresk, which was once an enormous cave settlement located around nine miles from Goris. According to Sargsyan, in the early 19th century, it was one of the four largest settlements in Armenia — at one point, its population reached around 5,000 people. During the Second World War alone, between 1,000 and 1,600 men were conscripted from the village.

Smaller cave villages also existed throughout the Khndzoresk Gorge, including Ghoghanjugh, Maghanjugh, Kyoru (or Goru), and Ughunishen. In the early 1960s, residents of these villages moved out onto the plateau and established a single new village together.

Building a new future from the abandoned caves

Martirosyan recalls that the last true cave-dweller died a couple of years ago

‘He had such unique tools in his house in Khndzoresk, things I’d never seen before’, Martirosyan tells OC Media. ‘Because I collect various vintage tools for my cave art studio, many people have given me tools, but what I saw there was something extraordinary’.

Martirosyan only returned to Goris after graduating from Terlemezyan College, one of Armenia’s best-known art schools. While he used to spend a lot of time visiting Old Goris, where he would sit among the caves and paint, the soil, rocks, and other debris that had accumulated over the decades began to block many of the caves. In some places, Martirosyan says, you had to practically crawl just to get inside.

‘Eventually, I thought it would be better if I had a cave where I could both paint and leave my work’, he says. ‘That was the original idea, but over time it grew into something much bigger. I realised it could become a very interesting space’.

Not long after Martirosyan began clearing a cave to make it his dedicated space — the cave was so full of garbage it had been impossible to find the entrance — he began receiving calls from the Committee for the Protection of Historical Monuments, the local municipality, and other institutions. After a period of discussions and meetings, he was granted the cave free of charge.

Even so, the process to restore the cave has been extremely expensive. The rock needs reinforcement because stones constantly fall from above, creating safety risks. A cliff that has stood for millions of years gradually erodes; as the supporting soil disappears, the rock eventually collapses under its own weight.

‘I remember one collapse about 20 years ago. Our house isn’t far from here. Suddenly, there was a huge cloud of dust — a massive section of rock had fallen, damaging several caves’, Martirosyan recalls.

‘Beyond restoration, there is also the issue of safety. Before anything else, the entire area needs to be properly stabilised’.

Martirosyan owns another studio in Goris, where he works most of the time, but he enjoys spending his working hours in the cave studio during the summer. The humidity, however, creates challenges: the paint starts cracking, almost like tree bark splitting apart. Moisture gets into everything, including the wooden frames. Either the cave must be continuously heated, or the moisture must constantly be removed.

Standing among the enormous rocks of Old Goris, smartphone in hand, it is difficult to imagine that less than a century ago, mothers carried their newborn children with ropes up to the highest caves, men traveled to Iran to perform before the Shah, and children created games out of the natural world around them.