The underground cave labyrinth of Levon's grandfather, or How a simple villager created a masterpiece in the antique style

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

When we see ancient temples, pyramids, cave monasteries, fantasy immediately draws pictures of the events of past centuries and makes conjectures. How did distant ancestors manage to create creations of such beauty and scale? However, if you go down into the cave labyrinth of our contemporary - a resident of an ordinary Armenian village, you won't even have to fantasize. The fact that this person, not possessing special knowledge, but being guided only by his intuition and "a voice from above", created such a masterpiece is already a miracle in itself.

I started digging a cellar and got carried away

On that day, back in 1985, Levon Arakelyan decided to dig a small cellar under the house for groceries - his wife had asked him to do this for a long time.

The man began to dig the ground, but soon came across a stone. Then he began to dig in the other direction, but after a while the stone interfered with the work again. Levon was so carried away that he did not notice how he dug a rather impressive tunnel. “Why don't I make not just a cellar for storing potatoes, but a whole wine cellar!” He wondered. And he began to dig with even greater zeal. Moreover, tuff (soft rock) gave in to it well.

From that day on, the head of the family seemed to be replaced. He began to descend into the dungeon more and more often and spent more and more time at work. He did not have any special construction tools, except perhaps a hammer and a chisel. Meanwhile, his venture with a wine cellar had already grown into a whole underground labyrinth, in which new rooms were added and added.

A year passed, the second, the third, and Levon dug and dug, alone, with the help of improvised tools, taming tuff and hard basalt. The neighbors began, laughing, to call the digger Noah. After all, he, like the biblical hero, from year to year spends his energy on what others think is meaningless.

In difficult times for Armenia, when there were power outages in the country and the lights were often turned off in the house, he went down to his caves with an ordinary candle, but did not stop working. And from his modest house every now and then the trucks drove off, taking out the rock.

Ideas came in a dream

His wife Tosya protested at first and tried to dissuade her husband from this strange undertaking, because he now slept only 3-4 hours a day and sometimes even forgot to eat. But soon she realized that it was useless to resist (her husband still would not give up his hobby), especially since Levon's underground premises turned out to be unusually beautiful. At the first glance at the rooms of his underground labyrinth, one gets the impression that they were not made by a simple rural pensioner, but by an antique master - they are so intricately and tastefully decorated. Neat smooth walls, stairs, regular arches, carved crosses … And from an architectural point of view, its premises were also dug very competently.

But how could an ordinary person, without a special education, create such a miracle? According to Levon himself, he saw many ideas in a dream - as if someone from above told him which way to dig and how to decorate the walls and arches. Moreover, one day, as if half asleep, he even heard a voice that said to him: "Levon, you are destined to create a miracle, which will then surprise the whole world."For all the years of construction, Levon did not leave the feeling that he was creating something very important and monumental, although very few people know about this so far. And so he treated his underworld as a shrine - with respect and awe.

The result of the man's efforts was a seven-level underground temple-labyrinth with a depth of more than 20 meters. And he created it for 23 years.

It seems that the whole world will really know about him

In 2008, at the age of 67, Levon died of a heart attack. However, rumors about a small Armenian wonder of the world began to gradually spread throughout the country and even went beyond its borders. Every now and then tourists knocked on the elderly widow's house asking to show them the very labyrinth of Levon's grandfather (that is how Arakelyan was affectionately nicknamed by his compatriots), about which there is so much talk. And she, of course, took on the role of a guide, telling about the work of the late husband, and took guests along his cave corridors.

In one of the rooms of the house, she made a corner in memory of Levon, where she collected all his working tools, signing in which year he used one or another hammer, stone splitting wedge or chisel.

There is also a photo of the master and other things reminiscent of her husband. So gradually her house and its underground labyrinth turned into a museum. And last year they even filmed scenes for an Armenian series in the horror style.

Everyone who comes to see this creation by Levon Arakelyan and descends into the underground will notice that there is a special atmosphere here, as if the place is really sacred. It is interesting that the temperature in all rooms is the same, +10 °. The mysteriousness and a sense of ancient grandeur are betrayed by the underground corridors and interesting lighting. Some sightseers believe that if you make a wish in an unusual museum, it will definitely come true.

But the resident of Turkey did not even have to build anything: in 1963 he decided to make repairs in his basement and, breaking through the wall, accidentally discovered ancient underground city, which, by the way, is very similar in style to the modern creation of Levon's grandfather.