Dizapayt Mountain / Artsakh - Armenian Geographic- ArmGeo

Dizapayt Mountain is located in Hadrut region of Artsakh. It is 2478 m high above sea level. The second name of the mountain is Ziarat. On the peak of Mount Dizapayt there is a monastery called Kataro. The summit is one of the sacred places of Artsakh.

Legends about Dizapayt

The legend has it that on the top of the mountain, at the place of monastery Kataro, the children of King Sanesan (the head of the nomadic Massagetae tribe) and a lot of Christian people were killed in the 330s. St. Grigoris, the grandson of St. Gregory the Illuminator and bishop of eastern lands of Armenia, led an Armenian mission to convert the Massagetae tribesmen to Christianity and he succeeded in that. King Sanesan reached the monastery and killed all the inhabitants of Katarovank, including his own children. The corpses of the killed were heaped as the pieces of wood and then were burnt ( from there comes the name of the mountain Dizapayt which means heaped pieces of wood ). Then the Arabs called the mountain Ziarat which means a sacred place in Arabic language.

The Katarovank Monastery

In the 4-5 centuries Katarovank monastery was built on the top of Dizapayt mountain. It is the monastery with the highest altitude in Nagorno Karabakh. Leo writes that it used to be a diocese of Dizak region. According to historical sources the place has been considered sacred since ancient times and the evidences of pilgrimage refer back to the Arabic period or even earlier.

People tell a legend about the mountain. According to it the God wanted to destroy the world and the mountain asked him to forgive the humans. Then the God said that he will punish the mountain instead of people and when the Dizapayt accepted the God’s offer a huge thunder hit the mountain.

You can also see the photos of our winter ascent of Dizapayt.