Haterk

Haterk lies in the wooded mountains above the Tartar River, in the historic lands of Khachen. It was the centre of an Armenian principality whose lords held a series of fortresses and supported monasteries in the surrounding valleys. Prince Vakhtang's court sheltered the scholar Mkhitar Gosh, while the family helped build the monastery of Nor Getik beyond its own lands.

In the fifteenth century the region suffered under the campaigns of the Qara Qoyunlu and Aq Qoyunlu, and Haterk was destroyed. Its inhabitants established a settlement nearby in the following century, carrying the old name into a new village among the mountains. Old churches, carved cross-stones and ruined settlements in the surrounding hills recall the earlier community and its princely patrons.