Gyumri

Gyumri is an urban municipal community and the second largest city in Armenia, serving as administrative center of Shirak Province in the country's northwest. By the end of the 19th century, when it was known as Alexandropol, it had become the largest city of Russian-ruled Eastern Armenia, with a population exceeding that of Yerevan, and it was renowned as a cultural hub as well as a major center for Russian troops during the Russo-Turkish wars. During and after the First World War, as Russian forces withdrew amid the October Revolution, the city hosted large numbers of Armenian refugees fleeing the Armenian genocide, including around 22,000 orphaned children housed in roughly 170 orphanage buildings; renamed Leninakan under Soviet rule, it grew into a major industrial and textile center, with its population rising above 200,000 before the 1988 Spitak earthquake devastated it, reducing the population to 121,976 by the 2011 census and 112,301 by the 2022 census. Renamed Gyumri after Armenia's independence, the city remains known as the country's cultural hub for the many artists and craftsmen who originated there, and its Kumayri historic district, dating mainly to the 19th century, mostly survived the 1988 earthquake and preserves one of the few surviving examples of authentic urban Armenian architecture.