Shirak

Shirak is a province in northwestern Armenia. Its administrative center is Gyumri.¹ The name is also that of a historic district of Ayrarat, and the mathematician Anania Shirakatsi took his by-name from it.

Gyumri is the second-largest city in Armenia, near the border with Turkey. Its earliest known name, Kumayri, comes from Urartian inscriptions. Under the Russian Empire it was Alexandrapol, after the wife of the tsar, and under the Soviet Union Leninakan. The name Gyumri was restored after the end of the Soviet Union.² Russian forces built the fortress of Sev Berd on a hill near the border in the 1830s.²

A large share of the buildings of Gyumri was destroyed in the earthquake of 1988, and the damage is still visible.² In May 1918 the Armenian army fell back from Alexandrapol and then pushed the Ottoman army back to it in the battles that ended at Battle of Sardarabad.