The Armenian quarter is the smallest, quiet and deserted from the four quarters of the Old city. For many tourists it is a favorite place in Jerusalem. There are no street stalls with t-shirts and carpets, do not stick sellers, not gomont the crowd. Silent stone streets if transferred hundreds of years ago. Not everywhere that a tourist may take a large portion of the quarter, already fenced from the outside world by a wall, is closed to visitors. To penetrate into this inner space is possible only at the invitation of a local resident. At 22.00 the gates of the quarter locked at night, as the door of the house, the tenants want to feel safe.

A close-knit Armenian community was born here in the southwest corner of the Old town, where once was located the camp of a Roman Legion, in the early eleventh century.

In General, the Armenian presence in the Holy Land dates back to the III century is already here arrived pilgrims from Armenia, the world's first country to officially accept Christianity. Many of the pilgrims remained in Jerusalem forever – at the time, the Diaspora reached 25 thousand people. Compatriots built housing, churches, monasteries throughout the Holy Land; the Armenian Church have increased their influence: to VII century in Palestine there were 70 Armenian monasteries. Now the Jerusalem Patriarchate of the Armenian Apostolic Church is one of three major guardians of the Christian Holy places in the Holy Land, along with the Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches.

Muslims expelled from Jerusalem by the crusaders, very loyal to the Armenians, who did not pose a threat to them. In the XIV century, when the Mamelukes, the Armenian community was allowed to protect a quarter of the wall. Entering through the main (West) gate in this wall, one can see engraved the inscription in Arabic, which says that in 1488 by the decree of the Sultan is prohibited to harm this Holy place.

Of course, in the twentieth century a kind of security certificate has not worked. The Arab-Israeli war of 1948 and the six-day war of 1967 greatly reduced the community: many were killed, many left Israel. Now in the Armenian quarter, according to various estimates, there are between one and a half to three thousand Armenians.

For powerful stone wall slowly flowing their days. Here are school, shops, clinic, a Seminary, a monastery, a magnificent Cathedral of St. James, the Church, the residence of the Patriarch, the richest library of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the oldest in Jerusalem typography. The Patriarchate owns the entire estate in the quarter, including residential homes, providing community members a right of residence. Medical services are provided here for a nominal fee, and the elderly and the poor residents of the block fed for free.

Got here tourists come to the delight of local products of ceramics (tableware, vases, Souvenirs with a predominance of blue) and from taverns, which exhibits many historical and even antique items. However, the evening comes, tourists are removed, the gate lock: quarter live their lives, not intended for outsiders ' eyes.