Blue Mosque of Yerevan

The Blue Mosque stands on Mashtots Avenue in the centre of Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. It was built in 1765–66 for Hoseyn Ali Khan, ruler of the Erivan Khanate, at a time when Yerevan was governed as a province of Iran. The city remained under Iranian rule until it was taken by the Russian army in 1827, and the mosque is one of the few buildings that survive from the city of the khans.

It is laid out in the Persian manner around a courtyard garden shaded by trees, with a prayer hall under a dome faced with blue tiles, a minaret, and around the courtyard the small rooms of a madrasa, where students once lived. The tilework, in blue, turquoise and yellow, and the courtyard with its pool recall the mosques of Tabriz and Isfahan. Its local name, Gök Jami or Blue Mosque, comes from the colour of its dome and tiles.

In the Soviet period the mosque was closed for worship and used for other purposes, including as a museum of the city's history. After Armenian independence it was restored in the 1990s with Iranian support and reopened for prayer, and it is now looked after with the help of the Iranian embassy as a mosque and a centre of Iranian culture. Its quiet courtyard, a few steps from one of Yerevan's busiest streets, is visited by worshippers, students and travellers alike.