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Owing to the natural conditions of the highland the overwhelming majority of the medieval settlements were situated in the valleys of major rivers or their tributaries. Settlements situated in higher elevations of the mountains and difficult to reach served mostly for defense purposes. While choosing the place for such a settlement or fortress the availability of water should certainly be taken into account. This may be exemplified by the princely town of Tzar, situated on the plateau at the altitude of 2050 m above the sea, over 300 m higher that the Trtu river (1730) passing through the gorge below.
The constructive peculiarities of Karvajar villages are sharply divergent Pursuant to these peculiarities they may be subdivided to two main groups. The first one is comprised of the former Armenian villages resettled by the nomads who simply adapted to the existing accommodations. Such villages preserve the peculiarities of the former planning and stand out for their compactness, density of structures, and quite discernible though sometimes a little curvy streets. The placement of houses is scrupulously selected - they are never built on the fertile soil, but on the mother bed only. Contrary to it, the Turkish villages built during the Soviet period have no regular planning, the houses are scattered, and a village consisting of 20-25 households may occupy the area of 1.0-1.5 sq. km, any streets or roads connecting one village to another are totally missing. Large cattle-sheds and byres surround each village spring. The planning peculiarities are so obvious, that an expert eye may instantly detect whether the village was founded by Azerbaijanians or inherited from the aborigines.
Unfortunately, not all the former Armenian toponyms have been preserved. There are no such detailed historical records, which would describe the district as for example, the Chronicle of Stephanos Orbelian for the regions of Syunik, listing the entire villages name by name in his Annex.
Some of the villages and monasteries of Karvajar (such as Dadi Vank, Geiamijo Vank, Tsraget Anapat (Desert). Apahen (or Tpel or Turk, Bashlibel), Arakhish ('or Rakhish, location uncertain], Dashtak (location imcertain), Mos (currently Mozkand) and Karvajar) had been famous centers of medieval literature.
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