Sevan

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Lake Sevan is the largest lake in Transcaucasia. Originally it covered some 1360 km² (530 sq miles), or about 5% of Armenia's territory, but nowadays it measures only about 900 km² (350 sq miles), because the flow of its main source, the Razdan River, was severely diminished by tapping water from it for hydroelectricity and irrigation. To prevent the lake from drying up completely, in the early 1980's, Soviet engineers drilled a tunnel through the mountains on the lake's southern side, to divert the flow of the Arpa River into it.

One of the positive results of the lake's falling water levels was that several centuries old forts, houses and artifacts were exposed. They were drowned by an earlier rise of the water levels.

Some of the archaeological finds have been moved to the Armenian History Museum in Yerevan.