Armenia sets ropeway world record
By IANSSunday, October 24, 2010
MOSCOW - A newly-built ropeway transport system linking an Armenian village with a Unesco World Heritage-listed ninth-century monastery has set a new world record.
A Guinness official presented a certificate for the world’s longest ropeway to the chief of the company that constructed the 5.7-km-long cable system, Xinhua reported.
Guinness inspector Karim Valerio presented the certificate to Bekor Papazyan, executive director of the Armenian National Competitiveness Foundation, which put up $50 million for the ropeway.
The transport system, connecting Halidzor village with the Tatev monastery, has the world’s longest single span between two supporting poles at 2.7 km. Each of the two cabins on the ropeway can accommodate up to 25 passengers at a time. The cabins travel at 37 km per hour and the travelling time from the village to the monastery takes 11 minutes.
The Tatev monastery is an Armenian Apostolic Church which served as a political and educational centre of the country during the 14th and 15th centuries. The monastery was badly damaged in the 1931 earthquake.
