Akhtala (Armenian: Ախթալա) is a city in the Lori region of Armenia.
The mayor of the city is Haykaz Khachikyan.

Geography
Located in a gorge on the left bank of the Debed River at the foot of Mount Lalvar; 10 km northeast of Alaverdi. There are forests in the vicinity. The distance to Yerevan is 185 km.
Railway station on the Gyumri-Tbilisi branch. Narrow-gauge railway Akhtala – Shamlug.

History
In 1939, a settlement of the same name was formed on the site of the present city. In 1970, its population was 4430 people.

Sights
Near Akhtala, on a high ledge of a mountain above the copper mines, is the Armenian monastery Akhtala, founded in the 10th century as one of the defensive fortresses of the rulers of the Tashir-Dzoraget kingdom of the Kyurikids. Until the 14th century, it was known as Phindza-khank (copper mine).
In the 10th century, the Pgndzaank (Akhtala) fortress became the most important strategic point of the Kyurikyan-Bagratid kingdom. The inscription in Armenian on the khachkar tells about the construction in 1188 by Mariam, the daughter of King Tashir-Dzoraget Kyurike, of the Church of the Holy Mother of God. At the beginning of the 13th century, Atabek Ivane Mkhargrdzeli from the Zakarian family, an influential person at the court of the Georgian Queen Tamara, who transferred from the Armenian Apostolic Church to the bosom of the Georgian Orthodox Church, transferred the monastery to the Chalcedonites and rebuilt the Armenian temple.
Kirakos Gandzaketsi, an author of the mid-13th century, reports:
“Ivane, brother of Zakare, also died and was buried in Phindzaank, at the entrance to the church he built himself; he took it from the Armenians and turned it into a Georgian monastery.”
In the XIII century the Zakarians were the owners of the monastery, Pgndzaank became the largest Chalcedonian monastery and the cultural center of Northern Armenia, but administratively it was the center of the diocese of the Georgian Orthodox Church. In the altar apse of the main temple, a niche was made intended for hierarchal worship, atypical for the Chalcedonite churches of Northern Armenia. In the middle of the 13th century, Simeon Plindzakhanetsi worked in the monastery, as evidenced by the colophon preserved in the manuscript of 1248, “made by the hand of the unworthy Simeon”, who translated “from Georgian into Armenian in the Armenian country, in the Georgian monastery, which is called “Plindzakhank”. In the XIV century, the name “Pgndzaank” disappears from historical sources. Presumably, since the 30s of the XIV century, the monastery entered the Akhtala Metropolis of the Mtskheta Catholicosate. The Georgian church charter of 1392 reports:
“in Akhtala ten smokes of Armenians with their estates and with the payment (tax) of damg …”
In 1438, for the first time, a village named Akhtala was mentioned in the sources as the property of the Georgian Catholicosate. At the beginning of the 18th century, the monastery fell into disrepair; under Ateni Sioni, there was a farmstead of the Bishop of Akhtala. In 1801, by decree of the Russian Emperor Alexander I, Akhtala was transformed into the center of the Greek Orthodox Church in Transcaucasia. At present, it remains the most important place of pilgrimage for the Greeks, who annually celebrate the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin in Akhtala on September 21.

Building
The main temple of Akhtala – the temple of the Most Holy Theotokos – is a cross-domed building, the unpreserved dome of which rested on 2 octagonal pillars and preapse pilasters. The syncretism of the features of the Armenian and Georgian architecture of the 13th century, characteristic of this temple, was especially manifested in the forms and decorations of the exterior, where large ornamented crosses and window frames are typical Georgian, and the portals are in tune with Armenian models. From the west, to the temple, approximately in the middle of the 13th century, Ivane’s tomb and a rectangular portico with an open arcade were added. The murals of the church date back between 1205 and 1216. In accordance with the Georgian tradition, images of evangelists in medallions are placed in the sails, and on the front sides of the arches the text of Ps 103. 19 on asomtavruli. The iconographic program of the altar apse (in the conch is the Mother of God with the Child on the throne, below the composition “Communion of the Apostles”, below it there are 2 rows of saints) reproduces the most strict Byzants. samples. The connection with the national cultural tradition of the Chalcedonian Armenians was manifested in the location in the center of the lower tier of the image of the Enlightener of Armenia, St. Gregory the Illuminator. In the lower part of the western wall, the saints of the Georgian Church are depicted, among them St. Equal-to-the-Apostles Nina and John Zedazneli. In the southern and northern arms of the spatial cross, cycles of murals dedicated to the Most Holy Theotokos and the Savior are presented. The study of the stylistic features of the frescoes and the nature of the inscriptions suggests that at least 8 artists, among them were an Armenian Chalcedonite, familiar with Byzantine painting of the late Comnenos era (altar apse); an artist who followed the patterns of Byzantine painting of the 1st half of the 13th century (the upper registers of the northern and southern walls and the main vaults); masters from Georgia who painted the western wall.

In addition to the main temple, inside the monastery there is a small hall church of St. Basil and the ruins of a two-story residential building. Around the monastery at different distances there are four chapel churches dedicated to the Holy Trinity, St. Apostles, Saints Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom. Restoration work in Akhtala was carried out from 1979 to 1989 by the Department for the Protection of Monuments of Armenia.