In the state of Victoria in southeastern Australia not far from Melbourne lies the small city of Ararat named after the biblical mountain located in the Armenian Highlands. Before being settled by Europeans, this area used to be inhabited by Australian aborigines.
The first Europeans began to move here after the territory had been explored in 1836 by Thomas Mitchell.
In 1841, English writer and politician Horatio Spencer Willis and his wife paid a visit to the region. Here, Willis saw a hill that reminded him of a biblical mountain that he had once seen in a book. Thereby, he decided to name this hill “Ararat”.
Soon, the settlement founded here in 1857 became officially called Ararat. It quickly grew and acquired the status of a town in 1859. Today, Ararat is a small town inhabited by 9 thousand people.
Despite the fact that there is a large Armenian community in Australia, there are only a few Armenians in the city of Ararat itself.
The city is famous for its gold and wine made from local grapes. In the 2000s, the residents of Ararat planted trees on both sides of the road right up to the neighboring city of Ballarat (105 km from Melbourne) in memory of the victims of the Armenian Genocide and the perished Australian sailors.
