Gandzasar

Kapan's ground sits low along the left bank of the Vokhchi, boxed in by Aram Manukyan and Hovhannes Tumanyan streets in the middle of a town better known for its copper mines than its football. The stadium opened in 1963 under Soviet planning as Lernagorts Stadium, built for the works team Lernagorts Kapan, and the name still surfaces in older references even though the ground has long since taken on the identity of its current tenant, Gandzasar Kapan.

The dual naming reflects that shift rather than any confusion: call it Gandzasar Stadium when Gandzasar are at home, Kapan Stadium in general use, Lernagorts Stadium if you are talking about its Soviet-era origins. The ground itself is run by Gandzasar Sports Centre LLC, and its natural grass pitch holds a modest 3,500. In 2017, reconstruction work pushed the club out of town altogether, and Gandzasar played their home fixtures at the Junior Sport Stadium in Yerevan for a spell before returning to Kapan once the work was done.

There is no away end to speak of, no ring road of hospitality boxes — just a compact bowl wedged into the town centre near the mayor's office, the kind of arena that exists because a mining town needed somewhere for its team to play, and has adapted its name and ownership as that team's fortunes changed, rather than being rebuilt from scratch to suit them.