GUMRI, or as it is now more frequently called Alex-andkopol, in honour of the empress Alexandra, a town of Russian Armenia in the province of Erivan, on the old frontier of the Turkish territory which was formed by the river Arpachai. It is situated at a height of 5268 (according to Abich, 4819) feet above the sea, on an eminence which commands the environs but is somewhat defective in a military point of view because the neighbouring valleys form a kind of screened approaches. The fortifications, erected in 1837 by command of Nicholas I., are the strongest in that part of Asia with the exception of those of Kars, and would be quite impregnable to an Eastern army. Like the ordinary houses of the town, they are built of limestone; and they consist of regular bastions casemated and mounted with guns and surrounded with a ditch. There are several handsome Armenian churches in Gumri, one of the finest of which was built in 1872. The town passed to Russia by the peace of Adrianople. In 1840 it was made a district town of the Gruzeno-Imeritian government, and in 1850 it was incorporated with the Erivan government. In 1832 it contained only about 60 houses, but they had increased to 1200 in 1838. At present its population is about 16,000.