Sevan makes me think of the Armenian Chernobyl exclusion zone. It just looks desolate.
I tried looking up pictures for it once for reference material to do a Sevan painting but all I could ever come up with was the local monastic collage and the lake.
Most post-Soviet countries are desolate. I'm not sure if you've read that Vice article about the Azeri oil fields but they look the same way.