| The Daily Telegraph, March 2007 |
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Good Luck to a New Armenia
It has a tragic past but Douglas Rogers predicts a change in fortune for this fascinating country. It is easy to see Armenia as the Israel of the Caucasus (even though it's actually the oldest Christian nation on earth, having adopted Christianity in AD 310, a decade before Rome). It is surrounded by Muslim countries on three sides - Turkey, Iran and Azerbaijan – and war-torn Georgia to its north. In 1915 Armenia suffered its own holocaust: the slaughter of 1.5 million people by the Turks, a genocide the Turkish government still refuses to acknowledge. Ten years on, Tufenkian not only had luxury showrooms in New York and Los Angeles, where his exquisite rugs were snapped up by the likes of Dennis Quaid, Donna Karan and Ben Stiller, but he had just branched out into the travel industry. Under a new company, Tufenkian Heritage, he had created Armenia's first design hotels: three properties set in restored ruins or close to religious sites that form a perfect cultural triangle for a visit to Armenia. Tufenkian's Yerevan hotel, the Avan Villa, is the first ''boutique'' hotel in Armenia. A four-storey guesthouse set on a hillside overlooking the town, its 14 rooms were furnished with Armenian crafts and his carpets - all peach, ochre and walnut tones - warmed the living room. Typical of Oushak rugs, the colours reflected the dry hills around us. There was nothing dry about the Villa's food. In a vine-covered courtyard we were served bountiful plates of crisp-thin lavash bread, succulent vine leaves stuffed with filet mignon, spicy ground lamb on bulgher, known as kufta, and bowls overflowing with fresh fruit. I wondered how such a dry place could yield such fresh produce and in answer the chef pointed to a narrow sliver of green at the foothills of Mount Ararat. "The Ararat Valley," he said. "The most fertile valley in all the Caucasus- where Noah planted the first grapes." Perhaps it was grapes from Noah's vines that went into the delicious Armenian brandy we drank after dinner each night. Tufenkian's newest hotel was the Avan Dzoraget, a 34-room lodge set in an old stone firehouse on a river in the remote Lori region, two hours north of Yerevan, near the Georgian border. We set off in a Tufenkian bus, the parched Yerevan landscape giving way to lush valleys and pine-covered mountains. It could have passed for Switzerland were it not for the shells of abandoned Soviet industrial plants by the roadside and the bemused looks of shepherds gazing at us from the hills. The Dzoraget had only recently opened, it smelt of fresh cement, and there were no other guests, but there was no denying its splendid location: a white-water river gushed in front of it and the hotel bar was set in a Soviet-era bomb shelter located in a hill behind. It was too cold to raft the river, too early for brandy, so we drove half an hour to Sanahin, a revered 10th-century monastery set on a tree-covered hill top. From Yerevan the following morning it took us only two hours to get to the third stop on the cultural triangle: Lake Sevan, north-east of the capital. At 6,230ft, one of the highest lakes in the world, Sevan was a popular resort for the Soviet elite, and when its silvery-blue water came into view, I could see a number of sturdy stone dachas on its banks, shaded by forests of red and yellow aspen.Tufenkian had built his flagship hotel, the Avan Marak Tsapatagh, on the eastern side of the lake, near the Azerbaijan border. It was the most spectacular of all the hotels, a 34-room lodge in a converted stone barn set in a wheat field. I checked into a beautiful duplex room, the bare-stone walls covered with more lavish Oushak carpets. A balcony faced the lake. There would be something biblical about Armenia were it not for all the monasteries and Mount Ararat and for me, the most biblical sight of all was standing on the balcony watching the fishermen cast their nets from creaking row boats on the lake, while wizened shepherds herded flocks in the hills behind. "Be a Shepherd for a Day," is one of Tufenkian's Sevan tourism projects. He has contracted hundreds of Armenian farmers around the country to rear sheep to supply the semi-coarse wool that will be used for his carpets, and visitors can join them at work. We drove out to meet one such shepherd, a man so lined and aged he looked like a prophet. It was hard to believe the wool he harvested might one day make it into Ben Stiller's bedroom. Inevitably, his wife invited us in for more food: huge plates of grilled lamb with lavash and dried fruit: flattened sheets of apples, and dried plums and peaches clung together with string. A meal fit for the gods.
To read the full article please visit: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/main.jhtml?xml=/travel/2007/03/18/etdrarmenia118.xml&page=1 |
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