Armenia Travel Blog

“Arcolad” is the first Armenian handmade artisan chocolate brand that feature all-natural ingredients, delicious Armenian sun-dried fruits and Belgian chocolate.

Armenian fruits are very sweet and juicy thanks to the unique natural conditions in Armenia, hot sun and spring water from the mountains.

Apricots, plums, peaches from Armenia contribute to the rich flavor of Arcolad as much as the top-quality Belgian chocolate, well known for its great taste in the whole world. Half of the walnut gives a crunchy and nutty touch.

Besides fruit-nut chocolates Arcolad produces plain chocolate and filled chocolate with a variety of creams – Cointreau cream, champagne and coffee cream.

Here are some photos fro the production – sorry didn’t have my camera at hand, had to take pics with my iphone….

Apricot and walnut ready to be covered with chocolate (click to enlarge)
btw, the walnut is fixed on the fruit with chocolate too, which is also made by hand!

Covering with chocolate (click to enlarge)

Some photos of old Yerevan from the beginning of the 20^th century… It was less than 100 years ago, but seems like hundreds of years… So much change!

Yerevanians in national costumes, 1916

Bazaar square, 1916

Bridge over Getap river, 1930

Caravanserai and St.Grigor Enlightener Cathedral (blown up in 1939), 1930

Workers rally near Nikolai Cathedral (blown up sometime by 1931), 1925

Old Yerevan building style, wooden balconies and stairs

A boy selling water, 1930

Sayat Nova Avenue, 1923

Laying tramway track on Abovyan Str., 1928

Amiryan Street

Armenian Brandy Factory, 1930

Opera House construction, 1929

Central Square, 1926

Sources: merong.com, iatp.am

YEREVAN magazine is an Armenian magazine written in English. It’s an entertaining reading, covering Armenian arts, people, culture, music, traditions and more. Yerevan is capital and largest city of Armenia. The magazine is available in the US, at least at any Armenian store. The style and quality of the magazine is much like that of Vogue and GQ… with more in-depth content.

According to the publishers, Yerevan magazine aims at attracting an ethnically varied readership that has an appetite for entertainment, thoughtful commentary, insightful features, and tasteful advertising that is pleasing to the eye.

YEREVAN magazine is much more than a publication. It serves as a large cultural project which focuses on preserving and displaying pages of Armenian history and presenting to the world the many representations of what it means to be an Armenian. It is a project that brings Armenian diaspora together.

New web service is emerging in Yerevan, Armenia. Promo.am is the first Armenian “deal-of-the-day” service.

The service uses the power of collective purchasing to offer special deals to all citizens of Yerevan. Promo.am negotiates with local businesses special discounts, which are usually 40% to 80%.

How does it work?
Each day one deal is showed on the main page of the Promo.am website available for purchase within 24 hours. The deal does not get confirmed if the minimum number of buyers is not reached. If by the end of the deal time the minimum number of coupons is not purchased, the credit card of those who participated in the deal is not charged, or, if the payment was done through terminals, a popular cash payment method in Yerevan, the amount is credited to the buyers’ accounts in the system and can be used for further purchases.

If registered at Promo.am, you get informed of the new deals by email and never miss a great opportunity to visit your favorite cafes, restaurants, beauty salons, SPAs, stores, clubs, concerts, cinemas, etc. at deep discounts.

The site will open in the end of February. However the preliminary registration is already on - register now and get a bonus of 1,000 AMD on your Promo account!

“I fear for you that you may miss something important in your life, as you haven’t known anything about it. What is the question of? Of course, it is about duduk. The sense of this instrument can be understood by listening to it. And when you do it, you want to tell the new comers that the music of duduk is the mountain songs or the tree dialogue, the old cry of elderly people or a simple joy of a child, the fight of warrior or the weddings … Just listen! And you will feel the sense of duduk.” (Jivan Gasparian)

So, listen…

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Duduk is an ancient Armenian wind instrument made of apricot wood. It has a warm, mild and velvety sound, close to a human voice. Duduk was proclaimed a “Masterpiece of the Intangible Heritage of Humanity” by UNESCO in 2005. Read more about Duduk here.

The sound of the Duduk can be heard in popular film soundtracks. Djivan Gasparian played the duduk in Gladiator, Syriana, and Blood Diamond, among others. The Duduk has also been used in The Crow, The Passion of Christ and even in science fiction, like Battlestar Galactica and Children of Dune TV series.

Komitas is one of the brightest Armenian composers and musicians.
He was born in 1869 in Turkey, studied in Etchmiadzin’s theological seminary, in conservatory and university in Berlin, lived in Constantinople, one of the significant centers of Armenian culture and died in France in 1935. He died in a Paris mental hospital. His mental desease was the consequence of what he had come through during the Armenian genocide in 1915. Among other Armenian population of Turkey he was arrested and exiled to Anatolia. The 3-month path to death and cruel murders of his friends, women and children left its indelible mark on his soul and mind.

Komitas brought a renaissance to the centuries-old Armenian music. Komitas’ music is the reflection of Armenian spirit and culture.

Many famous western composers found inspiration in Komitas’ music. After one of the concerts the outstanding French composer Claude Debussy exclaimed excitedly: “Brilliant father Komitas! I bow before your musical genius!” He paid high tribute to the merits of Komitas and his significance for the world of music, saying, “If Komitas wrote only “Antuni”, that alone would be enough to consider him a great artist”. In Debussy’s opinion Komitas was a revelation, the most remarkable phenomenon in the world of music.

“Vagharshapat Dance” performed by “Komitas Quartet”

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Komitas Quartet was founded in Moscow in 1924. In 1976 the quartet moved from Moscow to Yerevan starting a new page in its history. The quartet made a lot of collection recordings in the USSR and released numerous albums in Russia, United Kingdom, France and USA.

The present team of the Komitas Quartet:

Eduard Tadevosyan 1st Violin
Syuzi Yeritsyan 2nd Violin
Alexander Kosemyan Viola
Aram Talalyan Cello

Short film by Bettina Timm about Cosmic Ray Station on Aragats mountain in Armenia near the lake Qarilich at 3250 meters. The station was founded by world-known Armenian physicists Alikhanyan brothers in 1943. Research facilities are located on two high-altitude stations on Mt. Aragats: Nor-Amberd Station and Aragats Station. Cosmic Ray Division (CRD) headquarters are at the Alikhanyan Physics Institute, Yerevan, Armenia.

One of the researches of the group of scientists on the Aragats Cosmic Ray Observatory was the ANI experiment (Ani is one of the ancient Armenian capitals, now located on the territory of Turkey).  This world biggest experiment of detection of ultra-high energy cosmic rays was started before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, after the collapse the work was officially stopped. However, Armenian scientists go on researching on various aspects of cosmic rays, hoping to resume the ANI experiment.

The film is in 7 short parts!

 

About 11,000 years ago the ice shield of the last Ice Age covering the Armenian mountains started to melt. The new stage of the formation of Armenian relief began. The passing glacier formed a lot of cirques (an amphitheater-like valleys) on its way, part of which became tarns. A tarn is a mountain lake or pool formed in a cirque by waters of a melting glacier and snow that in a cold climate does not evaporate but accumulates and melts.

Tarn lakes can be found on Zangezur, Gegham, Vardenis and other mountain ridges of Armenia. But the most famous of them is Qarilich lake. Qarilich or Qari lich means stone lake. According to ancient popular beliefs the lake is fed by stone rivers, called kurums.

Qarilich is located on the Aragats mountain on the altitude of 3200 meters. The average temperature of the warmest month of August is about +10 C here. When it’s +40 C down in Yerevan, it’s about +10 on the Qarilich and about +0 on the Aragats summit. Qarilich’s surface is only 0,12 sq.km and depth is maximum 8 meters. It’s not a big but very picturesque lake. 

Qarilich is a transfer point on the way to the Aragats’ peaks. Going up the Aragats’ slope from the Qarilich, you can reach the Southern peak (the easiest), the Western peak and the shoulder. The least is the most convenient and safe way to descend to the crater and then climb the Northern peak of Aragats.

Institute of Physics of Cosmic Rays is situated on the bank of Qarilich lake. Cosmic Ray research at high altitude stations on Mt. Aragats, Armenia, was founded by famous Armenian physicists, Alikhanyan brothers, in 1943. Till now a group of scientists live on the station, measure cosmic rays and suns emissions.

Photo by Suren Manvelyan [see full size]

Direct flights from Venice, Italy, to Yerevan, Armenia, will start on June 5, 2009.

The flights will be opened by a new air-company Festa Tour Avia in partnership with the Italian MyAir. The ticket price is expected to be around 475 Euro. The flights will initially be only weekly, however if the new direction is successful and there’s more demand, the partners will consider the possibility of opening more flights to other Italian cities in future. According to Festa Tour, the expected number of passengers till the end of the tourist season this year in the direction Venice – Yerevan is around 4,000 people.

The number of leisure tourists from Italy to Armenia is increasing every year and has grown 41% over the past 3 years, compared to the overall 11% growth of the leisure tourists to Armenia.

The Night of Museums will take place on May 16 in Yerevan, Armenia, kicking off at 18:00. A number of museums will not only open their doors for free but will also present their special programs and exhibitions. This is going to be the 5^th Night of Museums organised in Armenia, the first one was held in 2005.

There’s no official list of the museums participating in the event. However, the following could be recommended to visit.

The National Gallery of Armenia, situated on the Republic Square – here’s their program for the Night.

House Museum of Cinematographer Sergei Paradjanov. Address: 15/16, Dzoragyugh Str. Tel: (+374 10) 538473

Matenadaran, one of the world’s largest repositories of ancient manuscripts. Address: 53, Mashtots Ave. Tel: (+374 10) 562578, 583292

Museum of Folk-Art of Armenia. Address: 64 Abovyan St. Tel: (+374 10) 569387

Museum of Modern Art. Address: 7, Mashtots Ave. Tel: (+374 10) 535359

House Museum of Painter Martiros Saryan.  Address: 3, Saryan St. Tel: (+374 10) 581762

House Museum of Painter Minas Avetisyan.  Address: 29, Nalbandyan St. Tel: (+374 10) 560787

Please, check the last two before going there