The Tale of Three Silk Traders and an Onyx Egg

Posted on September 4, 2013 by Delia

So here’s the slightly embarrassing thing about our recent jaunt across the Silk Road from Turkey to China: We made for terrible traders.

Following the ancient trade route from the west to the Far East, we felt obliged to get involved with a little trading of our own.

So when we were in Turkey, the first post of the Silk Road on the west, we thought long and hard about what we could trade for some silk in the Far East.

What had traders never before carried across 7,000 miles of treacherous desert, remote mountain ranges and right across the Caspian Sea? What would be gazed at in awe as soon as we reached China and have our fellow merchants fawning over us to give their finest silk in exchange?

And then suddenly we saw it. The shiny, almost marble like onyx egg.

We were in Cappadocia at the time, admiring fairy chimneys and what-not, when we spied a man spinning onyx stone into egg shapes.

Yes, we thought, that will secure our fortune and reputation as great traders. So we purchased one at the bargain price of £5.

We lovingly wrapped it in the plastic bag that it came in and tucked it safely away in a corner of Matty’s day bag. The egg would make us rich, we vowed.

We carried it through Turkey and pulled funny faces with it.

In Georgia we took it all the way to the Gergeti Glacier.

In Amenia we showed it a large lake by a beautiful church.

In Azerbaijan Matty got a bit inappropriate with it.

In Turkmenistan we took it to the ancient ruins of Merv.

In Uzbekistan the egg saw the beautiful blue tiled mosques of Samarkand.

In Tajikistan the egg got all giddy at high altitude.

In Krygyzstan the egg got all arty among the rolling hills.

And then it got all the way to China… and enjoyed posing by the Bell Tower in Xi’an, our final stop on the Silk Road.

And it had its last moments with the Face of Ignorance…

And then finally the big day arrived. Four and a half months after making that fateful purchase Cappadocia, it was time to trade the egg at the far eastern post of the Silk Road; Xi’an, China.

Our first mistake was that we had grown unnaturally attached to the egg. It sort of felt like the fourth member of the clan, so to speak. It had seen everything we had… If eggs could talk. I fear this may have affected our professionalism.

Our second mistake was the egg was no longer in top notch condition. Truth be told the plastic bag didn’t quite provide the protection we had initially hoped for and as Matty threw his bag down after a few local special brews, we would hear it smash against the hard floor and cringe, hoping for the best.

Our third mistake, and I think this was where we really went wrong, was that someone had already taken onyx eggs to China. To our dismay we found rows and rows of egg shaped onyx creations, even onyx egg holders and other strange, elaborate statues that we fear somewhat undermined the status of our own little onyx treasure.

And finally, we couldn’t find the silk market in Xi’an so we headed to the Muslim quarter and hoped for the best.

After spending a couple of hours being distracted by the great street food and souvenirs that line the lantern adorned lanes of the Muslim Quarter we remembered our mission and hunted for a silk trader.

Eventually, by a stroke of luck as we made our way to the train station almost completely defeated, we chanced upon a lady selling silk scarves.

We played by all the old ancient trading rules – causally running the scarves trough our fingers, pretending we were only half interested. Well, until I cried: “This one, this one,” pointing enthusiastically at a piece of white silk with Chinese writing on it. That might have been another mistake.

So, the haggling started. She started the bidding at 100 Yuan (about £10), to which I came back with an offer we thought she couldn’t turn down: The Egg.

“This egg has travelled 7,000 miles from Turkey – it’s original onyx from Cappadocia,” I explained.

“We saw it being made by hand,” added the Mongoose.

We all looked towards her expectantly. And then something happened that I never, ever foresaw.

She laughed. She looked at our little old egg and broke into a great, mighty cackle.

“Ok, 10 Yuan and the egg,” I offered quietly.

More laughter. The bidding continued but she seemed to be more preoccupied with the money than the egg. It was not going to plan.

After a little while she softened and took the egg into her hand. She smiled.

“50 Yuan and the egg,” she offered.

Ok we agreed. We had a train to catch after all.

We took the silk scarf into our hands, which we plan to cut into three pieces because what better souvenir could three traders ‘cut from the same cloth’ possibly hope for?

As the exchange was made we watched in surprise as she placed the egg into her handbag instead of on the market stall.

“I think it will bring me luck,” she said smiling, still giggling a bit.

And we nodded in agreement. Financially it may not have been our best move – travelling the egg across the Silk Road cost us about £5,000 each, plus the £10 spent on the two transactions. We were left somewhat in negative equity.

But luck? Yes, the egg had definitely brought us lots of that.

A Video of a Silk Road journey: The tale of the Three-Must-Have-A-Beers

Posted on August 7, 2013 by Delia

Matty has made a video of our trip so far… It’s been on his website for a little while now but I wanted to share it with those of you who don’t follow him too. So, without further ado, in the words of Matty himself…

Here it is. The ups and downs of the last three months have finally been cobbled together into 3.5 minutes of celluloid gold.

It’s been gritty.
It’s been emotional.
But it has, quite simply, been the time of our lives.

Death by Drawings: Noratus Cemetary, Armenia

Posted on June 16, 2013 by Delia

I must start this post with a big apology for the long silence and lack of blogging. I’m going to blame being stuck on a boat for three days, spending a week in deepest darkest Turkmenistan and then camping by a shrinking sea. But I am now back (with plenty of material)! I say ‘back’ in the loosest sense of the word… We have entered a world where the food is meat and the wifi is slow. So slow it is almost impossible to blog at times. Nevertheless, I am determined to continue telling the world in words, so please bear with me if there are big gaps.

In the meantime, I have lots to tell you about. And I intend to start on a morbid subject. Sorry about that.

Rarely a day goes by when I don’t think about death. I don’t mean that I spend hours morbidly planning my own funeral or fretting how I will spend my last days, although, everyone indulges in that a little, don’t they?

I just mean that more often than not I’ll get a fleeting morbid thought. I blame the years of sitting in inquests as a reporter… the man who died after a candle melted down the back of his TV has left me suspicious of romantic lighting, the countless cyclists who sadly never made it home left me seeing even the smallest of vehicles as the biggest of threats when I cycled to work every day, and then there was the spot, outside a nightclub near my work that I passed too often, where a man died from a single punch.

But the other day, when visiting an Armenian graveyard, I was presented with an entirely new line of thinking on the subject. Let me put it to you.

If your gravestone had to tell the story of your life, or death, through pictures, what would it look like? Traditionally in Armenia when a loved one dies, the friends and family will gather together to think about how their story should be engraved on the gravestone – some choose to tell the story of their life, while others opt for death.

Visiting the Noratus graveyard in east Armenia, we were presented with a whole range of stories. From dramatic massacres to the mundane routines of life, the tales of the dead come alive on the gravestones. Two personal favourites, of such extremes, are the ‘wedding banquet’ stone and the farmer’s stone.

The wedding banquet shows just that – a large, rectangular table, crowded with smiling people, clinking glasses and cheering the happy couple in the middle. But to the left of the party, coming through an open door, is a man brandishing a weapon. The gravestone shows the scene seconds before he slaughtered the newlyweds and all their guests at the table, our guide explained. The couple are buried underneath.

Not such a happy scene after all. We were swiftly moved onto the farmer’s stone, that read more like a comic strip sequence of pictures. The first engraving showed the farmer leaving his house in the morning, the second showed him hard at work in the field and the third showed him coming home to a big Armenian barbecue cooked by his wife. Because that was his life. Day in, day out.

I looked at the big plate of food being carried by his wife and concluded his story was definitely a happier affair than that of the poor newlyweds. And as I walked across the field of story-telling stones, I couldn’t help but wonder what my tale would be. It had to be about life surely, not death, because it is life that should be celebrated.

I looked at the old women, knitting scarves and mittens to sell to tourists in the scorching 30 degrees sun, and wondered what their story was. What had they lost, what had they gained, what few pictures would sum it all up?

I turned to Matty as we gazed at the stone of the drunk fisherman who got bitten by a snake while he slept, and asked him what our story would be. He looked thoughtful for a minute.

“Wine, smiles and air miles,” he concluded.

And I decided that yes, the good times, the smiles, the laughter and travel would make for a very pretty picture in the graveyard. And suddenly it all felt a little less morbid.

Yerevan, Armenia: The most unsoviet Soviet city?

Posted on May 30, 2013 by Delia

If Armenia was your friend she would be the funny, smart and pretty one – but more importantly, she’d be the jammy one. The one who always gets what she wants, despite the odds thrown her way, due to her (unusually charming) combination of brains and balls.

In fact, she’d be the kind of girl that if mugged at at gun point, would not only convince the balaclava-donned thug to put his gun down, but actually to lend her a quid or two for the last bus home. Because that’s exactly what she seemed to do to the Soviet Union throughout the 20th century.

Most countries that were absorbed by the swelling USSR in the early 1920s have been left with physical scars that will take decades to fade. Centuries old archaic churches were replaced by functional, concrete tower blocks while grand, old homes of the rich paved way for linear, grey and brown bus stations or post offices.

Inevitably there is plenty of that to be found across Armenia, but its capital Yerevan has emerged grand and glorious, despite almost the entire city being designed and built in the early Soviet years. It is nothing short of a miracle.

Like the very impressive Republic Square, for example, which comes to life every evening with fountains that dance to everything from Beethoven to Cotton Eye Joe, with the Superman theme tune somewhere in between.

The design of the stately buildings around Republic Square are grand and intricate. They feel like the complete antithesis to Soviet architecture, despite being built in the 1920s. One of the buildings even has the exact same engravings around it as a ruinous 17th century Armenian Church, in a bid to let the legacy to live on.

‘Errrm, how exactly did you manage to get the Soviets to let you do this… and fund it?’ We asked our guide incredulously.

She gave us a knowing smile and instead told us the story of how Yerevan got its underground metro system. She explained the capital had originally been denied a metro because it had less than one million residents and only Soviet cities with more than a million could develop an underground network.

But, she continued, the Armenians, refused to just lie down and take this news, so a cunning plan was hatched. When Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev visited the city soon after, massive traffic jams were promptly organised on every street he visited. He took the news of Yerevan’s terrible traffic congestion back to Russia and voila, by 1981 Yerevan’s metro was up and running.

Similar, mischievous tales were regaled to us throughout our time in Armenia. Take the ‘Mother Cathedral’, the world’s first state built church, for example, which was under orders to be knocked down by Iranian Shah Abas in the 17th century.

The Armenians caught wind of this and hastily engraved his head at the top of the cathedral. So, in due course when his troops arrived they found themselves in quite a quandary… How they could demolish the very cathedral that was devoted to their very Shah? The building was saved.

Fast forward some 300 years and Armenia decided it wanted a grand, steep staircase leading up a huge Yerevan hill. So what did she do? She built a monument at the peak, devoted to 50 years of Soviet rule and asked for the cash to build a staircase to lead the people to the monument.

She got denied. She revamped the design, threw in a set of elaborate fountains, each representing a different Soviet republic, with Russia in the middle, and pronto, the staircase (aka The Cascade) was built with Soviet funds.

Admittedly it’s still not finished today, but that is not the point. And if anyone can get someone to complete the job, it will be Armenia.

The top of The Cascade is the perfect way to spend an evening in Yerevan, admiring the city skyline (don’t forget to take a bottle of Ararat’s finest brandy, mind.)

But perhaps most impressive of all, was Armenia’s success in building a monument devoted to the 1.5 million Armenians who died in the Turkish genocide of 1915.

It is a tragedy that remains at the very core of Armenian people today. Families were ripped apart as the Young Turk government sent hundreds of thousands of Armenians into barren deserts to starve to death or simply shot them dead in a bid to make the Ottoman Empire, which included the area which was formerly known as West Armenia, more ‘Turkish’.

One day, during our time in Yerevan, we visited an Armenian family for lunch. After serving a delicious and generous lunch time feast, the father of the house pulled out an old black and white family photo. There were a few men in military uniforms, a few women (I presumed to be their wives) and about five little children. After we admired it, we were told that all had been killed in the genocide apart from one little boy. The table went silent, it was hard to take in.

But to take you back to the significance of the memorial… during the Soviet times it was frowned upon to commemorate any events that were deemed to be too nationalist. The Armenian Genocide fell firmly into that category, so the nation remembered in silence.

But in 1965, 50 years after the tragic event, Armenia raised her voice. Expats around the globe were commemorating but she had nothing in her homeland. The movement for a memorial began and by 1967 the obelisk was opened.

While we were there school children lined up to place a flower beside the eternal flame. Today there is also a very impressive museum about the genocide which is well worth a visit.

Perhaps some of these facts have been elaborated and embellished to enhance the tourist tale – and I have certainly only heard one side to each story. The Turkish, for example, deny the Armenian genocide ever took place.

I don’t profess to be a historian, or even deliver a balanced blog (that’s what my years in newspapers were for), but I can tell you that after meeting Armenia and listening to her myself I walked away admiring her passion, her guts and her sheer determination in times of strife. And I like that in a girl.

Travel Tips

We stayed at the Envoy Hostel in Yerevan, a clean and extremely well facilitated hostel, which runs fantastic day trips from the city.

The tours are led by the hostel’s manager Arpine Yesayan, who is the primary source for most of the tales above. Her excellent humour, witty jokes and fabulous story telling skills make for extremely memorable tours. They cost €30 (pretty much a day’s budget for us), but worth every penny!

She also runs free city walking tours of Yerevan, which are every bit as good as the paid excursions.

Envoy hostel is at 54 Pushkin Poghots and their website is at www.envoyhostel.com

Walking in the Debed Canyon, Armenia

Posted on May 30, 2013 by Delia

Does it sound strange if I admit that during my time in Armenia I asked our guesthouse host if she knew anyone with sheep and cows who I could go and hang out with for the day? No, I don’t think so either. It was a perfectly legitimate question.

The thing is, in Armenia you don’t just see the occasional field scattered with a smattering of farmyard animals, you literally find them in their hundreds, being herded down the road like a massive army of floating woolly jumpers by a charismatic looking man carrying a crooked stick. And I just kind of wanted to hang out with him and his animals. And squeal and take pictures.

So it was in this vein that I found myself asking Irina, our wonderful host at Iris guesthouse in Debed Canyon, if she could set me up with a shepherd for the day. She seemed a little confused by the request and as I tried to explain myself, Matty and the Mongoose just sat back in silence, smiling as I dug myself deeper into a crazy-sounding hole.

A glimmer of hope appeared when she started dialling a number, explaining she had some friends with sheep, but then the whole thing was suddenly forgotten about and people started talking about monasteries or something.

So, instead of spending our last day in Armenia with a shepherd or cow herder, we opted to do a 7km walk from Haghpat Monastery to Sanahin Monastery in the Debed Canyon instead. And it wasn’t that I was disappointed with this decision as such, it’s just that we had already seen our fair share of religious sites and I just fancied hanging out with the locals, and their animals.

But as we approached the monastery even the voice in my head, that had been threatening to just get out of the taxi if I saw a cow herder and insist on spending the day with him, fell silent. Because it was very pretty indeed.

And after a quick look around, we left the monastery behind us and clambered down the hill to begin the walk.

We had scant details of the route but with an air of boy scoutishness about us, we crossed a gurgling river, climbed up a huge hill, found an ancient, neglected fortress and clambered over huge rocks that made me feel like Tarzan.

And then finally, after crossing an entire gorge and climbing up the other side, we reached what can only be described as a riot of flowers. A wild meadow of flowers, right up to our knees…

The flowers seemed to go on for miles and miles, as if multiplying in front of our eyes as they swayed in the wind. At first we tried to be careful not to tread on them but as they got thicker across the fields it became impossible not to.

After having a hearty skip through the daisies (well, Matty and the Mongoose that is) we reached a small village that had that reassuring smell of cow pat. What is it about cow pat and horse manure that instead of screwing up your nose in disgust as you do on train toilets, you simply fill your lungs with the stuff and sigh contently?

But it wasn’t just the smell, there was something else… a sound. A sound not dissimilar to that of the Mongoose tucking into a medium rare steak, I might add. As the boys walked on ahead I peered over a fence on my tip toes, to find something that made me positively squeal with delight.

And this:

And then, just when I thought my discovery couldn’t get any better, I looked to my right and chanced upon two baby calves. Just sitting there all doe eyed with their gangly little legs tucked under them.

By now the squealing and frantic photography had reached a great crescendo and a bemused woman stepped out of her house, confused to see an excitable blonde girl cooing over her calves.

“Awwww, look at the little runt,” I cried in sympathy, pointing at the little brown piglet that attached himself to his mum too late for a decent position, still trying to get some milk from here teats after the others had long sucked her dry.

The woman smiled at me, she understood. She opened the pen gate and the little runt came flying out, oinking squeakily as he scattered across the road as if still a little uncertain on his legs. The woman ushered me into the driveway of her home and starting filling a little saucer of milk, which the little piglet scampered up to and started lapping up.

I wanted to stroke him, but I’m not sure if it’s socially acceptable to stroke pigs in rural Armenia so instead I just continued to coo in excitement. The woman, by now probably thinking she had stumbled across some mad city folk that did not get out much, asked us if we would like a coffee.

I jumped at the opportunity (it had got to the point where I probably couldn’t hang out with the animals for much longer without getting to know their owner) and the Mongoose had that caffeine haunted look in his eyes.

She led us through a door into a small room that seemed to be the living room, bedroom and kitchen in one. She pointed on the bed for us to sit on, while she poured ground coffee and water into a small pan, which she then placed on a single gas ring in the middle of the room.

Sweet, soft bread was torn into pieces and placed on a plate on the table pushed against the back wall, which we ate with strong, soft sheep’s cheese, which was probably produced by a neighbour down the road. (I made a mental note to find the sheep before we left.)

She spoke no English but we communicated in pidgin Russian, body language and smiles. We did not need a common language to understand that she was kind, had nothing but offered us everything, and for her to understand that we were very, very grateful. As we bid our farewells, she pulled me in, held me tightly and gave me a big kiss on the cheek.

It was splendid. One of those rare days that grabs all your wishes in one big bag, as crazy as they may seem, and just dumps it on you. But as we started walking home, just when I thought they’d all come true, we heard the unmistakable sound of hooves on a stony path and saw the crooked stick of a smiling cow herder…

Amoo-zing.

Travel Tips

Where to stay in Debed Canyon?
We stayed at Iris guesthouse, run by the lovely Irina Israyelyan and her husband. The accommodation is exceptional – the three of us were given two bedrooms and a huge adjoining lounge with two balconies overlooking the lush, green valley.

The couple were extremely attentive, cooked delicious meals for us each evening and on our last morning with them, Irina even baked us a beautiful cake that was deliciously syrupy. We were quite spoilt.

BREAKFAST.

A room costs 8,000 Dram per night including breakfast, plus 3,000 (a total of about £17). You can call Irina on +374 (253)23839 or email her at irinaisrayelyan@gmail.com

World in Pictures: Armenian Churches

Posted on May 27, 2013 by Delia

Armenia was the first country in the world to adopt Christianity as its state religion more than 1,700 years ago. As a result the country is scattered with stunning churches and ancient, atmospheric monasteries on every hilltop, grassy plain and city street.

Despite the Soviet Union’s determined efforts to suppress Christianity in the country (closing all but one church for the best part of seven decades ), the Armenian’s devotion appears to have bounced back stronger than ever.

The priests, dressed in grand black robes, chant and pray in the old Armenian language during Sunday services, leaving many of the congregation in tbe dark.

“Often we wonder if they make up stories,” our guide joked, adding that most people can not understand everything.

But nevertheless, the church is a special place to most Armenians and as we stepped into the old, sparsely decorated buildings, often lit by just a single shaft of light from the sky, I could understand why. Armenia is also home to the world’s oldest state built church, which was constructed from 301-303, and remains in surprisingly good condition today.

So without any further chatter, I shall let you enjoy our church pics. I have thrown them all into black and white and played around with the contrast on this occasion, to emphasise the dark, antique-like atmoshphere of Armenian churches.

A man prays at Khor Virap Church

Sevanavank Monastery besides Lake Sevan, Armenia

Me gazing into the ray of light inside Sevanavank Monastery, on Lake Sevan.

Two ladies sit outside St Gayane Church, built in 630 AD and home to Armenia's only two nuns.

Inside St Hripsimeh Church, where a nun by the same name lies after being killed by an Armenian king because she would not marry him.

A girl looks into a tray of candles, sitting in water, lit in memory of loved ones

The roof top of Haghartsin Monastery through the 'lucky' tree stump beside it.

Inside the county's oldest church, the 'mother cathedral', at Echmiadzin, Armenia

One of rmenia's beautiful, old battered cars, in front of Hayravank Monastery near Lake Sevan

A priest walks through the entrance to one of the cave churches at Geghard Monastery

The beautifully located Noravank Monastery

Travel Tips

Churches and monasteries can be seen all over Armenia, but one of the best ways to see a good selection if you don’t have much time is to take day tours from Yerevan. We stayed at the Envoy Hostel in Yerevan, which runs fantastic trips from the city, taking in all of the highlights above. The tours are led by the hostel’s manager Arpine Yesayan, who is excellent and gave us a fantastic insight into Armenian culture and spirit as well as the fascinating history of the churches pictured here. It was so good that we signed up to a second tour there.

Armenian Brandy: Visiting Ararat Yerevan Brandy Company

Posted on May 26, 2013 by Delia

Getting sick while travelling is always a worry. There’s nothing worse than sweating out stomach cramps in a hot, packed dorm room and running to the shared bathroom to find not only is it engaged but two other bedraggled travellers are already waiting to go in. Matty is only too aware of this.

So we have, of course, come away with a fully equipped medical kit… stuff to block, unblock and everything in between. However, we all know prevention is better than cure and fortunately our good friends Gemma and Marco were kind enough to enlighten us before we set off.

“Brandy,” said Marco, looking quite proud of himself while Gemma nodded in agreement.

Lowering his voice, as if in fear that others would hear his trade secret, he added: “We took a bottle of the stuff to Morocco and started every day with a shot of brandy.”

“And,” Gemma concluded, “We never got ill. Not once.”

I saw the pain in Matty’s eyes as he remembered his own Moroccan experience, which largely involved being curled up in a ball in Essouaira, cursing chefs up and down the country for poisoning him. I could hear his mind ticking away, saying: “That could have been prevented by drinking brandy? It could have all been different if I had begun every day with a slug of fine cognac?” He had, in his eyes no doubt, been knifed by a double edged sword.

And so, it was somewhat inevitable that when packing his medical kit for this trip, he did what every good nurse would do and made a mental note to add some brandy as soon as he crossed the border into Armenia, home of Winston Chirchill’s favourite tipple.

“If it’s good enough for Churchill it’s good enough for me,” were pretty much his first words as our sleeper train from Tbilisi, Georgia pulled into Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, at 7am.

We were tired, hungry and grouchy after a sleepless night on a particularly loud and unusually chilly train. We spent that morning trying, to no avail, to get Turkmenistan visas as we were warned that relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan are so bad that Azeri border officers may prevent us from crossing the Caspian Sea to Turkmenistan, purely because we picked up the visas in Armenia. There is that little love.

So, it was in these particularly (rare) low spirits, that we began our hunt for brandy. Specifically for the Ararat Yerevan Brandy Company, which offers tours and taster sessions for a mere £7. After all, Matty had been in the country by now for a good eight hours and was growing increasingly concerned about his medical supplies.

Eventually, after much taxi negotiating in pidgeon Russian, we arrived. Perched on a hill like a palace we were buzzed through the large, wrought iron gates of Ararat’s Yerevan headquarters and immediately bowed over by the sweet, unmistakable aroma of brandy.

Within seconds of inhaling this new, much improved oxygen supply the boys looked better rested.

“It is the angel’s share”, our guide told us, which she added was responsible for both keeping the angels on side and keeping the workers so happy.

The tour began. We passed barrels of brandy, learnt all about distillation and the history of Ararat. But it was one story in particular that resonated with me.

It was 1945, Europe was on the verge of peace and Stalin was doing his best to woo Churchill at the Yalta conference, where important post-war decisions were being made. Knowing the British Prime Minister’s soft spot for the fine things in life, he handed him a glass of Ararat brandy (and probably a fat cigar but that’s not been documented as far as I’m aware). After glugging the rich honey-coloured liquor, Churchill smacked his lips and immediately ordered 400 bottles to be delivered… per year, for the rest of his life.

However, soon after (while quaffing bottle 567 or something) Churchill declared that something was amiss. So he did what any great British man would do if left unsatisfied by an expensive glass of brandy, and he wrote to the Russian dictator himself. It probably went something like: “Dear Stalin, your brandy’s off. Fix it or I will get all of Britain drinking the French stuff. Yours, parched, WC.”

Somewhat alarmed, Stalin immediately investigated the situation to learn that he (or his minions) had only sent the head technologist of Ararat’s brandy production into political exile in Siberia. An easy mistake for a man like himself to make I suppose. So within days of this discovery, Margar Sedrakyan was brought back to Armenia and reinstated in his role as chief brandy expert, Churchill was happy and all was well in the world.

So let’s have a quick recap – brandy prevents travellers diarrhoea, improves mentality after sleeper trains and saved poor Margar from possible death in exile. But there are higher hopes for the healing powers of Armenian brandy yet.

This little country, with huge spirit (pardon the pun), is nestled between Turkey, Iran, Azerbaijan and Georgia. But tragically it’s borders with Turkey and Azerbaijan remain closed after a dispute over an area of land known as Nagorno-Karabakh, which has an ethnically Armenian population and has been controlled by Armenia following a bloody war in the early 1990s, despite it legally being within Azerbaijan’s borders. Thousands of people have been displaced because of the conflict, soldiers and even some civilians are still killed around the border, and locals seem to believe that peace is an impossibility.

Nevertheless, it feels appropriate that at Ararat’s HQ, taking pride of place in the distillation and fermentation room, sits the “peace barrel”, filled with fine cognac and ready to be cracked open as soon as a solution is reached.

Right now it is hard to imagine the Azeri and Armenian prime ministers clinking glasses before enjoying the first sips from that barrel, but given its track record, I can hardly think of a more appropriate drink to seal the deal.

So as we held up our glasses, swilling the bronzed 10 year-old liquid in the light, we made a toast… To the peace barrel being opened, and sooner rather than later.

And… long live the healing powers of brandy.

Travel Tips

Ararat Brandy Company is located on the edge of the city centre, over the Hrazdan River on Admiral Isakov Poghota.

Tours must be booked in advance, and cost 4,500 dram (about £8). The guide speaks excellent English and the tour is full of interesting anecdotes and stories.

It lasts about 75 minutes including time to sample two types of brandy – we tried the three year and 10 year old varieties. Both of which were delicious.

Serving suggesting for Ararat brandy – drink with small pieces of dark chocolate or dried peaches. Delicious.

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Category Archives: Armenia

The Tale of Three Silk Traders and an Onyx Egg

A Video of a Silk Road journey: The tale of the Three-Must-Have-A-Beers

Death by Drawings: Noratus Cemetary, Armenia

Yerevan, Armenia: The most unsoviet Soviet city?

Walking in the Debed Canyon, Armenia

World in Pictures: Armenian Churches

Armenian Brandy: Visiting Ararat Yerevan Brandy Company