Armenia and Karabakh: The Stone Garden Travel Guide
A fresh view on ancient Armenia--Los Angeles Times, Travel SectionAn excellent guide to a fascinating region, written with real passion for the subject.--CNN Traveller MagazineA top guidebook.--The Washington TimesWith thorough writing and illuminating photography, Karanian and Kurkjian cover Armenia and Karabakh the only way they could-- magnificently!--Yerevan MagazineHE GOT ARMENIA UNDER THE SKIN, AND WE GET A GUIDEBOOKBy Christopher ReynoldsApril 17, 2013, Los Angeles TimesBy some measures,Matthew Karanianwas a Connecticut Yankee: a 34-year-old litigator in Hartford, American-born and bred. But he had a wild idea. So he took a summer off, headed for the rustic land of his ancestors, and soon found that Armenia was rearranging his life.Now, 18 years after that first visit, Karanian is an expert on the place. His self-published guidebook,Armenia and Karabakh (320 pages, $24.95),has just gone into a third edition. It s based on more than a dozen visits to the country, including a residency from 2002 to 2006. The photographs are by Karanian and Robert Kurkjian.If you live near the California Armenian enclaves of Glendale or Fresno -- or it you ve met Karanian -- you may already know that Armenia is a landlocked, mountainous country almost the size of Maryland; that it lies south of Georgia, east of Turkey and west of Iran; and that it broke free from the Soviet Union in 1991. But Armenia is still terra incognita to many Americans.And as Karanian acknowledges, the country faces plenty of challenges. The population, just under 3 million, is decreasing, partly because jobs are scarce. The country's border with Turkey is closed amid tensions that date to the Armenian genocide that began in 1915 under the Ottoman empire.Armenians and others commemorate the genocide yearly with a worldwide day of remembrance on April 24. The Turkish government maintains that those 1.5 million deaths were part of the chaos of World War I, not a genocide.Meanwhile, a border now separates Armenia from the Armenian culture's most revered geographic feature, Mt. Ararat. The mountain stands in Turkish territory but is visible from much of Armenia.On his first visit to Armenia, Karanian recalls, the capital, Yerevan, was without electricity for most of every day. But the rugged beauty and depth of culture, he said, just turned my life upside down, yielding a stronger sense of ethnic identity and uncovering lost family history.Karanian knew his grandparents immigrated to the U.S. about 100 years ago. But it wasn t until his book research began that he learned his great uncle, Mardiros Kheranyan, was a much-admired cartographer who charted the towns of historic Armenia in painstaking detail.Now Karanian lives and practices law in Pasadena but makes yearly visits to the old country. Every year, he says, he sees better roads, more motorists willing to stop for pedestrians and more global brands, though no McDonald's yet.In a two-part interview in early April (first in person and then online), Karanian took on 10 questions.How many Americans visited Armenia last year?Not enough. That s why I published the book. There were about 850,000 tourist visas issued for Armenia in 2012. More than half, maybe up to 70%, were issued to Diasporan Armenians.What will I find on the sidewalks in the center of Yerevan?There are so many sidewalk cafes in central Yerevan, sometimes it seems you can t go for a walk without falling into one. --Los Angeles TimesHE GOT ARMENIA UNDER THE SKIN, AND WE GET A GUIDEBOOKBy Christopher ReynoldsApril 17, 2013, 8:30 a.m.By some measures,Matthew Karanianwas a Connecticut Yankee: a 34-year-old litigator in Hartford, American-born and bred. But he had a wild idea. So he took a summer off, headed for the rustic land of his ancestors, and soon found that Armenia was rearranging his life.Now, 18 years after that first visit, Karanian is an expert on the place. His self-published guidebook,Armenia and Karabakh (320 pages, $24.95),has just gone into a third edition. It s based on more than a dozen visits to the country, including a residency from 2002 to 2006. The photographs are by Karanian and Robert Kurkjian.If you live near the California Armenian enclaves of Glendale or Fresno -- or it you ve met Karanian -- you may already know that Armenia is a landlocked, mountainous country almost the size of Maryland; that it lies south of Georgia, east of Turkey and west of Iran; and that it broke free from the Soviet Union in 1991. But Armenia is still terra incognita to many Americans.And as Karanian acknowledges, the country faces plenty of challenges. The population, just under 3 million, is decreasing, partly because jobs are scarce. The country's border with Turkey is closed amid tensions that date to the Armenian genocide that began in 1915 under the Ottoman empire.Armenians and others commemorate the genocide yearly with a worldwide day of remembrance on April 24. The Turkish government maintains that those 1.5 million deaths were part of the chaos of World War I, not a genocide.Meanwhile, a border now separates Armenia from the Armenian culture's most revered geographic feature, Mt. Ararat. The mountain stands in Turkish territory but is visible from much of Armenia.On his first visit to Armenia, Karanian recalls, the capital, Yerevan, was without electricity for most of every day. But the rugged beauty and depth of culture, he said, just turned my life upside down, yielding a stronger sense of ethnic identity and uncovering lost family history.Karanian knew his grandparents immigrated to the U.S. about 100 years ago. But it wasn t until his book research began that he learned his great uncle, Mardiros Kheranyan, was a much-admired cartographer who charted the towns of historic Armenia in painstaking detail.Now Karanian lives and practices law in Pasadena but makes yearly visits to the old country. Every year, he says, he sees better roads, more motorists willing to stop for pedestrians and more global brands, though no McDonald's yet.In a two-part interview in early April (first in person and then online), Karanian took on 10 questions.How many Americans visited Armenia last year?Not enough. That s why I published the book. There were about 850,000 tourist visas issued for Armenia in 2012. More than half, maybe up to 70%, were issued to Diasporan Armenians. And for the past several years, roughly 15% of all tourist visas were issued to Americans.What will I find on the sidewalks in the center of Yerevan?There are so many sidewalk cafes in central Yerevan, sometimes it seems you can t go for a walk without falling into one. But it s a seasonal thing. In the winter the only thing on the sidewalk is snow.Read the rest of the interview at the website of the Los Angeles Times. ----Los Angeles Times, Travel SectionA top guidebook.--The Washington TimesWith thorough writing and illuminating photography, Karanian and Kurkjian cover Armenia and Karabakh the only way they could-- magnificently!--Yerevan Magazine --Yerevan Magazine