A MANIA FOR ARMENIA
Janet Forman
April 2006 issue
Budget Travel Online, NY
March 20 2006
Rug designer James Tufenkian wants everyone else to love his native
land as much as he does.
Growing up in L.A. in the 1950s, the strongest connection rug designer
James Tufenkian had to Armenia was in the kitchen. He’d smell the
cardamom, cloves, and cumin in his mother’s traditional dishes,
and listen to stories of his grandparents’ flight from Armenia in
the 1890s after a series of massacres.
In 1981, Tufenkian took his first trip to Armenia, and everything
changed. “I could no longer enjoy my comfortable life while Armenians
were starving, freezing, and at war,” he says. “I could do something
to help, and I had no excuse not to.”
He got involved by doing what he does best. Tufenkian is founder
and CEO of Tufenkian Carpets, and in 1993, he opened a factory in
Armenia. (Until then, all of the handwoven rugs were made in Nepal.)
“We retaught weavers everything their grandparents used to know about
carpet-making, but forgot during Soviet times,” he says. By 1999, the
Armenian arm of Tufenkian Carpets was doing so well that Tufenkian
used profits to start a foundation that now supports more than 50
projects, such as recording sacred Armenian music and teaching kids
computer skills.
Among the foundation’s successes was the Knitting Ladies, a group of
200 women who make comforters and pillow shams. Their handiwork shows
up in the latest Tufenkian endeavor: new boutique hotels. “Everyone
knew Armenia needed a tourist infrastructure,” he recalls. “Someone in
the aid community proposed moving mobile homes to the great tourist
sites of the country. It was as if he saw Armenia as a crummy little
country that should be content to survive in a crummy little fashion.”
Tufenkian hired Irish designer Clodagh to help do the interiors
of the 14-room Avan Villa in 2001 (from $102). Constructed out of
pink tufa stone and overlooking the capital, Yerevan, the hotel is
decorated with handwoven 19th-century rugs called kilims and thick
Tufenkian carpets. Each morning, Armenian coffee and walnuts are
served on a hillside terrace. A year later, he introduced the Avan
Marak Tsapatagh on Lake Sevan, two hours northeast of Yerevan. The
hotel uses materials that look like they came right from the earth:
cave-like flagstone showers, rock tabletops, sinewy wrought-iron posts
(from $74). The third hotel, Avan Dzoraget, is in a new building
that resembles a castle; it’s on the Debed River, near the ancient
monasteries of Haghpat and Sanahin (from $73). The modern world feels
centuries away. Shepherds drive their flocks down the main street
and draw water from a well in the hotel driveway.
Tufenkian currently has plans to open four more boutique hotels,
including the Avan Areni, in Armenia’s wine country, in the south.
Tufenkian also launched a tour program. On the 12-day Armenia Reborn
tour, visitors plant trees, watch children’s art classes, meet the
Knitting Ladies, and sample Armenia’s renowned Ararat brandy ($1,440
per person, not including airfare). Custom single- and multiday trips
are also available. “We’re exposing travelers to projects and people
involved in building a nation out of rubble,” says Tufenkian. “We
hope that everyone will be uplifted in the process.” All hotels and
tours are booked through tufenkian.am, 011-374/10-547-888.
http://www.budgettravelonline .com/bt-dyn/content/article/2006/03/10/AR200603100 1272.html