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‘IF YOU REALLY WISH, YOU WILL SUCCEED’

Laura Grigoryan

  In our day-to-day business relationships, we deal with different areas of business. But what we're going to discuss below is one of the non-standard areas of entrepreneurship, and probably a novelty for us. At least for me and my colleagues this field of business was unfamiliar, to some extent also interesting and unique ...

Recently, in the village of Rev in Askeran region, we met a farmer named Aram, who is involved in an unusual branch of entrepreneurship - donkey breeding.
Aram Avagyan has been involved in this case for only a year. Rev is his ancestral village; he was born and raised and now lives in Stepanakert. But there is no one who lives in the city and is cut off from his roots, grandparents, and ancestors. Especially during the summer months, the townspeople were sending their children to the village to spend their school holidays there and to rest. Aram was also very attached to his ancestral hearth. He says he spent his childhood here in Rev, playing with the village children, running around, picking up blackberries from the nearby woods...
And recently Aram decided to go to the village, get his grandfather's house in order, and do his job. There was no need to think long. He cleaned the blackberry bushes of the backyard, repaired the hearth, giving life to a long-forgotten and abandoned home. In one of the large photos hanging on the wall in a large room, are Aram's grandmother and grandfather, in the other, his grandfather's father, who bid farewell to earthly life and his home at the age of 115. They seem to express their gratitude to the builder from the photos.
After bringing into order his grandfather's hearth, Aram embarked on the process of building a farm. He built it to his own convenience, and then began work on acquiring animals. He managed to buy several donkeys from different settlements of Artsakh, the number of which is more than two dozen today. All 24 donkeys have their names.
Aram has a number of projects planned, and the income from the business should be directed towards their implementation. First of all, he aims to rebuild the spring in the village. According to our interlocutor, in ancient times, most of the springs and rivers in Artsakh were in the village of Rev. There were also many exotic places here, and the springs were surrounded by forests that do not exist now. As a result of people's unfriendly attitude towards forests, springs have dried up, most of them after the 1990s. Aram relates all this with a deep heartedness, and at the same time enthusiastic and eager to restore the destroyed.
Aram believes that he will be able to earn a living from the business and implement his plans. Seeing our skepticism, he showed donkey milk brands, particularly fragrance soaps and various cosmetics, which were compelling arguments. He also told about the healing properties of each of them, especially for skin diseases. Aram also makes cheese from milk. Continuing the theme, let us say that we were amazed and delighted by the taste and soap, and the unusual, so-called ointments and creams. The boxes are mostly made of wood, also with beautiful ornaments and carvings. We look at and admire the wooden boxes, which, of course, are a result of hard-work and require a great deal of time to prepare. Does he do it alone or are there helpers? Aram says: “Until today I was doing it alone, now I have assistants, Dasha, who came from America, and Arsen Ghahramanyan. Arsen has been in California for about 20 years, and today he has returned to his homeland and decided to work with me’. ”
Aram is a creative person. He is known for his creative talent not only in Artsakh but also in Armenia and abroad. In Gandzasar, at the site called Sea Stone, the author of the lion sculptor is Aram himself.
Another of the miracles of the Sea stone, which is the birth of Aram's idea (author of the project), is the famous ‘Titanic’, reminiscent of the ship.
Aram's plans are not limited to this.His purpose is to develop the Rev community through tourism. He also plans to breed horses, buffalo, and peacocks. And will rebuild and resettle vacant, abandoned houses in the village by the proceeds, as it is certain that many will want to live in the village. "I want the village of Rev to become a paradise for people to come here to relax and enjoy all the magic of nature. I have a lot of programs, and I'm sure I'll be able to bring them to life ... When you do something with love and pleasure, you will definitely succeed, "says Aram Avagyan.