The village life and wine tasting in the close knitted community

Welcome to my village Aghavnavank. My name is Alex and my whole life is connected with this place. I have started hosting guests at my home in 2016, offering local dishes, as well as some hiking adventures in the forests. It was quite surprising for me when people showed interest in Aghavnavank. However, I did not want to turn our settlement into a business project. This village has still maintained its community atmosphere; locals are supportive and kind to each other, they are very responsible towards our surrounding nature, this is one of the rare villages in the area where people do not cut the trees in the forest. 

Our village has a very interesting story. Here you can find people whose families were relocated from 17 Armenian villages from modern Azerbaijan during the ethnic cleansings in 1988. My family is from Shamkhor village. You can find 17 different dialects spoken in Aghavnavank, and very versatile cuisine. This makes my village quite a unique place to explore, therefore I started renovating my place into a convenient hostel for people to stay here and have more time to discover the local life. I also started my own wine production called “Kinea”, which means “woman being”, and I have my wine cellar where my guests can do tasting. 

What I would like you to know about this place, is that, this is not merely about my hostel or my small business. When there are many travelers who want to experience different aspects of village life, I take them to my neighbors’ homes: they may have lunch in one person’s house, go for homemade vodka degustation in someone else’s place, then we can visit another neighbor to share tea and dessert with them. I want visitors to learn about Aghavnavank and its openhearted people, and I am happy to be the mediator between them.