Armenia – really?

I groaned when I heard that the Travel Writers Awards dinner where I was to give a talk to on the Railway Children charity was sponsored by Tourism Armenia. I thought it would be on a par with ‘five exciting things to do in North Dakota’ or ‘the wonders of Wolverhampton’.

I was wrong. It was the video on the list of famous Armenians that initially grabbed my attention – I had no idea that so many famous people (basically anyone whose surname ends in ‘ian’, and Cher, too) came out of a country of barely three million people. Then it was the white wine they provided which combined fruitiness with perfect dryness, and being informed by my neighbour – who admittedly worked for the tourist board – that it was Armenia that was home to the first ever wine production, some 6,000 years ago. What’s more, that is probably true as even the French believe it.

After this I watched the videos and listened to the speakers. And I became convinced that this was not just PR: there really was plenty to do in Armenia, from hiking in the Caucasus and going to very cheap opera performances to visiting monasteries – Armenia claims to be the first Christian country, too – and going to folk festivals. And if the people at the dinner were anything to go by, the welcome would be extremely warm. So, oddly, little Armenia, which I had only ever really associated with the genocide, has joined the list of places I want to visit.

Christian Wolmar