Digital Nomads Swarm Armenia—And a 400 year old vineyard? Meet Mathew Zein

0:00 It's not about the machinery. It's not about the production lines. It's not about the tanks or whatever you can buy from any country. It's about letting the Armenian mountains do the winemaking while you just facilitate it. Sit back and grab a glass. It's Wine Talks with Paul Kaye. Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul Kaye. And we are in studio today in beautiful Southern California. Actually, it's about 102 degrees Fahrenheit today, but to have a conversation with Matthew Zen, Zen. How am I going to say it? Zen, Zane. Zane. Zane. Out in Yerevan, Armenia, which is such a fascinating story. That's why we've been talking for months to come on the show. We're so happy to have him here.

0:42 He's founder and chief editor of Life in Armenia magazine. But that is just the tip of the iceberg here when this conversation gets started, because it's an incredible journey to get to this point. So welcome to the show. Hi, Paul. Thanks for having me. We were talking about podcasting and doing this, and we're using a product called Riverside and the AI advancements that keep changing things. But you mentioned that you had a podcast with over 100 episodes about Michelin star chefs in Miami. Yep. So I had this podcast for a year. Now it ended, and I was doing that for a company. I was hired as a podcast host remotely from Yerevan. And we had almost 400,000 audience for that podcast. We were interviewing Michelin-star chefs in Miami, and we had very interesting episodes with some of the top names in the world in this industry. And like every night I was doing a lot of talks with chefs, and all the talks were about cooking, hiring restaurants, the entire industry. It's the beauty of remote work, by the way. You can do a podcast from Yerevan to an audience in the US and It's all remote. Well, there's 100 subjects right there. One is not the primary question here, but like, how did you land a podcast about Michelin-star chefs with a third-party company? But more importantly, you know, it wasn't that long ago in Yerevan because the infrastructure didn't exist really that you could even do that.

2:15 I mean, like right now you look crystal clear on the phone. and you sound great, but that's not the way it's always been out there in Yerevan. What's changed and when did it change? By the way, this is something that through the magazine, through Life in Armenia, I get all those questions about life in Armenia today. Many people still believe that Armenia is still that Armenia they left, for example, in the 1990s, which wasn't that, let's say, beautiful place to live in. But over the past few years, everything changed here. Like right now, for example, we have 5G almost covering the entire country. Like you can go anywhere, we have 5G. And that's something that's not available even sometimes in first world countries. Being a small country is an advantage in this case. We have, I mean, electricity is the norm. We have stable internet and we do now have like a remote work movement in Armenia. So a lot of people are working remotely for the US market, for the UK market, for the European companies. And I just got that job, by the way, through LinkedIn.

3:16 So they found me, they offered me the job and I accepted it. And I worked with that company for almost a year. You know, but that's an interesting point for the listeners because not everybody's going to know this conversation, though there'll be a lot of Armenian listeners, but we take it for granted in many parts of the world, particularly Europe and in the United States and North America, this infrastructure. And it wasn't that long ago, as you're mentioning, that Armenia had infrastructure issues. I mean, just to say you have 5G in most of the countries sounds kind of foreign, really. I mean, it seems like, wow, big deal, 5G, but it is a big deal. So the advancements have been rather quick. And we're gonna talk about the wine trade too. Same thing happened in the wine trade to get to world-class quality in a very short order of time.

4:05 What drove this radical change or quick You know, acceleration to the marketplace in both tech and wine and in general infrastructure. So you just mentioned tech. Tech was one of the main drivers for this entire thing. With the tech boom that started almost around 2020, if I'm not mistaken, this is when everything started boiling in this country. You had a unicorn, we had a lot of tech startups, and the tech startup ecosystem started climbing the rankings worldwide. So for many people who don't know, right now, the Armenian tech startup ecosystem in Yerevan is in the top 200 from 1,400 cities in the world. Wow. And when you talk about Armenia, like the budget here is not compared to any budgets of those like big countries with a lot of money they can pour into the ecosystem. So that's bottom-up tech startup ecosystem where the people are creating it.

4:58 And everything started developing around it, I would say. I mean, again, that was not the only driver, but one of the main drivers. It drove the remote work culture, it drove the internet and a lot of other things. You know, we have this discussion and I have coffee every Tuesday morning with a group of Armenian men that I grew up with from all parts of, you know, Rusahais, Barskais from Iran, Aintabisis like myself. We have this sort of group in all different disciplines. There's a judge, a federal judge, there's lawyers, there's businessmen, real estate, even clergy. And it's I used to argue about this point and they would say, yes, Armenia is this hotbed of tech intelligence. And I used to say, why? Why would Armenia have more sort of tech-related jobs, more tech-related advancement than any other country? And it seems though, during the Soviet era, that's where they pointed tech to, that the Russians cultivated tech in Armenia as well as they did branding and things like that. But is that accurate? So of course, during that time, Armenia was the center of, like one of the centers for the Soviet Union for tech.

6:11 Plus, over the past, let's say decade, tech was the only way for many Armenians out. I mean, you know, a landlocked country. So this is one of the main products that you can export. So that was a reason pushing people to tech. And since there were so many success stories, it pushed more and more people into this industry. So what, I mean, I had a lot of questions. Of course, the diaspora play a lot of, like, let's say the diaspora played a huge role in this because Armenia already had a bridge to Silicon Valley through the diaspora, which also contributed to the tech ecosystem in here. Well, I guess that explains part of it, but it's because it compounds itself, right? Let's say the Russians during the Soviet era, they were relying on Armenians to develop tech. And certainly that compounds itself to modern day where it now has become an AI-related.

7:02 So it seems that maybe there is this natural bed of intelligence and because it's built on itself, places like TUMO, which is the center for kids to learn about tech and delve into digital marketing and digital music, et cetera. That's a great example. I mean, as you said, you have TUMO that's now exporting tech curriculum from Armenia to the world, to many capitals in the world. Yes, there are. In fact, they just opened one or just opening one in Los Angeles. And that's a great example, right? There also seems to be a level of innovation. I mean, Armenians have always been known to be merchants. I just posted a Ripley's Believe It or Not article I found in my dad's archives of the Armenians bringing wine down the Euphrates in leather boats with a donkey and then selling the lumber and blah, blah, blah and selling the wine. Then taking the donkey back up to Armenia to refill it. And so there seems to be a merchant mentality and a merchant creativity built into the Armenian culture. But why did you land there? I mean, you've done a lot of things in your career, and here you are, probably a pioneer in the idea of using Armenia as a home base.

8:15 So before I say, like, before I answer this question, let me just get back to something you mentioned. What is what could be the relationship between being in Armenia, or let's say growing up in Armenia, and the development of tech. There's this research we did around a year ago in which we included a lot of like linguistics in that research so we can dive deeper into the language. And we found some really interesting insights about the relationship between how the structure of the Armenian language and the way it has you thinking when you are forming the sentences. And then the development of AI. And this is something that's in Chinese Mandarin, in Hebrew, and Armenian, only 3 languages. And we published that entire research about the relationship between Armenian language as an alphabet and between thinking systematically when you are developing AI solutions.

9:05 Again, it might be non-realistic, but we tried as much as possible and we dived into it. We had a lot of scientists who worked with us on that research, and it came with pretty interesting insights about that relationship. So this could have been one of the reasons. Maybe this was the reason why the Soviet Union decided to put all that heavy weight when it comes to tech innovation on the country. Anyway. So now that's interesting. Let me stop you there for a second. Mesrop, right? Yes. Mesrop Mashtots. Created the alphabet. And when I talk about culture, about wine, wine's my primary subject in life. You know, I always talk about the idea of culture, you know, lands in probably 5 areas. Certainly language, if you have one. Not every country has its own language. Land, if you have it. Not every country now has land. The food, the music, and the wine. Those are sort of defining cultural characteristics. And you're saying that the Armenian alphabet lends itself, or the grammar structure lends itself to a thinking process that you're linking to the idea of a high-tech influence. Yes. And so Mandarin and— And Hebrew. Hebrew.

10:21 Yes. That is fascinating. Yep. We found a lot of interesting theories when we were working on this. And it just started, by the way, like we were just having fun. What could be the relationship? And one thing led to another. Then we published a series of 3 articles about this topic. Because I could see that. I certainly don't know the details. I want to read that research. But I mean, when you think about the idea, for instance, I late in life sat down to learn French because my father spoke French and I wanted to entertain him in his later years. And they talk about learning a language is good for your brain. So let's just say that on the surface, this is a good idea, right? It unlocks parts of your brain that you haven't used in a while, or you know, are formed early in life. And if I could see how the structure of a language and the alphabet of a language early in life could do that, it could certainly create connections and synapses that you wouldn't have had otherwise.

11:19 Yeah, these are things you wouldn't, I mean, it's not that you won't think this way, it just happens naturally. It just helps you when you are developing a system. It's a way of thinking because of the way you learned how to structure a sentence, the way you learn how to put together the words. Mm-hmm. It's interesting because last night we were taking care of the grandkids. They're living with us right now because of the fires. And one of them's a young girl, she's 5. And so she was singing a nursery rhyme, you know, quack, quack, quack, 5 little ducks or something. And all of a sudden she started translating it into Armenian. You know, hinka patinera, you know, she started singing. And I go, where did that come from? She, you know, she goes to Armenian school, but they don't speak at the home much, certainly not with me because I don't know it very well. But all of a sudden her brain just switched over to sing the song in Armenian and she was trying to connect the grammar, you know, trying to link the grammar together.

12:15 So— How did I land in Armenia? Well, yeah, that was still like the number one question here. So this is, by the way, an interesting story because I had no idea about Armenia. I am not an Armenian diasporan. I have no relationship with this country. And I was a digital nomad before digital nomadism was a thing, before it had a name. A digital nomad is someone who travels and works remotely. So I have always been a tech journalist traveling and working remotely with the US market. But I never thought about coming to Armenia. I was traveling mostly around Asia. Before Armenia, I lived in China. And in 2017, my wife and I arrived here for what was like a tourist package. So we were here for 7 days. That was it. And it was just because we saw the ad about Armenia and it was nice weather. We thought, why not? It was so affordable back then and we just decided to do it.

13:07 So we arrived here and the plan was to like, after finishing our like week in Armenia, is to go back to the Emirates, then from the Emirates go to Canada. So we were planning to stay in Canada for a few years, have a kid there, build a family and like spend some time. And we arrived here for a week. The usual track, right? Yep. Armenia, the Emirates, Canada. Who doesn't do that? And it was fascinating, the vibe, the weather, the food, everything. And we decided to spend a month. Again, we were never planning to spend a lifetime here. We thought, you know, it's, we've already arrived here and I'm working remotely so I can keep working remotely. There is internet, there is everything, and we can rent an apartment. It was so affordable back then. And we can stay here for a month. Well, that week became a month. The month became six months, then a year, then two, three, four, five. Then we had a kid, then seven, eight, nine. Now my kid goes to kindergarten in here, and it's an English-speaking kindergarten. But all his friends are Armenians, and now he speaks some Armenian at home, mixing it with English sometimes. And he doesn't know that he's mixing. So like we call him like for dinners, like miropay, miropay. And like okay, now he's using Armenian words while talking to us.

14:21 Because he's picking that from his friends. Wow, that's so interesting. And in 2020, I also, by the way, from 2017 until 2020, we were tourists living in Armenia. Probably I've never met anyone. We were just living here, working remotely, spending the money here, enjoying the affordability, enjoying the life, but we were not engaged with anyone. Then from 2020, I started working with Armenian tech companies. And that opened life for us in here. Because you start meeting people, going to the offices, you get invitations to weddings, you meet more people, you meet cousins, you meet families, and then you have friends. You get invited to barbecues, and all of a sudden you have an entire community that you don't want to leave.

15:03 You start traveling around the regions, visiting people sometimes who don't even speak English. Like, I get invited to like family dinners where only one person speaks English and the rest of them don't, and still we enjoy it. And that's how it happened. And that's why I started the magazine later, which we will talk about. But the whole idea of coming to Armenia was just a 7-day tourist package. And that was it. But that's a, you know, what year was that? That was 2017. Well, there was, I guess there was some progress at that point. We were there in 2007. I did not, even though— No, 2007, that's a different time in Armenia. It really is. And that's kind of interesting subject matter, that change, because 2007, the wines were undrinkable.

15:50 There was one type of cuisine available in Yerevan that was kebab, tomatoes, cucumbers, and potatoes, and some lahmacun once in a while. But there was no cuisine there at all. And then all of a sudden, and you're talking 10 years, and I think 2017 would be considered rather modern, not unlike today's Yerevan, which is an amazing place. Yeah. ask and I say, Yerevan is like, it's like Paris in its feeling. You can walk around, you're safe. There's multiple cuisines. Obviously the architecture is completely different and the history is different, but the way you feel safe and the way you feel cultural is to me much like Paris. Even safer, I would say, than Paris. I mean, at least here you can stay up to 2 AM, 3 AM, even if you're a woman alone on the street, go back home. It's still the norm.

16:43 People with families everywhere. Where did this renaissance come from? Do you know what happened between 2007, let's just say 2017? So the past 10 years have been like a lot of changes in here, I would say. Even us, I mean, from 2017 until today, we saw a huge change. And you mentioned that the last time you were here, that was 2 years ago. If you arrive today, you will see a different country, a different Yerevan, different regions. Yerevan today is way much more international than it has ever been. You have a lot of people on the streets from different nationalities, different languages. And it's now something you can notice very easily. And it's not strange to see that nowadays. And that brought with it a lot of different changes in work and culture and in everything. What languages do you speak?

17:29 I mean, on the street, I don't speak Armenian. Unfortunately, I should have learned the language, but I didn't since everyone speaks English in central Yerevan. I was never pushed to learn Armenian in downtown Yerevan. Which is one of the misconceptions. People here think that you have to speak Armenian or Russian to survive. I don't speak Armenian or Russian. I speak English. And in central Yerevan, everyone speaks English. Is that your native language, English? No, that's Arabic. Really? Okay. Yep. Because my dad spoke Arabic as well. But let me— the reason I brought that up was my mother spoke Turkish in the house. My father spoke Turkish in the house. My dad spoke Armenian, French, Turkish. and Arabic. And they deliberately didn't teach us. And this is that era of immigration to America. My father's an immigrant. My mom was born here, but she was embarrassed in Chicago when she was in elementary school to answer questions, much like your son, in Turkish, because she would use the Turkish words sometimes and she got embarrassed. And she decided she did not want that for her kids. Of course, we regret not learning the languages that my father knew. But it's an interesting irony there because now there is a great cultural pride in learning a language like that and expressing yourself in the language. But the Armenian culture is very entrepreneurial, always has been, very merchant-oriented. We talked about that. A lot of very well-known corporations in America and the rest of the world that are owned by Armenians,

19:00 started by Armenians, that no one would ever understand are of Armenian origins. What have you sensed now coming to Armenia and living there? Have you sensed this sort of, I don't say entrepreneurship, that's not a big enough word, desire to be successful, desire to live, desire to augment life? Have you sensed this in the Armenian culture? Yep. And the good thing is, I mean, there is also like an interesting topic that Armenians are Workaholics, plus they like to enjoy life. And that's a good thing. It's a balance between, you know, there are some nations that don't like doing work. They are fine with just enough. If they make enough money, that's it.

19:44 And some nations are just working and they don't know how to enjoy life. Here you find people dancing on the streets and then you find people working all day long. And you mentioned entrepreneurship. Let me just give you one example. I work every day from a coworking space, a small coworking space in downtown Yerevan. And within the past 3 years, more than 25 startups went from that place to Silicon Valley. Some of them are now like among the most successful. And that's only one coworking space. So talk about the entrepreneurship soul, it is here. And that's the reason that you feel, I mean, I had one of my friends from Austria, he's in his late 40s. And he mentioned one thing, he said, I love living here because I feel young. I feel surrounded by all that power and all that energy and all that dreams and motivation, because everyone wants to do something. And there are still a lot of things you can do in here. I mean, as someone described Armenia for me, he said, I feel like Armenia is a blank sheet. There's still a lot to be written. Unlike many other places where they have established a lot and there isn't a lot of things for you to do.

20:49 In here, you still can develop a lot of new ideas, come up with new concepts, develop something, do something, change something. bring up something that wasn't there, like a movement. Like for example, digital nomadism, which did not exist in Armenia until 3 years ago, until I brought the magazine concept and we started promoting it. And now we have nomads coming to Armenia every week. So that's something that changed over 3 years. And you kind of like love that feeling that I had that impact and I was able to see the results and enjoy it. Well, you landed in the right place for that because there is some energy there. And I have to— it seems like that maybe— how do I articulate this? We were there the first time, it was 2007, but the second time, I can't remember exactly. We were in an Italian restaurant and one of the— one of the SOM came over to talk to me because of my trade and the first thing he wanted to do was give me his resume and get him a job in America. And when I told my wife, I said, this kind of, you know, people are trying to get out still. Is that still the case? Or is this new energy and this new innovation and this new entrepreneurship and this new movement towards tech, has that kept a little bit more cultural expression to stay in Armenia and not seek the coming of the diaspora? I cannot say that. I would still say that a lot of

22:22 people still want to leave, and that depends on your profession. So for example, the tech group, let's call them, in Armenia, they're doing a lot of good work in here, but whenever there is a chance to export that work to European or like American markets, they would do it. And of course, we cannot say that everyone here is doing well and everyone is enjoying a good lifestyle. So for many, traveling or immigrating or looking for opportunities abroad is still the option or still the only way out. And so you decided that this would be a good idea to express to the world through digital means by starting Life in Armenia. It's a digital magazine? So until now it's a digital magazine. So back in January 2023, I noticed that there was no existence for the entire digital nomad concept in here. And back then there were 40 million digital nomads in the world. Just imagine there were 40 million people traveling. None of them was in Armenia because Armenia did not invite them. You check all those rankings and indexes online and you cannot find Armenia again because no one pitched Armenia as a country to be indexed. And that was the right time for it. So I just like started it with one magazine and that was almost 80 pages. Now, when I look back at the first issue, it feels silly. But again, it shows the growth that happened. And of course, I released the first one. I was so happy about it, but we got zero readers. Then the second one, then the third one. And I mean, a lot of people were telling me, even Armenians themselves, you have to drop the idea. I mean, who would be interested in reading like 100 pages about Armenia

23:55 in English? But I kept going. One issue, second, third, fourth, fifth, and every month one issue with like 10 to 12 stories from Armenia. And we started growing organically. So I never spent a dollar on marketing the magazine to the audience. That entire growth happened organically from 0 to 28,000 readers today, the majority of those in the US. And then we started listing Armenia on different indexes. So we communicate with a lot of platforms that rank digital nomad destinations, and we tried to submit Armenia as a country so they list it as well. Then we started going to different digital nomad events in the world and pitch Armenia on the stage for digital nomads, telling them that, you know, there's this country, you can come enjoy life here, you can stay, there are some good regulations regarding taxes and residence permits and this and that. And it took a while, but it happened eventually. And now we have digital nomads arriving in Armenia. I can say almost every week we have groups of digital nomads arriving. They text me on sometimes on Instagram saying like, we just arrived here. Can you show us where to go? What shall we do? And it's a good feeling to see that what you started has become a reality.

25:07 Well, I just looked it up because you said that the term digital nomad didn't exist when you started doing this. Yes. And I frankly, and I had a software company here in California in the '80s and tied to tech just because I love playing with it. I'd never heard the term. So here, just for the listeners, a digital nomad is a person who uses technology in the internet to work remotely while traveling and living in different locations. Now, I mean, that makes sense, right? Digital nomad. But let me, let me just ask you this question because I have a home near the beach here in Southern California. I have my Mac Studio down there. I have a Mac Studio here in my office, and I have another location where I spend time where my wife sits.

25:51 And I, I, I have a hard time with that. I mean, everything I do is on in the cloud virtually. I do have one big thick hard drive that I, that I carry around with me that, that is necessary for some of my work. But otherwise everything's in the cloud and I'm working on it, but I have a really hard time. settling in these various locations. Does that take a certain mentality to do what you do, to be able to not only be a digital nomad, but then create a product like Life in Armenia? So let me separate these 2. So digital nomads, the majority of them work in tech. They might be developers, designers, product managers, project managers, everything around tech. Those are people who can travel and work remotely. Some of them have jobs. So they work, for example, 9 to 5, they work Eastern hours or they work European hours. So not all of those, they're not on vacation. This is, this is the point. A digital nomad arriving in Armenia is not someone on vacation. And it takes 20 traditional tourists to match the spending of one digital nomad in a country. Interesting. Because a digital nomad doesn't just go to a resort and spends a week and then goes back home. Digital nomads rent apartments, they buy like local produce to cook at home, they start contributing. To the place where they live. So you see them in different events, you see them in every cultural activity that's possible. They try to learn about the country, engage with the country, and then they decide how long they want to stay. Some people stay for weeks, others for months, others for years. And digital nomadism was able

27:22 to change the fate of so many small European cities or even towns that turned into like year-round destinations now only because of digital nomads. For example, take Bansko in Bulgaria, which was the same as Ijevan in Armenia. Let's say that was a small resort town that people only went to for skiing, and it was dead for the rest of the year. Now it's a digital nomad hub that has a lot of international schools, international clinics, international facilities, coworking spaces, hotels, and it's booming with foreigners all year round. And that's because of digital nomads. Someone arrived there and said, this could be a digital nomad destination. And he started promoting it. And within years, it became a digital nomad destination.

28:06 And that's what I have in mind for, like, that's how I see maybe Dilijan in the future, maybe Ijevan. Those are like Armenian towns with 15,000 to 20,000 people. They could become digital nomad hubs where you have thousands of, let's say, tech remote workers arriving there, living for a while, contributing to the daily life of everyone, Then leaving for others to come. It's a fascinating concept. My daughter— There are so many programs for them, by the way. Like many countries have programs for digital nomads. So countries are fighting over them. You're talking about 40 million people traveling and working remotely with an average income of almost $5,000 a month. So many countries have programs for them with like zero taxes, with a lot of different ways to make them stay. Because they want them to come and stay. How do you— how does a digital nomad find out about these opportunities from different countries? And what is Armenia doing to attract them? So first of all, there are so many websites that like rank digital nomad destinations. And every country, whenever they come up with a program, they start announcing it like as much as possible. For example, last year Japan did a lot of work to attract digital nomads to Japan and they started their own program. They wanted digital nomads to go to the small towns with less population, with the elderly population so they can bring more youth to those towns. And the Japanese government invested a lot of money into this. At the moment, Armenia doesn't have an official digital nomad program. So there is nothing, let's say, supported by the government. However, it's

29:40 in the talk, let's say it's probably going to happen sooner or later because now it proved to be working. And I was able to pitch this idea a couple of times. The tourism committee already published a welcoming message for digital nomads that was the first expression from the Armenian government towards digital nomads. So we published a letter by the head of tourism committee back then in the magazine welcoming digital nomads in the country. But hopefully soon we will also have some more steps, like more firm steps, such as a program or a visa for digital nomads. Let's discuss that for a second. I don't want to dwell on the government. I mean, that's not why we're talking here, because of course, the diasporan Armenians have I would say that our conversations Tuesday morning have a lot to do with what's going on in the government, but I don't want to talk about that necessarily. However, what I know from the government, particularly from defense and the wine trade, it was very slow to uptick to understand that, for instance, wine is a global product. It's an expression of culture and that there should be some support because in America and Europe, of course, huge support for the trade of wine. And Armenia does have the Vine and Wine Foundation that supports the efforts of the winemakers. It's not voluminous at this point, but it's something. And it's created, for instance, that large wine event that came to Yerevan in May, the Concours du Bourget. So

31:10 has the— And don't forget Yerevan Wine Days, which is also another big event for wine here. which I missed by like a week the last time we were there. The last time I was there, which I think I told you, was 2024. 2 years ago. Okay. We shot— I went out, shot 3 episodes of a show called Wine: The Back Label. We sat with the people at Voskovoz. We sat with Vahid Khoshkarian and Amy Khoshkarian, James Tufankian, who happens to be my wife's cousin. And Mariam Sagatalyan at Invino. And we shot sort of a Bourdain-style show and CivilNet produced the show. It's online now. Very interesting stuff to do that. But Zahra Mouradian, who's the representative for the wine trade at the Vine and Wine Foundation.

32:00 Yes. It's such an important part of trade. And though the wine trade in Armenia is not going to be huge ever because of the land size, It certainly can contribute to the gross national product and the expression of Armenia throughout the world. It's just a very slow, difficult industry. And to this end, is the government recognizing the digital nomad idea? And are there plans or presentations to the government to say, look, this is an important part of tourism, like permanent tourism, so to speak, in the future? So is the government recognizing at the moment? No, there is nothing official by the government. However, I was able to pitch the idea of digital nomadism to the Prime Minister. That was December last year.

32:48 And he liked the idea in general. Then in one of the, like, let's say public meetings, one of the government meetings, he also mentioned that this is an interesting concept and we could be developing something around it. And that was it. Then Armenia went through the elections, which had like, you know, the priority for everything. And we just like recently got out of the elections. So that's why I'm saying I'm hoping that nowadays we can start pushing that again, or it will be brought up again. But up to this moment, there is nothing official by the government. Only as I told you, the tourism committee welcomes digital nomads. And we had that letter published by the head of tourism committee, the previous one, Lucien, saying that we welcome this, like, let's say, group of travelers in the country. We would like to see you. And we published that in our magazine.

33:35 You know, this is an amazing conversation. I hope it's the same for you because every time you say something, it triggers a thought about previous attempts in Armenia and the current political and business environment. Only to say this, because when freedom came, there was a lot, there was a rush from the diasporans, particularly America, to invest in Armenia. And it seemed like, like in my mother-in-law's attempt to buy and owning Ani Plaza Hotel, and I mentioned off camera that they're probably one of the few groups back in those days that actually came out of Armenia with more than they went in with. It was extraordinarily volatile, difficult thing to do. And the point I'm making is I think a lot of people were philanthropic at those days.

34:25 They really thought that they were going to help the Armenian government, the Armenian cause, the Armenian awareness throughout the world by doing these things. And it turned out to be that the Soviet mentality was still so strong. And they're going to say, hey, it'll be 2 generations before the idea of capitalism and self-reliance is going to take hold. And that's not true. It took much more than 2 generations for that to happen. But today, if you met somebody at the airport that was coming into Armenia to invest, would it be for philanthropic reasons? Like, I want to help Armenia, or would it be, I think there's money to be made here because it's in its infancy in certain parts of the industries of the world?

35:13 That's a very cool thing to say. Thank you for this question. Let me just bring something up. Only last year, I answered 18,000 questions about life in Armenia one by one by myself. Wow. Through the magazine, I get a lot of questions from diasporan Armenians. So although I'm not a diasporan, but over the past 4 years, I somehow developed a very good knowledge about the diasporan community and what attracts them to Armenia, who wants to come here, who doesn't want to come here, why some people don't want or want to come here. And a lot of them, send messages asking, how can I come to Armenia as a digital nomad? Which means they want to get a remote job. For example, diasporans living in the US, and they can relocate to Armenia, which happened a lot over the past 3 years. Anyway, you asked, are people trying just to be good? How can I help Armenia?

36:02 This is one of the questions I keep getting all the time. Like, hi, Matt, I saw your magazine. That's great work. And I've never thought about my country this way. How can I help Armenia? And my, my answer is always, don't think about how can I help. If you want to help, think about how can I start a business? How can I make money in Armenia? Generate a profit rather than thinking how can I get funds or get a grant or help someone come to Armenia, build something, give it enough time, generate a profit. This is how you can change things. If you're here, if you're paying your taxes, if you're hiring other people, this is it. And I see this as It's becoming more like the approach to coming to Armenia, that I'm coming here to start something, to do something. I'm not talking about those like wealthy Armenians who can contribute in different ways.

36:50 I'm talking about the everyday people who earns a couple of thousands and they want to come here to do something good. And the answer is always come here to work, build something here. And what's their response? If you're planning a company, do it. And a lot of them have done it, by the way. And I'm lucky to have met those people that it starts always with a message on LinkedIn from someone saying, I would like to come to Armenia to do something. And then I send them a lot of information. And then later we meet in Armenia, we have coffee together. And then they, for example, either start a company or hire some people remotely or decide to open a back office here or do some small business here. Or sometimes they just keep going back and forth, preparing for the relocation that might happen in a few years. So I wouldn't say that now everyone is trying just to like help Armenia because Armenia isn't the same country that used to be. Nowadays, when they get here, they find Armenia to be a country that's developing and moving fast and there's an opportunity for them to gain something here. So why not? It's interesting because across the street from the Alexander Hotel is a Paul Bakery. of course, a major French bakery chain of premium French-style pastries. Do you think that the influence this last, let's call it 10 years, and for you the last 8, 9 years, the influence downtown Yerevan was European,

38:20 Russian, Siberian, Croatian? Where is this influence that's created this transformation? It's a mix. So you have, first of all, you cannot forget the huge wave of Armenian diasporans who came from Syria after the war, then those who came from Lebanon after the war. So the Syrian Armenians and the Lebanese Armenians, they changed a lot of things in here. I mean, you talked about cuisine when we first started this conversation. They were the ones who drove that change in cuisine. They brought a lot of different dishes, different restaurants. They opened a lot of restaurants here. They brought the new culture of service. to the country. And then you had, for example, the Russian wave, who also like arrived in Armenia around 2021 or 2022, if I'm not mistaken. Those were also tech people who arrived in Armenia and also changed a lot of things. They were active contributors to the place where they decided to live. So all those waves of— I'm not going to call it immigration. Let's call them travelers who arrived in large numbers. They changed a lot of things in here. Travelers. I mean, I wouldn't say immigration because a lot of them might have like left the country, but They arrived here, they stayed for years, and they changed something.

39:32 And that mix was what Armenia needed. And of course, you had the European influence, the American influence, the Armenian diaspora who came from the States or from Europe wanting to do something, open different businesses, invest in the country in different ways. It's a mix. You can feel that mix. You know, it's kind of interesting. You just triggered a thought. French cuisine, French lifestyle. The idea of a fork was brought to France by Catherine de' Medici, and she was from Florence, and she married one of the kings, le roi. And wow, isn't that interesting how these kinds of infusions of another culture— because you would never, you'd never suspect that a Frenchman would admit that the Italians taught them how to cook.

40:22 Even though the cuisines are quite different, but that's what happened. And it just seems like history repeats itself. And here's this, I mean, 2007, let's face it, it was kebab and vegetables. And now this influx of a different culture comes and I suppose teaches the Armenians about what life can be like and the different varieties of food. And like I said, going to Armenia, even the Armenian food in Armenia, in Yerevan has as contemporized, I guess is the word, and become more modern. Where do you think this growth in Life in Armenia as a digital magazine has— you said it was organic. You haven't done anything. Yes. Look, I'm a digital marketeer. I did it all when I sold wine on the internet. I mean, I can tell you stories, and you did none of it. It's just organic. And it sounds like it continues to grow. Do you think it's from just an interest in understanding Armenian? You think it's like, hey, you got to read this because the writing is really good? What was the influence? Okay, so let me tell you something first of all about the magazine. The magazine doesn't have any politics in it. We don't focus on any negative topic. There is enough media for all the negative topics that are happening. We focus on the positive things that are happening in the country. Everything that's joyful, and true, we focus on that and we publish it. And right now, if you go to Amazon, by the way, and you look for any book in English about the daily life in Armenia, anything that describes Armenia today,

41:52 you will find that the last book was almost around 1991. Everything else is either Armenian genocide, Armenian history, Armenian diasporan communities, but there is no book about Armenia today. And there is a gap because a lot of Armenians abroad would love to read something positive about their homeland. And this, I would say, what Life in Armenia brought up. And we have that as a disclosure in every magazine issue that this is not propaganda. Whatever we're telling you is something happening. There is a lot of bad things and good things happening in this country, just like any other country, which you can read about anywhere else. But this magazine only shows you the good things that are happening so that at least you can learn that they're happening. 'Cause otherwise no one was spotlighting them. 'Cause, you know, negative news sells more, it spreads easier. Meanwhile, the good things don't, like takes a lot of time to get shared.

42:46 And— Are you crazy or something that you would do like a positive spin on Armenian lifestyle in a magazine? Don't you know that we suffered a genocide and that we are the first Christian nation and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And just imagine until 1990, from 1991 until today, there was not a single publication about life in Armenia. I also wrote a book, by the way. It's called My Life in Armenia. And right now I have like more than 1,000 pre-orders. I'm about to release it in a few months from now. Congratulations. That, that debunks all the myths about life here. Whatever people tell you about life here, which is not true today, maybe it was true 10 years ago, maybe it was true 20 years ago, but today it's not. So when you say, how did the magazine grow? Of course, because we, we offered people the kind of information they were looking for, but they couldn't find. And this is why one of the main things that I get as a comment all the time, Matt, are you sure you're in Armenia?

43:41 Which means a lot of those readers still, like, they find it funny that all those good things and nice things and inspirational stories are happening here because the assumption is that it's not. That's incredible. It really is incredible. And it's commendable because it would be so easy with the Armenian culture and the Armenian outlook on life in general. Let's just face it, the Armenian outlook on life is a very, downtrodden, and you don't blame them for what they've been through in general. And it will take generations for your positivity to permeate. But let's just face it. I mean, well, here's an example. There's a movie, a documentary being made on the wine trade again, and very professional. In fact, it's really interesting to me because this show, and I'm hoping that because of this feature, that it doesn't take us down the rabbit hole of the genocide and all the rest of Armenians' outlook on life is that it's being produced by Odars. It's being filmed by Odars. It's being edited by Odars and it's being directed by Odars. And I'm hoping that that will take us away from the, the Duduk music that takes you into the— just takes you down every time you hear it.

44:57 And that they produce a show that's going to show you this positive lifestyle, what's going on. Because it's just, let's just face it, it's part of the DNA. You've experienced it every day, probably. But for instance, I did a show we were talking about earlier, The Back Label. But the first take on the show, just the intro, which was done by an Armenian editor here in Los Angeles, a very professional Hollywood editor. And it was an opening scene of Ararat. Like, what else could be so quintessential? And she started with Duduk music. And it's just like, oh my God, my shoulders droop when you hear this. And so it's so positive to hear such positive things coming from your camp. Let me just say one thing here.

45:50 I don't want to sound like I'm trying to ignore all the pain or anything that has happened. Of course not. I'm just saying that there is right now enough media about that, and maybe there is a need for more. However, the daily life in Armenia today is not being highlighted enough, and this is just starting. There is room for more and more and more. And whatever we produce every month is just a PDF magazine, by the way. It's a 100-page magazine. That's only like— we don't do Instagram, we don't do TikTok, we don't do videos. We are going to start doing that probably around the end of the year. To start producing videos for Life in Armenia. And still we have all those readers. And I will bring here just one example. I remember that was almost a year ago when I got a message from an Italian, non-Armenian, who was coming to Armenia, and he was asking me a lot of questions. And he already had one of our magazines, and he was asking me about different places to go to, and he was bringing a group of friends. So I asked him, how did you get the magazine? Because I, I I don't like publish the magazine in any Italian platform. And he said there is this group for like high school, not high school, university students in Italy.

46:59 And there is an Armenian who posted the magazine in that group on WhatsApp. And he downloaded the magazine and he shared it with his friends and they decided to come here. So I found that Armenian who posted the magazine in that group and I talked to him. Now, surprisingly, The Armenian did not read the magazine, by the way. Well, it's 100 pages. But he was— because he knows the country, but he was happy to find something positive about his own country that he can show to his friends. And he shared it with his friends. Now, his friends read the magazine because it's interesting for them, and they decided to visit the country. And this is just one example. When you give people something to share, something to feel, okay, Armenians are proud of their country, but sometimes you need something to share with others. to show them how beautiful your homeland is.

47:46 And that's why we are now printing the magazine. And that's not for, I mean, printing will not add a lot more readers, but I got a lot of requests for people wanting the magazine to be in print so they can use it as a coffee table magazine. So that, for example, in your office or in your apartment, someone walks in and they ask, what is this? Oh, that's my country. You can read about it here. I think that's a, I mean, my head just went to like every room at the Alexandria or the Marriott or the Golden— what's it called? The Golden Tulip has it in the room. Why wouldn't they do that? Because why wouldn't you want— Yes. I mean, right now I'm sure the travel destination logs and things in hotels and on the Take One racks are about all the churches and all the places you can drive to and not the things about just living Exactly. The daily life. The, I mean, again, when I call it the daily life, it's also connected to the digital nomad life because you live as a person in here. You're not a tourist.

48:46 You're not just going after the tourist attractions. You're staying in the country. You want to know where are the coworking spaces, where you can buy the food, what are the events happening, who are the startup founders who are succeeding, what can you do, cultural events. You want to learn about all of that, about the daily life. You know, it's interesting, when we were there last and we were upstairs at the— I mean, the restaurant at the Alexandria Hotel is amazing, right? It's very European and the quality of the food is extraordinarily high. And we're sitting with— I won't mention any names, but I'll just mention the level of client. This was during the tech conference a couple years— that's when we were there last, during that tech conference. WCIT, if I'm not mistaken. And so here comes the president of Moderna, which is Armenian guy, and he's just Now he's swimming in money because of COVID vaccines and stuff. And he walked over to the gentleman I was sitting with who was the president of MGM Grand Hotel and worked for Kirk Kerkorian forever. And I mean, this handshake, if you could imagine the social influence that this handshake, just these 2 people talking to each other, they'd never met before, both titans in their industry. And I thought the horsepower just in that moment, was incredible. And what a story that would be to tell, just that alone, that these 2 guys were in Armenia at the same time and shook hands and both having major influences in the world for their respective industries. I thought that was a phenomenal situation.

50:18 I had a question here. So these other types of media outlets, and we're almost out of time here, which is hard to believe, but like Zartunk, Civilnet, You're a complete departure from that. And leading into this idea of tourism, because there's a huge movement for tourism in Armenia right now. I had Sissian Boghossian on the show and a couple others that were talking about tourism. Is Life, is the magazine not developing necessarily, but is it working towards supporting tourism or it already does? I'm sorry, can you repeat the question? Are you talking about my magazine or? Yes, Life in Armenia. Is it sort of supporting this tourism movement or just— Of course. Yes, absolutely. So there's one thing, again, no politics, no grants, no funds. We don't accept any grant offers. And I meant for Life in Armenia to be relying on advertising revenue so that I can just keep it away from everything so that no one can influence it or anything else. Again, no politics, which makes people more interested into reading it. And of course, we support tourism because, again, digital nomads, as I told you, they spend Like one digital nomad equals 20 traditional tourists. So we support that kind of tourism and others who want to stay for short period.

51:35 But there's been a lot of public press about tourism in Armenia, not just out of the Armenians, but there have been, I think, Zagat's and Forbes and a couple other major trades have talked about tourism in Armenia. And Certainly your magazine would play into that. It was sort of a rhetorical question, but it would seem like there's been a worldwide recognition of this country to go visit and see what's going on, see what's happening there. Yes. And I would say one of the main reasons, by the way, is safety. Like, safety on the streets is a main— I mean, it's a main thing for any tourist or someone who wants to stay.

52:18 I would think that's, well, wasn't there a ranking of safety major cities in the world? And it was like one of the top 5. Armenia is always among the top 5. And we did like recently an index like that. We researched everything and we published that. So Armenia is the second, Yerevan, the second safest city for female remote workers in the world. Because you can work. Oh, I mean, simply, if you work in a coworking space at 2 AM, you want to go back home after you finished your shift, at least no one is going to stab you. You can just walk home as a female from anywhere back home and you will arrive safely. That's the main— What do you mean culturally that makes you safe?

53:00 I would say it's a cultural thing. It's coming from like the people themselves. I mean, you wouldn't see a lot of like force and a lot of police officers on the street. It's not coming from law enforcement. It's coming from the daily, from people. And I've been all around the country, by the way, not just in Yerevan. So I keep traveling to different regions, different cities, and I've never felt unsafe anywhere. Well, this is my last subject here. I'm going to wrap this up and we'll probably have to do this again one day. We haven't talked about wine. Yeah, that's true. All right, let's talk about wine. Um, yeah, it's a— it's wine, like, my favorite subject, obviously.

53:43 I sold a lot of wine, tasted 100,000 in my career, and have done all sides of it— wholesale, retail, manufacturing, importing, exporting, etc. And it's a very slow, difficult, um, traditional business, and it's extraordinarily difficult for even an American wine company who has tons of backing to get a brand developed, recognized, and in the streets. And it's even harder today than it ever has been with the consolidation of wholesalers in America, and particularly in Los Angeles. And here's this little country that not only has to try and develop a worldwide recognition of a grape, Aranyi in particular. Yep. But, well, let's say James Tufankian put it, you know, it's a positive that we're the— you've never heard of us because wine was born here. But it's also a negative because no one's heard of you and wine was born here. So what have your dealings with in life in Armenia? What kind of dealings have you had in the wine trade? And what are you talking about? So we started almost like 2 years ago to feature like wine in Armenia in every magazine issue. So every month we have an article about wine.

55:01 Sometimes it's just in general about the wine in Armenia. We don't try to promote one company over the other. So we just talk to people about what makes Armenian wine different. We talk about Armenian soil, we talk about wine, we talk about the grapes, we talk about Aranyi, we talk about the history. Again, for someone who's planning to stay here, we just tell them about everything. And then we leave it for them to try it. And because this is something you have to experience yourself, you have to come here and taste it. But we keep sending those messages. And 2 months ago, we investigated like one of the oldest vineyards in the country. So we— I learned about this vineyard that is in Aravnadzor, and that was a 400-year-old vineyard. That was the documented age of it. Wow. So I went there with the— there was a French— she's the vineyard manager.

55:50 So she comes to Armenia like once a month to spend a week here, Sophie Clousel, and the CEO of that company that owns the vineyard, Anoush Iskandarian. And we went there and we started digging deeper. So we met the elderly in the town. We met the oldest person there. We talked to the municipality. We checked the documents. And now I'm doing my own check in Matena-Daran so I can find more documents about it. So we got one conclusion that 400 years is documented. Now there was this research team that arrived to study Areni Cave. And they had evidence that the grapes that were being taken to Areni were coming from that vineyard based on tracing back the grapes. And if that's true, you're talking about thousands of years of a vineyard. And the French lady was just crying when she heard about it because she was saying, this isn't normal. This is something that has to be like— taken care of way, way, way much differently. And she's doing a lot of work. I mean, she's the person who taught me everything about wine in this country. And I would just quote one thing she said. She said, it's not about the machinery. It's not about the production lines. It's not about the tanks or whatever you can buy from any country. It's about letting the Armenian mountains do the winemaking while you just facilitate it. She said, just let the mountains do it. Nice. You don't interfere. You keep it organic and biodiverse as much as possible, and you just make sure that

57:21 it's happening without you interfering in it. She said, the moment you interfere as a human, you're messing with it. Just let the Armenian mountains do the winemaking. Well, you're— I mean, that's exactly right. And it's a very interesting dichotomy of what the wine trade is. There is that complete influence. There's that complete thought process, that academic, romantic side of the wine business. It's also the side of the business that I believe connects wine to the human soul. This is why we feel different about a properly honest glass of wine compared to a glass of scotch or whiskey or vodka. It's just a different relationship with the human soul. But then there's the business of wine, and that's the part because you got to sell it. And that's It's interesting. There's a group out of France, out of the Rhône called Aranie Global. And it's a group run by women, very intelligent women in the wine trade. And they chose Aranie Global as the name because of the origins of the grape. However, the group is a think tank for the business of wine. In other words, we know that wine is consumer-driven and that we have to do what we need to do to sell it. But at the same time, it's got this whole different personality, which is what you're talking about. Because the reason I brought that up was the minute that the Europeans and the American wine trade is looking into investing in time, investing money into a new country of wine, that's when you know, at

58:52 least you've got some traction. Because Napa Valley, for instance, you know, a lot of immigrants came here in the 1700s, 1800s. And that's where these wineries came from. But contemporary investment by the French and Argentinians and Chileans, it didn't happen until relatively recently. And that's when they decided, wow, this is this new world and it can grow grapes and we can make wines there so that we can sell it. And so that the fact that you have the French coming there and the Italians coming there and the Germans coming there, particularly on the winemaking side, is a huge thing that has been recognized and that they're prepared to invest in that country. But here's the flip side. You probably know Caras.

59:37 Juliana, who's the niece of Ernäkian, who owns not only Caras but also a winery in Argentina. She said that Michel Rolland, who's one of the famous enologists, visited the Ararat Valley to say, yes, you can grow grapes here, scared, scared her to death because he said, now that we can grow grapes here, we won't know what it can do for 100 years. And she's like, I'm 35 already. I don't have 100 years to figure this out. But the point of that is it takes generations to understand what a vineyard can do. and what land can do, what kind of grapes you can get out of it, and how many different ways you can look at that grape when you get it out of. And this French woman's saying, yeah, we don't want to touch it. We want to produce what this place is giving us. That's basically what she's saying.

1:00:35 Nice. We want to not modify what nature gives us. And that's what's so important about an old vineyard. So what's she doing? Is she continuing to study the grapes? What's her purpose out there? So first of all, like this vineyard that I'm telling you about, it has been for years before, like they, this company took over the place. For years it was being managed by different farmers, local farmers who did not take care of it. So they were like, you know, using all these kinds of pesticides and chemicals and plastic and whatsoever until she decided that within the next 3 years, I'm going to turn this vineyard into an organic one. So I'm going to take out all the pesticides little by little. So she's going through the process of preserving biodiversity, turning it into an organic one.

1:01:28 And it's a lot of work and a lot of investment to make sure that you can— I mean, a lot of people, they still don't realize the importance of that, that for example, you don't have to let The vines carry as much as they can. You have, for example, to control it. You have to make sure that you don't overwhelm the work that they're doing. She calls them the grandma vines, and she's trying to work with them on that scale. And probably within the next 3 to 4 years, it's only the work of turning it into an organic one. So they're not going to make wine of whatever the vineyard is producing right now. Think about it for a second. This is my favorite subject when it comes to organic and biodynamic wines, because now it's a certification, Demeter in Europe. I think, I think Armenia uses the same certification that Europeans do. But think about it for a minute. 400 years old, this winery. So you're talking about, uh, 1600s. I suspect that it was organic and/or biodynamic for at least 300 years prior, right? Yep. I mean, there was no pesticides, insecticides, herbicides back then. Yep. And so we screwed it up. Yep. Like the humans came and screwed it up. And it leads me to like want to taste a wine. I mean, it's almost impossible to bring it forward.

1:02:50 It is impossible to bring it forward. But even the Burgundians in Burgundy, France, they're around 1200. They knew 800 years ago what these things can do, what these vineyards can do. And here we are as humans, we screw it up and then we applaud ourselves for cleaning it up, which I've never understood that self-patting type idea. But so she's a rock star. And then we go after all those certificates so we can be proud about what we did, unfortunately. Which costs money. It's what humans do to many, many fields, not just vineyards in this case. So how long, how many years is she into this process? She's— So now, no, no, no, now it's the first year and there are still 2 more years. I see. Okay. Yeah, it takes, it takes 3 years to clear. They say it takes 3 years to clear it.

1:03:42 And then you could think, but here's an interesting point that was made by one Italian gentleman who's got great lineage in the wine trade. And he said about his vineyard in Patagonia, Argentina, he said, the armadillos have come back. Now, apparently that is some kind of thermometer or litmus test as to whether or not you're really organic or biodynamic, that the armadillos come back to the vineyard. But I had not heard of this 400-year-old vineyard in Armenia. I do know that— I will take you there the next time we're in Armenia. Let me take you there. We can organize like a short trip there and we can meet this French lady. I can organize the whole thing. Just let me know if you're up for that. I'd love to take a CivilNet crew with us and do some filming. Okay. That'll be great. How far is it from Yerevan? It's like an hour and a half. Oh, it's not far.

1:04:32 Yeah, Ravnotzor is very close. Well, this has been fascinating. We've already passed over an hour, which is way past my bedtime. Oh, that's good. I think we can continue this conversation again and we'll do it soon. And I did ask my wife 2 nights ago, can we get to Armenia in October? And that'll be the best time, by the way, of the year. The best time is October. The best colors for the mountains to see all those, like the trees. And it's the best time of the year. I think this would be an interesting junket to go out and see this vineyard and talk to the French woman. Yep. And I can practice my French. That's great. Okay.

1:05:15 I'll take that as a promise. And I'm seriously waiting for you to get here and I will organize the whole thing. Well, this added to the reasons because I'm due for a couple more episodes anyway with some wineries. And this would be a great expression because I've not heard of this and no one in the diaspora talked about this. I will tell you a funny story though, and we'll get off. There's a wine show here in Glendale, California called Guineafest, and it's, and it's a rather successful wine show and cultural show. And I was— I, when I go, I taste everything that's there, and sometimes that's over 100 wines. And I'm tasting wine at this one booth, and this gentleman shows me the label, and it's— I recognize the label immediately.

1:06:02 It's the copy of a poster put out by a wine bar in Paris called Willy's Wine Bar. It's a very famous place. He's been making posters since 1983, and he hires a special— an artist. They all submit their ideas, and he picks one for that vintage. And so I said, I asked the guy, I said, hey, did you get licensed by Willy's? He goes, what are you talking about? I said, this is a very famous place, a very famous poster. He says, he goes, show me. So I get on my phone, I go to the website of Willy's Wine Bar, and I show him the poster for sale. He goes, you know, I paid an Armenian artist in Yerevan good money to create this label. Oh my God. Oh my God. And I said, I said, well, I go, you need to have a conversation. So I didn't hear from him afterwards.

1:06:45 And then I saw him in Paris at the wine show. Armenia had a great booth called— it's called Wine Paris. And he was pouring his wines. I went up to him. He recognized me immediately. I said, so what happened? He goes, I punished him. The typical Armenian way. Yeah, exactly. So Matthew, it's been a great pleasure to have you on the show and hear what's going on with you and life in Armenia. And I want— I'm not sure I can read a 100-page PDF, but I'm going to try. Thank you so much. Thank you. And again, when you get here, it will be an opportunity to meet the digital nomad community. I will also like introduce you to that community that you said you didn't know about. You will learn about everything from them. I'll look forward to it. Thank you so much.

1:07:31 Thanks for having me. Cheers.