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

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It's not about the machinery. It's not about the production lines. It's not

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about the tanks or whatever you can buy from any country. It's

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about letting the Armenian mountains do the winemaking while you

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just facilitate it. Sit back and grab a glass.

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It's Wine Talks with Paul Kaye.

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Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul Kaye. And we are in studio today in

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beautiful Southern California. Actually, it's about 102 degrees

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Fahrenheit today, but to have a conversation with Matthew Zen, Zen.

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How am I going to say it? Zen, Zane. Zane. Zane.

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Out in Yerevan, Armenia, which is such a fascinating story. That's why we've been

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talking for months to come on the show. We're so happy to have him here.

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He's founder and chief editor of Life in

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Armenia magazine. But that is just the tip of the iceberg here when

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this conversation gets started, because it's an incredible journey to get to

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this point. So welcome to the show. Hi, Paul. Thanks for having me.

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We were talking about

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podcasting and doing this, and we're using a product called Riverside

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and the AI advancements that keep changing things.

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But you mentioned that you had a podcast with

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over 100 episodes about Michelin star chefs in Miami.

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Yep. So I had this podcast for a year. Now it ended, and I was

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doing that for a company. I was hired as a podcast host remotely from

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Yerevan. And we had almost 400,000 audience for that

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podcast. We were interviewing Michelin-star chefs in Miami,

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and we had very interesting episodes with some of the top names

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in the world in this industry. And like every night I was doing a lot

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of talks with chefs, and all the talks were about cooking, hiring

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restaurants, the entire industry. It's the beauty of remote work, by the

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way. You can do a podcast from Yerevan to an audience in

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the US and It's all remote. Well, there's

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100 subjects right there. One is

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not the primary question here, but like, how did you land a

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podcast about Michelin-star chefs with a third-party company? But

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more importantly, you know, it wasn't that long ago in Yerevan

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because the infrastructure didn't exist really that you could even do that.

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I mean, like right now you look crystal clear on the phone.

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and you sound great, but that's not the way it's always been out there

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in Yerevan. What's changed and when did it change? By the way,

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this is something that through the magazine, through Life in Armenia, I get all those

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questions about life in Armenia today. Many people still believe that

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Armenia is still that Armenia they left, for example, in the 1990s,

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which wasn't that, let's say, beautiful place to live

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in. But over the past few years, everything changed here. Like right now, for

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example, we have 5G almost covering the entire country.

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Like you can go anywhere, we have 5G. And that's something that's not

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available even sometimes in first world countries. Being a small

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country is an advantage in this case. We have, I mean, electricity

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is the norm. We have stable internet and we

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do now have like a remote work movement in Armenia. So a lot of people

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are working remotely for the US market, for the UK market, for the European

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companies. And I just got that job, by the way, through LinkedIn.

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So they found me, they offered me the job and I accepted it. And I

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worked with that company for almost a year. You know, but that's an interesting

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point for the listeners because not everybody's going to know this

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conversation, though there'll be a lot of Armenian listeners, but

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we take it for granted in many parts of the world, particularly Europe and in

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the United States and North America, this infrastructure.

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And it wasn't that long ago, as you're mentioning,

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that Armenia had infrastructure issues. I mean,

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just to say you have 5G in most of the countries sounds kind of foreign,

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really. I mean, it seems like, wow, big deal, 5G, but it is a big

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deal. So the advancements have been rather quick. And we're

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gonna talk about the wine trade too. Same thing happened in the wine trade

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to get to world-class quality in a very short order of time.

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What drove this radical change or quick

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You know, acceleration to the marketplace in both tech and

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wine and in general infrastructure. So you just

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mentioned tech. Tech was one of the main drivers for this entire thing.

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With the tech boom that started almost around 2020, if I'm not

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mistaken, this is when everything started boiling in this country.

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You had a unicorn, we had a lot of tech startups, and the tech startup

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ecosystem started climbing the rankings worldwide. So for

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many people who don't know, right now, the Armenian tech startup ecosystem

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in Yerevan is in the top 200 from 1,400

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cities in the world. Wow. And when you talk about

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Armenia, like the budget here is not compared to any budgets of those like big

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countries with a lot of money they can pour into the ecosystem. So

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that's bottom-up tech startup ecosystem where the people are creating it.

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And everything started developing around it, I would say. I mean, again, that was not

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the only driver, but one of the main drivers. It drove the remote work

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culture, it drove the internet and a lot of other things.

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You know, we have this discussion and I have coffee every Tuesday morning with a

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group of Armenian men that I grew up with from all parts of,

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you know, Rusahais, Barskais from Iran,

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Aintabisis like myself. We have this sort of group

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in all different disciplines. There's a judge, a federal judge, there's lawyers,

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there's businessmen, real estate, even clergy.

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And it's I used to argue

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about this point and they would say, yes, Armenia is this

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hotbed of tech intelligence. And I used to

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say, why? Why would Armenia have more sort of

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tech-related jobs, more tech-related advancement

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than any other country? And it seems though,

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during the Soviet era, that's where they pointed tech to, that the Russians

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cultivated tech in Armenia as well as they did branding and things like that. But

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is that accurate? So of course, during that time, Armenia was

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the center of, like one of the centers for the Soviet Union for tech.

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Plus, over the past, let's say decade, tech was the only way for

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many Armenians out. I mean, you know, a landlocked country. So

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this is one of the main products that you can export. So that was a

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reason pushing people to tech. And since there were so

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many success stories, it pushed more and more people into this industry.

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So what, I mean, I had a lot of questions. Of course, the diaspora play

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a lot of, like, let's say the diaspora played a huge role in this because

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Armenia already had a bridge to Silicon Valley through the diaspora,

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which also contributed to the tech ecosystem in here. Well,

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I guess that explains part of it, but it's because

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it compounds itself, right? Let's say the Russians during the Soviet era,

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they were relying on Armenians to develop tech. And certainly that compounds

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itself to modern day where it now has become an AI-related.

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So it seems that maybe there is this natural bed of

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intelligence and because it's built on itself,

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places like TUMO, which is the center for kids to learn about

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tech and delve into digital marketing and digital music, et

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cetera. That's a great example. I mean, as you said, you have

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TUMO that's now exporting tech curriculum from Armenia to the world,

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to many capitals in the world. Yes, there

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are. In fact, they just opened one or just opening one in Los Angeles.

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And that's a great example, right? There also seems to be

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a level of innovation. I mean, Armenians have always been known to be merchants.

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I just posted a Ripley's Believe It or Not article I found in my

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dad's archives of the Armenians bringing wine down the

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Euphrates in leather boats with a donkey and then selling

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the lumber and blah, blah, blah and selling the wine. Then taking the donkey back

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up to Armenia to refill it. And so there seems to be a merchant mentality

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and a merchant creativity built

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into the Armenian culture. But why did you land there? I mean, you've done a

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lot of things in your career, and here you are,

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probably a pioneer in the idea of using Armenia as a home base.

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So before I say, like, before I answer this question, let me just get back

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to something you mentioned. What is what could be the relationship between being

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in Armenia, or let's say growing up in Armenia, and the development

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of tech. There's this research we did around a year ago in

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which we included a lot of like linguistics in that research so we can

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dive deeper into the language. And we found some really interesting

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insights about the relationship between how the structure of

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the Armenian language and the way it has you thinking

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when you are forming the sentences. And then the development of

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AI. And this is something that's in Chinese Mandarin, in Hebrew, and

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Armenian, only 3 languages. And we published that entire research

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about the relationship between Armenian language as an alphabet and

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between thinking systematically when you are developing AI solutions.

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Again, it might be non-realistic,

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but we tried as much as possible and we dived into it. We had a

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lot of scientists who worked with us on that research, and it

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came with pretty interesting insights about that relationship. So this could have

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been one of the reasons. Maybe this was the reason why the Soviet Union

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decided to put all that heavy weight when it comes to tech innovation on the

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country. Anyway. So now that's interesting. Let me stop you there for a

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second. Mesrop, right? Yes. Mesrop

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Mashtots. Created the alphabet. And when I

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talk about culture, about wine, wine's my primary subject in life.

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You know, I always talk about the idea of culture, you know, lands in probably

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5 areas. Certainly language, if you have one. Not every country

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has its own language. Land, if you have it. Not every

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country now has land. The food, the music, and the

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wine. Those are sort of defining cultural characteristics. And you're

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saying that the Armenian alphabet lends itself, or the

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grammar structure lends itself to

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a thinking process that you're linking to the idea of a high-tech

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influence. Yes. And so

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Mandarin and— And Hebrew. Hebrew.

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Yes. That is fascinating. Yep. We found a lot of interesting

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theories when we were working on this. And it just started, by the way, like

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we were just having fun. What could be the relationship? And one thing led to

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another. Then we published a series of 3 articles about this

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topic. Because I could see that. I certainly

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don't know the details. I want to read that research. But I mean, when you

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think about the idea, for instance, I late in life sat down to learn

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French because my father spoke French and I wanted to entertain him in his

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later years. And they talk about learning a language

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is good for your brain. So let's just say that on the surface, this is

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a good idea, right? It unlocks parts of your brain that you haven't

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used in a while, or you know, are formed early in

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life. And if I could see how the structure of a language

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and the alphabet of a language early in life could do

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that, it could certainly create

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connections and synapses that you wouldn't have had otherwise.

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Yeah, these are things you wouldn't, I mean, it's not that you

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won't think this way, it just happens naturally. It just helps you when you are

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developing a system. It's a way of thinking because of the way you

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learned how to structure a sentence, the way you learn how to put together the

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words. Mm-hmm. It's interesting because last night we

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were taking care of the grandkids. They're living with us right now because of the

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fires. And one of them's a young girl, she's 5.

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And so she was singing a nursery rhyme, you know, quack, quack, quack,

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5 little ducks or something. And all of a sudden she started translating it into

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Armenian. You know, hinka patinera, you know, she started singing.

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And I go, where did that come from? She, you know, she goes to Armenian

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school, but they don't speak at the home much, certainly

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not with me because I don't know it very well. But all of a sudden

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her brain just switched over to sing the song in Armenian and she was

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trying to connect the grammar, you know, trying to link the grammar together.

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So— How did I land in Armenia? Well, yeah, that was still like the number

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one question here. So this is, by

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the way, an interesting story because I had no idea about Armenia.

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I am not an Armenian diasporan. I have no relationship with this country. And

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I was a digital nomad before digital nomadism was a thing,

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before it had a name. A digital nomad is someone who travels and works

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remotely. So I have always been a tech journalist traveling and

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working remotely with the US market. But I never thought about coming

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to Armenia. I was traveling mostly around Asia. Before Armenia, I lived in

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China. And in 2017, my wife and I

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arrived here for what was like a tourist package. So we were here for

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7 days. That was it. And it was just because we saw the

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ad about Armenia and it was nice weather. We thought, why not? It

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was so affordable back then and we just decided to do it.

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So we arrived here and the plan was to like, after finishing our like

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week in Armenia, is to go back to the Emirates, then from the Emirates go

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to Canada. So we were planning to stay in Canada for a few years, have

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a kid there, build a family and like spend some time.

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And we arrived here for a week. The usual track,

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right? Yep. Armenia, the Emirates, Canada. Who doesn't do

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that? And it was

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fascinating, the vibe, the weather, the food, everything. And we

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decided to spend a month. Again, we were never planning to spend a

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lifetime here. We thought, you know, it's, we've already arrived

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here and I'm working remotely so I can keep working remotely. There is

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internet, there is everything, and we can rent an apartment. It was so affordable back

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then. And we can stay here for a month. Well, that week

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became a month. The month became six months, then a year, then

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two, three, four, five. Then we had a kid, then seven, eight,

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nine. Now my kid goes to kindergarten in here, and it's an

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English-speaking kindergarten. But all his friends are Armenians, and now he speaks

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some Armenian at home, mixing it with English sometimes. And he doesn't know

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that he's mixing. So like we call him like for dinners, like miropay,

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miropay. And like okay, now he's using Armenian words while talking to us.

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Because he's picking that from his friends. Wow, that's so interesting. And in 2020,

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I also, by the way, from 2017 until 2020,

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we were tourists living in Armenia. Probably I've never met

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anyone. We were just living here, working remotely, spending the

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money here, enjoying the affordability, enjoying the life, but we

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were not engaged with anyone. Then from 2020, I

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started working with Armenian tech companies. And that

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opened life for us in here. Because you start meeting people, going to

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the offices, you get invitations to weddings, you meet more people, you meet cousins, you

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meet families, and then you have friends. You get invited to barbecues, and

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all of a sudden you have an entire community that you don't want to leave.

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You start traveling around the regions, visiting people sometimes who don't even

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speak English. Like, I get invited to like family

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dinners where only one person speaks English and the rest of them don't, and

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still we enjoy it. And that's how it happened. And that's why I

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started the magazine later, which we will talk about. But the whole idea of

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coming to Armenia was just a 7-day tourist package. And that was it. But

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that's a, you know, what year was that? That was

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2017. Well, there was, I guess there

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was some progress at that point. We were there in

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2007. I did not, even though— No,

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2007, that's a different time in Armenia. It really

250
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is. And that's kind of interesting subject matter, that change, because

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2007, the wines were undrinkable.

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There was one type of cuisine available in Yerevan that was kebab,

253
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tomatoes, cucumbers, and potatoes,

254
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and some lahmacun once in a while. But there was no

255
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cuisine there at all. And then all of a

256
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sudden, and you're talking 10 years, and I think 2017

257
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would be considered rather modern, not unlike today's Yerevan, which is an amazing place. Yeah.

258
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ask and I say, Yerevan is like,

259
00:16:16,994 --> 00:16:20,749
it's like Paris in its feeling. You can walk around,

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you're safe. There's multiple cuisines. Obviously the architecture is completely

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00:16:24,552 --> 00:16:27,970
different and the history is different, but the way you feel

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safe and the way you feel cultural is to me much like

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Paris. Even safer, I would say, than Paris. I mean, at least here you can

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stay up to 2 AM, 3 AM, even if you're a woman alone

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on the street, go back home. It's still the norm.

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People with families everywhere. Where did this renaissance come from? Do you

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know what happened between 2007, let's just say 2017? So

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the past 10 years have been like a lot of changes in here, I would

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say. Even us, I mean, from 2017 until today, we saw a

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huge change. And you mentioned that the last time you were here, that was 2

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years ago. If you arrive today, you will see a different country, a

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different Yerevan, different regions. Yerevan today is way much more

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international than it has ever been. You have a lot of people on the streets

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from different nationalities, different languages. And it's now something you can

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notice very easily. And it's not strange to see that nowadays.

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And that brought with it a lot of different changes in work and culture and

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00:17:25,677 --> 00:17:28,405
in everything. What languages do you speak?

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I mean, on the street, I don't speak Armenian. Unfortunately, I should have

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learned the language, but I didn't since everyone speaks English in central

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Yerevan. I was never pushed to learn Armenian in downtown

281
00:17:40,909 --> 00:17:44,743
Yerevan. Which is one of the misconceptions. People here think that you have to

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speak Armenian or Russian to survive. I don't speak Armenian or Russian. I

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speak English. And in central Yerevan, everyone speaks English. Is

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that your native language, English? No, that's Arabic.

285
00:17:56,303 --> 00:18:00,061
Really? Okay. Yep. Because my dad spoke Arabic as well. But let me— the reason

286
00:18:00,061 --> 00:18:03,593
I brought that up was my mother spoke Turkish in the house. My father spoke

287
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Turkish in the house. My dad spoke Armenian, French, Turkish.

288
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and Arabic. And they deliberately

289
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didn't teach us. And this is that era

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of immigration to America. My father's an immigrant. My mom was born here, but

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she was embarrassed in Chicago when she was in elementary school

292
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to answer questions, much like your son, in Turkish, because

293
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she would use the Turkish words sometimes and she got embarrassed. And she

294
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decided she did not want that for her kids. Of course, we

295
00:18:35,160 --> 00:18:37,954
regret not learning the languages that my father knew. But

296
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it's an interesting irony there because now there is a great

297
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cultural pride in learning a language like that and

298
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expressing yourself in the language. But the

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Armenian culture is very entrepreneurial, always has been, very

300
00:18:53,289 --> 00:18:56,323
merchant-oriented. We talked about that. A lot of very well-known

301
00:18:56,821 --> 00:19:00,578
corporations in America and the rest of the world that are owned by Armenians,

302
00:19:00,611 --> 00:19:03,629
started by Armenians, that no one would ever understand

303
00:19:04,464 --> 00:19:08,193
are of Armenian origins. What have you sensed now

304
00:19:08,306 --> 00:19:12,067
coming to Armenia and living there? Have you sensed this sort of,

305
00:19:13,104 --> 00:19:15,181
I don't say entrepreneurship, that's not a big enough word,

306
00:19:17,674 --> 00:19:21,213
desire to be successful, desire to live, desire

307
00:19:21,341 --> 00:19:25,040
to augment life? Have you sensed this in the Armenian culture?

308
00:19:26,010 --> 00:19:29,670
Yep. And the good thing is, I mean, there is also like an interesting topic

309
00:19:29,670 --> 00:19:33,489
that Armenians are Workaholics, plus

310
00:19:33,505 --> 00:19:36,853
they like to enjoy life. And that's a good thing. It's a balance between, you

311
00:19:36,853 --> 00:19:40,394
know, there are some nations that don't like doing work. They

312
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are fine with just enough. If they make enough money, that's it.

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And some nations are just working and they don't know how to enjoy life. Here

314
00:19:48,229 --> 00:19:51,690
you find people dancing on the streets and then you find people working all day

315
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long. And you mentioned entrepreneurship. Let me just give you one

316
00:19:55,375 --> 00:19:58,788
example. I work every day from a coworking space, a small coworking

317
00:19:58,820 --> 00:20:02,349
space in downtown Yerevan. And within the

318
00:20:02,349 --> 00:20:05,912
past 3 years, more than 25 startups went from

319
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that place to Silicon Valley. Some of them are now like among the most

320
00:20:09,555 --> 00:20:13,021
successful. And that's only one coworking space. So talk

321
00:20:13,021 --> 00:20:16,375
about the entrepreneurship soul, it is here. And

322
00:20:16,391 --> 00:20:19,762
that's the reason that you feel, I mean, I had one of my friends from

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00:20:19,906 --> 00:20:23,549
Austria, he's in his late 40s. And he mentioned one thing, he said,

324
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I love living here because I feel young. I feel surrounded

325
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by all that power and all that energy and all that dreams and

326
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motivation, because everyone wants to do something. And there are

327
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still a lot of things you can do in here. I mean, as someone described

328
00:20:38,305 --> 00:20:42,154
Armenia for me, he said, I feel like Armenia is a blank sheet. There's still

329
00:20:42,219 --> 00:20:45,474
a lot to be written. Unlike many other places where they have

330
00:20:45,586 --> 00:20:49,179
established a lot and there isn't a lot of things for you to do.

331
00:20:49,676 --> 00:20:52,964
In here, you still can develop a lot of new ideas, come up with new

332
00:20:53,044 --> 00:20:56,187
concepts, develop something, do something, change something.

333
00:20:57,279 --> 00:21:00,763
bring up something that wasn't there, like a movement. Like for example,

334
00:21:00,811 --> 00:21:04,520
digital nomadism, which did not exist in Armenia until 3

335
00:21:04,585 --> 00:21:08,262
years ago, until I brought the magazine concept and we started promoting

336
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it. And now we have nomads coming to Armenia every week. So

337
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that's something that changed over 3 years. And you kind of like

338
00:21:16,001 --> 00:21:19,662
love that feeling that I had that impact and I was

339
00:21:19,758 --> 00:21:23,490
able to see the results and enjoy it. Well,

340
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you landed in the right place for that because there is some energy there. And

341
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I have to— it seems like that maybe—

342
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how do I articulate this? We were there the first time, it was 2007,

343
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but the second time,

344
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I can't remember exactly. We were in an Italian restaurant and one of the— one

345
00:21:44,526 --> 00:21:47,993
of the SOM came over to talk to me because of my trade and

346
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the first thing he wanted to do was give me his resume and

347
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get him a job in America. And when I told my wife, I said, this

348
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kind of, you know, people are trying to get out still. Is that still the

349
00:22:00,668 --> 00:22:04,051
case? Or is this new energy and this new innovation and this new

350
00:22:04,212 --> 00:22:07,859
entrepreneurship and this new movement towards tech,

351
00:22:08,650 --> 00:22:12,330
has that kept a little bit more cultural

352
00:22:14,982 --> 00:22:18,426
expression to stay in Armenia and not seek the coming of the

353
00:22:18,426 --> 00:22:22,255
diaspora? I cannot say that. I would still say that a lot of

354
00:22:22,287 --> 00:22:25,652
people still want to leave, and that depends on your profession. So for

355
00:22:25,652 --> 00:22:29,161
example, the tech group, let's call them, in Armenia, they're doing a lot of good

356
00:22:29,161 --> 00:22:32,093
work in here, but whenever there is a chance to export that work to

357
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European or like American markets, they would do it. And of

358
00:22:36,467 --> 00:22:39,912
course, we cannot say that everyone here is doing well and everyone is enjoying a

359
00:22:39,912 --> 00:22:43,725
good lifestyle. So for many, traveling or immigrating or looking for

360
00:22:43,821 --> 00:22:46,753
opportunities abroad is still the option or still the only way out.

361
00:22:48,423 --> 00:22:51,251
And so you decided that this would be a good idea to

362
00:22:52,440 --> 00:22:56,183
express to the world through digital means by starting Life

363
00:22:56,681 --> 00:23:00,473
in Armenia. It's a digital magazine? So until now it's

364
00:23:00,521 --> 00:23:04,120
a digital magazine. So back in January

365
00:23:04,153 --> 00:23:07,687
2023, I noticed that there was no existence for the

366
00:23:07,687 --> 00:23:11,367
entire digital nomad concept in here. And back then there were

367
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40 million digital nomads in the world. Just imagine there were 40

368
00:23:14,981 --> 00:23:18,707
million people traveling. None of them was in Armenia because

369
00:23:18,755 --> 00:23:22,401
Armenia did not invite them. You check all those rankings and indexes

370
00:23:22,465 --> 00:23:26,287
online and you cannot find Armenia again because no one pitched Armenia

371
00:23:26,303 --> 00:23:29,965
as a country to be indexed. And that was the right time for

372
00:23:30,013 --> 00:23:33,675
it. So I just like started it with one magazine and

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00:23:34,189 --> 00:23:37,288
that was almost 80 pages. Now, when I look back at the first issue, it

374
00:23:37,320 --> 00:23:41,157
feels silly. But again, it shows the growth that happened. And of course,

375
00:23:41,798 --> 00:23:44,540
I released the first one. I was so happy about it, but we got zero

376
00:23:44,540 --> 00:23:48,308
readers. Then the second one, then the third one. And I

377
00:23:48,308 --> 00:23:51,739
mean, a lot of people were telling me, even Armenians themselves, you have to drop

378
00:23:51,755 --> 00:23:55,362
the idea. I mean, who would be interested in reading like 100 pages about Armenia

379
00:23:55,362 --> 00:23:58,970
in English? But I kept going. One issue, second, third, fourth,

380
00:23:58,986 --> 00:24:02,481
fifth, and every month one issue with like 10 to 12

381
00:24:02,481 --> 00:24:06,281
stories from Armenia. And we started growing organically. So I

382
00:24:06,281 --> 00:24:09,583
never spent a dollar on marketing the magazine to the audience.

383
00:24:10,353 --> 00:24:14,186
That entire growth happened organically from 0 to 28,000

384
00:24:14,186 --> 00:24:16,671
readers today, the majority of those in the US.

385
00:24:18,130 --> 00:24:21,899
And then we started listing Armenia on different indexes. So

386
00:24:21,979 --> 00:24:25,635
we communicate with a lot of platforms that rank digital nomad destinations,

387
00:24:26,309 --> 00:24:29,564
and we tried to submit Armenia as a country so they list it as well.

388
00:24:30,382 --> 00:24:34,086
Then we started going to different digital nomad events in the world and pitch Armenia

389
00:24:34,086 --> 00:24:37,742
on the stage for digital nomads, telling them that, you know, there's this

390
00:24:37,838 --> 00:24:40,885
country, you can come enjoy life here, you can stay, there are some good

391
00:24:41,446 --> 00:24:45,214
regulations regarding taxes and residence permits and this and that. And

392
00:24:45,454 --> 00:24:49,157
it took a while, but it happened eventually. And now we have

393
00:24:49,157 --> 00:24:52,829
digital nomads arriving in Armenia. I can say almost every

394
00:24:52,845 --> 00:24:56,564
week we have groups of digital nomads arriving. They text me on sometimes on

395
00:24:56,596 --> 00:25:00,139
Instagram saying like, we just arrived here. Can you show us where to go? What

396
00:25:00,139 --> 00:25:03,842
shall we do? And it's a good feeling to see that what you

397
00:25:03,842 --> 00:25:06,551
started has become a reality.

398
00:25:07,727 --> 00:25:11,494
Well, I just looked it up because you said that the term digital nomad

399
00:25:11,591 --> 00:25:15,423
didn't exist when you started doing this. Yes. And I

400
00:25:15,488 --> 00:25:18,140
frankly, and I had a software company here in

401
00:25:18,172 --> 00:25:21,827
California in the '80s and tied to

402
00:25:21,972 --> 00:25:24,235
tech just because I love playing with it.

403
00:25:25,994 --> 00:25:29,204
I'd never heard the term. So here, just for the listeners, a digital nomad is

404
00:25:29,220 --> 00:25:32,915
a person who uses technology in the internet to work remotely

405
00:25:32,931 --> 00:25:36,480
while traveling and living in different locations. Now, I mean, that makes sense, right? Digital

406
00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:40,127
nomad. But let me, let me just ask you this question because I

407
00:25:40,159 --> 00:25:43,828
have a home near the beach here in Southern California. I have

408
00:25:44,324 --> 00:25:47,689
my Mac Studio down there. I have a Mac Studio here in my office,

409
00:25:48,185 --> 00:25:51,245
and I have another location where I spend time where my wife sits.

410
00:25:51,325 --> 00:25:55,138
And I, I, I have a hard time with that.

411
00:25:55,795 --> 00:25:59,416
I mean, everything I do is on in the cloud virtually. I do have one

412
00:25:59,544 --> 00:26:02,972
big thick hard drive that I, that I carry around with me that, that is

413
00:26:03,004 --> 00:26:06,417
necessary for some of my work. But otherwise everything's in the cloud and I'm working

414
00:26:06,433 --> 00:26:10,262
on it, but I have a really hard time. settling

415
00:26:10,374 --> 00:26:13,548
in these various locations. Does that take a certain mentality

416
00:26:14,205 --> 00:26:17,731
to do what you do, to be able to not only be a digital nomad,

417
00:26:17,747 --> 00:26:21,545
but then create a product like Life in Armenia? So let

418
00:26:21,545 --> 00:26:25,215
me separate these 2. So digital nomads, the majority of them work in tech. They

419
00:26:25,215 --> 00:26:28,693
might be developers, designers, product managers, project managers,

420
00:26:29,206 --> 00:26:32,940
everything around tech. Those are people who can travel and work remotely. Some of

421
00:26:32,972 --> 00:26:36,786
them have jobs. So they work, for example, 9 to 5, they work Eastern

422
00:26:36,883 --> 00:26:40,397
hours or they work European hours. So not all of those,

423
00:26:40,750 --> 00:26:44,494
they're not on vacation. This is, this is the point. A digital nomad arriving

424
00:26:44,543 --> 00:26:48,142
in Armenia is not someone on vacation. And it takes 20

425
00:26:48,142 --> 00:26:51,918
traditional tourists to match the spending of one digital nomad in

426
00:26:51,934 --> 00:26:55,212
a country. Interesting. Because a digital nomad doesn't just go to a

427
00:26:55,276 --> 00:26:58,924
resort and spends a week and then goes back home. Digital

428
00:26:58,924 --> 00:27:02,764
nomads rent apartments, they buy like local produce to cook at home,

429
00:27:03,246 --> 00:27:06,985
they start contributing. To the place where they live. So you see them in

430
00:27:07,017 --> 00:27:10,785
different events, you see them in every cultural activity that's

431
00:27:10,785 --> 00:27:14,537
possible. They try to learn about the country, engage with the country, and

432
00:27:14,554 --> 00:27:18,081
then they decide how long they want to stay. Some people stay for weeks,

433
00:27:18,226 --> 00:27:21,962
others for months, others for years. And digital nomadism was able

434
00:27:22,026 --> 00:27:25,666
to change the fate of so many small European cities or

435
00:27:25,762 --> 00:27:29,290
even towns that turned into like year-round

436
00:27:29,290 --> 00:27:32,914
destinations now only because of digital nomads. For

437
00:27:32,914 --> 00:27:36,570
example, take Bansko in Bulgaria, which was the same as Ijevan

438
00:27:36,746 --> 00:27:40,290
in Armenia. Let's say that was a small resort

439
00:27:40,290 --> 00:27:43,834
town that people only went to for skiing, and it was dead for the rest

440
00:27:43,882 --> 00:27:47,474
of the year. Now it's a digital nomad hub that has a lot of

441
00:27:47,506 --> 00:27:51,049
international schools, international clinics, international facilities,

442
00:27:51,113 --> 00:27:54,850
coworking spaces, hotels, and it's booming with foreigners

443
00:27:55,026 --> 00:27:58,826
all year round. And that's because of digital nomads. Someone arrived there

444
00:27:58,826 --> 00:28:02,327
and said, this could be a digital nomad destination. And he started

445
00:28:02,327 --> 00:28:06,005
promoting it. And within years, it became a digital nomad destination.

446
00:28:06,984 --> 00:28:10,518
And that's what I have in mind for, like, that's how I see maybe

447
00:28:10,518 --> 00:28:14,116
Dilijan in the future, maybe Ijevan. Those are like Armenian towns with

448
00:28:14,212 --> 00:28:17,762
15,000 to 20,000 people. They could become digital nomad

449
00:28:17,762 --> 00:28:21,344
hubs where you have thousands of, let's say, tech remote workers

450
00:28:21,456 --> 00:28:24,973
arriving there, living for a while, contributing to the daily life of

451
00:28:24,973 --> 00:28:28,538
everyone, Then leaving for others to come. It's a

452
00:28:28,538 --> 00:28:29,675
fascinating concept.

453
00:28:32,440 --> 00:28:35,643
My daughter— There are so many programs for them, by the way. Like many countries

454
00:28:35,691 --> 00:28:39,089
have programs for digital nomads. So countries are fighting over them.

455
00:28:39,590 --> 00:28:43,026
You're talking about 40 million people traveling and working remotely

456
00:28:43,460 --> 00:28:47,284
with an average income of almost $5,000 a month. So many countries have

457
00:28:47,316 --> 00:28:50,336
programs for them with like zero taxes, with a lot of

458
00:28:50,850 --> 00:28:54,641
different ways to make them stay. Because they want them to come and stay. How

459
00:28:54,641 --> 00:28:57,261
do you— how does a digital nomad find out about these

460
00:28:59,061 --> 00:29:02,726
opportunities from different countries? And what is Armenia doing to

461
00:29:02,742 --> 00:29:06,374
attract them? So first of all, there are so many websites that

462
00:29:06,374 --> 00:29:10,150
like rank digital nomad destinations. And every country, whenever they come up

463
00:29:10,150 --> 00:29:13,834
with a program, they start announcing it like as much as possible. For

464
00:29:13,834 --> 00:29:17,666
example, last year Japan did a lot of work to attract digital nomads to

465
00:29:17,666 --> 00:29:21,410
Japan and they started their own program. They wanted digital nomads

466
00:29:21,458 --> 00:29:24,932
to go to the small towns with less population, with the elderly

467
00:29:24,932 --> 00:29:28,475
population so they can bring more youth to those towns. And the

468
00:29:28,475 --> 00:29:32,290
Japanese government invested a lot of money into this. At the moment,

469
00:29:32,370 --> 00:29:36,186
Armenia doesn't have an official digital nomad program. So there is nothing, let's

470
00:29:36,234 --> 00:29:39,808
say, supported by the government. However, it's

471
00:29:40,562 --> 00:29:44,169
in the talk, let's say it's probably going to happen sooner or later

472
00:29:44,169 --> 00:29:47,327
because now it proved to be working.

473
00:29:48,160 --> 00:29:51,462
And I was able to pitch this idea a couple of times. The

474
00:29:52,104 --> 00:29:55,694
tourism committee already published a welcoming message for digital

475
00:29:55,694 --> 00:29:59,447
nomads that was the first expression from the Armenian government towards

476
00:29:59,479 --> 00:30:03,231
digital nomads. So we published a letter by the head of tourism committee

477
00:30:03,231 --> 00:30:06,294
back then in the magazine welcoming digital nomads in the country.

478
00:30:06,936 --> 00:30:10,544
But hopefully soon we will also have some more steps, like more firm steps,

479
00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:13,719
such as a program or a visa for digital nomads.

480
00:30:15,179 --> 00:30:18,418
Let's discuss that for a second. I don't want to dwell on the government. I

481
00:30:18,482 --> 00:30:22,219
mean, that's not why we're talking here, because of course, the diasporan Armenians

482
00:30:22,251 --> 00:30:25,929
have I would say that our conversations Tuesday

483
00:30:25,929 --> 00:30:28,358
morning have a lot to do with what's going on in the government, but I

484
00:30:28,374 --> 00:30:32,130
don't want to talk about that necessarily. However,

485
00:30:32,453 --> 00:30:35,828
what I know from the government, particularly from defense and

486
00:30:36,345 --> 00:30:39,993
the wine trade, it was very slow to uptick to

487
00:30:40,687 --> 00:30:44,254
understand that, for instance, wine is a global product. It's an

488
00:30:44,254 --> 00:30:47,740
expression of culture and that there should be some support because

489
00:30:48,208 --> 00:30:51,604
in America and Europe, of course, huge support for the trade

490
00:30:51,940 --> 00:30:55,725
of wine. And Armenia does have the Vine and Wine Foundation that

491
00:30:55,725 --> 00:30:59,269
supports the efforts of the winemakers. It's not

492
00:30:59,558 --> 00:31:03,407
voluminous at this point, but it's something. And it's created, for instance,

493
00:31:03,423 --> 00:31:07,064
that large wine event that came to Yerevan in

494
00:31:07,112 --> 00:31:10,255
May, the Concours du Bourget. So

495
00:31:10,945 --> 00:31:14,633
has the— And don't forget Yerevan Wine Days, which is also another big

496
00:31:14,633 --> 00:31:17,925
event for wine here. which I missed by like a week the last time we

497
00:31:17,925 --> 00:31:21,523
were there. The last time I was there, which I think I told you, was

498
00:31:21,619 --> 00:31:25,313
2024. 2 years ago. Okay. We

499
00:31:25,313 --> 00:31:28,976
shot— I went out, shot 3 episodes of a show

500
00:31:29,104 --> 00:31:32,718
called Wine: The Back Label. We sat with the

501
00:31:32,783 --> 00:31:36,622
people at Voskovoz. We sat with Vahid Khoshkarian and Amy Khoshkarian,

502
00:31:37,055 --> 00:31:40,412
James Tufankian, who happens to be my wife's cousin. And

503
00:31:41,393 --> 00:31:44,517
Mariam Sagatalyan at Invino. And we shot sort of a

504
00:31:44,533 --> 00:31:47,851
Bourdain-style show and CivilNet produced the show.

505
00:31:48,061 --> 00:31:51,474
It's online now. Very interesting stuff

506
00:31:52,101 --> 00:31:55,753
to do that. But Zahra Mouradian, who's

507
00:31:55,866 --> 00:31:59,389
the representative for the wine trade at the Vine and Wine Foundation.

508
00:32:00,937 --> 00:32:04,583
Yes. It's such an important part of trade. And though the wine trade in Armenia

509
00:32:04,583 --> 00:32:07,859
is not going to be huge ever because of the land size,

510
00:32:08,573 --> 00:32:11,990
It certainly can contribute to the gross national product

511
00:32:12,647 --> 00:32:16,064
and the expression of Armenia throughout the world. It's just a

512
00:32:16,337 --> 00:32:20,171
very slow, difficult industry. And to this end,

513
00:32:21,471 --> 00:32:25,144
is the government recognizing the digital nomad idea? And

514
00:32:25,722 --> 00:32:29,187
are there plans or presentations to the government to say, look, this is an

515
00:32:29,187 --> 00:32:32,732
important part of tourism, like permanent tourism, so to

516
00:32:32,732 --> 00:32:36,549
speak, in the future? So is the

517
00:32:36,549 --> 00:32:40,380
government recognizing at the moment? No, there is nothing official

518
00:32:40,412 --> 00:32:43,955
by the government. However, I was able to pitch the idea of digital

519
00:32:43,955 --> 00:32:47,466
nomadism to the Prime Minister. That was December last year.

520
00:32:48,091 --> 00:32:51,794
And he liked the idea in general. Then in one of the, like,

521
00:32:51,858 --> 00:32:55,545
let's say public meetings, one of the government meetings, he also mentioned

522
00:32:55,545 --> 00:32:59,328
that this is an interesting concept and we could be developing something around it.

523
00:33:00,049 --> 00:33:03,079
And that was it. Then Armenia went through the elections, which had like, you know,

524
00:33:03,111 --> 00:33:06,895
the priority for everything. And we just like recently got out of

525
00:33:06,927 --> 00:33:10,652
the elections. So that's why I'm saying I'm hoping that nowadays we can start

526
00:33:10,700 --> 00:33:14,393
pushing that again, or it will be brought up again. But

527
00:33:14,489 --> 00:33:18,247
up to this moment, there is nothing official by the government. Only

528
00:33:18,327 --> 00:33:21,908
as I told you, the tourism committee welcomes digital nomads. And we had that

529
00:33:22,036 --> 00:33:25,873
letter published by the head of tourism committee, the previous one, Lucien, saying that

530
00:33:25,873 --> 00:33:29,486
we welcome this, like, let's say, group of travelers in the country. We would like

531
00:33:29,486 --> 00:33:32,007
to see you. And we published that in our magazine.

532
00:33:35,670 --> 00:33:39,348
You know, this is an amazing conversation. I hope it's the same for you because

533
00:33:39,782 --> 00:33:43,251
every time you say something, it triggers a thought about

534
00:33:43,717 --> 00:33:46,994
previous attempts in Armenia and the

535
00:33:46,994 --> 00:33:50,303
current political and business environment.

536
00:33:51,347 --> 00:33:54,994
Only to say this, because when freedom came, there was a

537
00:33:55,106 --> 00:33:58,913
lot, there was a rush from the diasporans, particularly America, to

538
00:33:58,913 --> 00:34:02,043
invest in Armenia. And it seemed like, like in my

539
00:34:02,043 --> 00:34:05,813
mother-in-law's attempt to buy and owning Ani Plaza

540
00:34:05,845 --> 00:34:09,582
Hotel, and I mentioned off camera that they're probably one of the few

541
00:34:10,192 --> 00:34:14,026
groups back in those days that actually came out of Armenia with more than

542
00:34:14,042 --> 00:34:16,657
they went in with. It was extraordinarily volatile,

543
00:34:17,346 --> 00:34:21,084
difficult thing to do. And the point I'm making

544
00:34:21,116 --> 00:34:24,934
is I think a lot of people were philanthropic at those days.

545
00:34:25,528 --> 00:34:28,945
They really thought that they were going to help the Armenian government, the

546
00:34:28,961 --> 00:34:32,717
Armenian cause, the Armenian awareness throughout the world by doing

547
00:34:32,829 --> 00:34:36,521
these things. And it turned out to be that the Soviet

548
00:34:36,521 --> 00:34:40,196
mentality was still so strong. And they're

549
00:34:40,196 --> 00:34:43,775
going to say, hey, it'll be 2 generations before

550
00:34:44,288 --> 00:34:46,038
the idea of capitalism and

551
00:34:47,193 --> 00:34:50,804
self-reliance is going to take hold. And that's not true. It took

552
00:34:50,884 --> 00:34:54,354
much more than 2 generations for that to happen. But

553
00:34:54,612 --> 00:34:58,225
today, if you met somebody at the airport that was

554
00:34:58,241 --> 00:35:00,872
coming into Armenia to invest, would it be

555
00:35:01,994 --> 00:35:05,812
for philanthropic reasons? Like, I want to help Armenia, or would it

556
00:35:05,812 --> 00:35:09,237
be, I think there's money to be made here because it's in its

557
00:35:09,254 --> 00:35:12,116
infancy in certain parts of the industries of the world?

558
00:35:13,792 --> 00:35:17,563
That's a very cool thing to say. Thank you for this

559
00:35:17,563 --> 00:35:20,971
question. Let me just bring something up. Only last year, I

560
00:35:21,051 --> 00:35:24,710
answered 18,000 questions about life in Armenia one by

561
00:35:24,822 --> 00:35:28,417
one by myself. Wow. Through the magazine, I get a lot of

562
00:35:28,433 --> 00:35:32,060
questions from diasporan Armenians. So although I'm not a diasporan, but

563
00:35:32,140 --> 00:35:35,976
over the past 4 years, I somehow developed a very good knowledge about the

564
00:35:35,992 --> 00:35:39,715
diasporan community and what attracts them to Armenia, who wants

565
00:35:39,763 --> 00:35:43,486
to come here, who doesn't want to come here, why some people don't want or

566
00:35:43,599 --> 00:35:47,241
want to come here. And a lot of them, send messages asking, how

567
00:35:47,305 --> 00:35:50,690
can I come to Armenia as a digital nomad? Which means they want to get

568
00:35:50,690 --> 00:35:54,525
a remote job. For example, diasporans living in the US, and they can relocate to

569
00:35:54,525 --> 00:35:58,263
Armenia, which happened a lot over the past 3 years. Anyway, you

570
00:35:58,359 --> 00:36:01,824
asked, are people trying just to be good? How can I help Armenia?

571
00:36:02,145 --> 00:36:05,722
This is one of the questions I keep getting all the time. Like, hi, Matt,

572
00:36:05,755 --> 00:36:09,605
I saw your magazine. That's great work. And I've never thought about

573
00:36:09,605 --> 00:36:13,214
my country this way. How can I help Armenia? And my, my

574
00:36:13,214 --> 00:36:17,063
answer is always, don't think about how can I help. If you want

575
00:36:17,063 --> 00:36:20,270
to help, think about how can I start a business? How can I make money

576
00:36:20,270 --> 00:36:23,830
in Armenia? Generate a profit rather than thinking how can I

577
00:36:23,943 --> 00:36:27,711
get funds or get a grant or help someone come to Armenia,

578
00:36:27,791 --> 00:36:31,496
build something, give it enough time, generate a profit. This is how you

579
00:36:31,496 --> 00:36:35,152
can change things. If you're here, if you're paying your taxes, if you're hiring

580
00:36:35,264 --> 00:36:38,199
other people, this is it. And I see this as

581
00:36:39,129 --> 00:36:42,782
It's becoming more like the approach to coming to

582
00:36:42,782 --> 00:36:46,372
Armenia, that I'm coming here to start something, to do something. I'm not talking

583
00:36:46,468 --> 00:36:50,202
about those like wealthy Armenians who can contribute in different ways.

584
00:36:50,250 --> 00:36:53,967
I'm talking about the everyday people who earns a couple of thousands and they

585
00:36:54,080 --> 00:36:57,445
want to come here to do something good. And the answer is always come here

586
00:36:57,781 --> 00:37:01,227
to work, build something here. And what's their response? If you're planning a

587
00:37:01,227 --> 00:37:04,223
company, do it. And a lot of them have done it, by the way.

588
00:37:05,058 --> 00:37:08,492
And I'm lucky to have met those

589
00:37:08,589 --> 00:37:12,361
people that it starts always with a message on LinkedIn from someone saying, I would

590
00:37:12,361 --> 00:37:15,282
like to come to Armenia to do something. And then I send them a lot

591
00:37:15,282 --> 00:37:19,037
of information. And then later we meet in Armenia, we have coffee together.

592
00:37:19,118 --> 00:37:22,472
And then they, for example, either start a company or hire some people

593
00:37:22,553 --> 00:37:26,292
remotely or decide to open a back office here or do some small

594
00:37:26,340 --> 00:37:30,128
business here. Or sometimes they just keep going back and forth, preparing

595
00:37:30,176 --> 00:37:34,012
for the relocation that might happen in a few years. So

596
00:37:34,830 --> 00:37:38,357
I wouldn't say that now everyone is trying just to like help

597
00:37:38,438 --> 00:37:42,142
Armenia because Armenia isn't the same country that used to

598
00:37:42,142 --> 00:37:45,526
be. Nowadays, when they get here, they find Armenia to be a country that's

599
00:37:46,311 --> 00:37:50,080
developing and moving fast and there's an opportunity for them to

600
00:37:50,080 --> 00:37:53,896
gain something here. So why not? It's interesting

601
00:37:54,153 --> 00:37:57,585
because across the street from the

602
00:37:57,601 --> 00:38:00,979
Alexander Hotel is a Paul Bakery. of course, a major French

603
00:38:02,209 --> 00:38:05,608
bakery chain of premium French-style

604
00:38:05,608 --> 00:38:09,255
pastries. Do you think that the

605
00:38:09,255 --> 00:38:12,614
influence this last, let's call it 10 years, and for you the

606
00:38:12,614 --> 00:38:16,337
last 8, 9 years, the influence

607
00:38:16,337 --> 00:38:19,937
downtown Yerevan was European,

608
00:38:20,750 --> 00:38:23,914
Russian, Siberian,

609
00:38:24,173 --> 00:38:27,825
Croatian? Where is this influence that's created this transformation?

610
00:38:28,858 --> 00:38:32,584
It's a mix. So you have, first of all, you cannot forget the huge

611
00:38:32,712 --> 00:38:36,486
wave of Armenian diasporans who came from Syria after the war,

612
00:38:36,566 --> 00:38:40,340
then those who came from Lebanon after the war. So the Syrian Armenians and the

613
00:38:40,340 --> 00:38:44,097
Lebanese Armenians, they changed a lot of things in

614
00:38:44,194 --> 00:38:47,470
here. I mean, you talked about cuisine when we first started this conversation.

615
00:38:48,144 --> 00:38:51,837
They were the ones who drove that change in cuisine. They

616
00:38:51,918 --> 00:38:55,707
brought a lot of different dishes, different restaurants. They opened a lot of restaurants here.

617
00:38:55,771 --> 00:38:59,223
They brought the new culture of service. to the

618
00:38:59,223 --> 00:39:02,992
country. And then you had, for example, the Russian wave, who also

619
00:39:02,992 --> 00:39:06,713
like arrived in Armenia around 2021 or 2022, if I'm

620
00:39:06,713 --> 00:39:10,177
not mistaken. Those were also tech people who arrived in

621
00:39:10,209 --> 00:39:13,625
Armenia and also changed a lot of things. They were active

622
00:39:13,737 --> 00:39:17,554
contributors to the place where they decided to live. So all those waves

623
00:39:17,731 --> 00:39:21,051
of— I'm not going to call it immigration. Let's call them travelers who arrived in

624
00:39:21,099 --> 00:39:24,691
large numbers. They changed a lot of things in here. Travelers. I mean,

625
00:39:25,028 --> 00:39:27,995
I wouldn't say immigration because a lot of them might have like left the country,

626
00:39:28,011 --> 00:39:31,174
but They arrived here, they stayed for years, and they changed something.

627
00:39:32,009 --> 00:39:35,686
And that mix was what Armenia needed. And of course, you had the European

628
00:39:35,718 --> 00:39:39,234
influence, the American influence, the Armenian diaspora who came from the

629
00:39:39,234 --> 00:39:42,430
States or from Europe wanting to do something, open different businesses,

630
00:39:43,104 --> 00:39:46,829
invest in the country in different ways. It's a

631
00:39:46,861 --> 00:39:50,618
mix. You can feel that mix. You know, it's kind of interesting.

632
00:39:50,875 --> 00:39:52,192
You just triggered a thought.

633
00:39:55,048 --> 00:39:58,079
French cuisine, French lifestyle.

634
00:39:59,137 --> 00:40:02,841
The idea of a fork was brought to France by

635
00:40:02,905 --> 00:40:06,658
Catherine de' Medici, and she was from Florence, and she married one

636
00:40:06,706 --> 00:40:10,329
of the kings, le roi. And wow,

637
00:40:10,458 --> 00:40:14,114
isn't that interesting how these kinds of infusions of

638
00:40:14,611 --> 00:40:18,251
another culture— because you would never, you'd never suspect that

639
00:40:18,475 --> 00:40:21,345
a Frenchman would admit that the Italians taught them how to cook.

640
00:40:22,387 --> 00:40:25,367
Even though the cuisines are quite different, but that's what happened.

641
00:40:26,088 --> 00:40:29,838
And it just seems like history repeats itself. And here's

642
00:40:29,838 --> 00:40:33,234
this, I mean, 2007, let's face it, it was kebab and vegetables.

643
00:40:33,859 --> 00:40:37,657
And now this influx of a different culture comes and I

644
00:40:37,705 --> 00:40:41,390
suppose teaches the Armenians about what life can be

645
00:40:41,390 --> 00:40:44,354
like and the different varieties of food.

646
00:40:45,220 --> 00:40:48,889
And like I said, going to Armenia, even the Armenian food in Armenia, in Yerevan

647
00:40:48,905 --> 00:40:52,729
has as contemporized, I guess

648
00:40:52,761 --> 00:40:56,346
is the word, and become more modern. Where do you think

649
00:40:56,491 --> 00:41:00,134
this growth in Life in Armenia as a

650
00:41:00,134 --> 00:41:03,890
digital magazine has— you said it was organic. You haven't done

651
00:41:03,890 --> 00:41:07,740
anything. Yes. Look, I'm a digital marketeer. I did it all when

652
00:41:07,788 --> 00:41:11,493
I sold wine on the internet. I mean, I can tell you stories,

653
00:41:12,091 --> 00:41:15,783
and you did none of it. It's just organic. And it sounds

654
00:41:15,815 --> 00:41:19,414
like it continues to grow. Do you think it's from just an interest in

655
00:41:19,414 --> 00:41:22,564
understanding Armenian? You think it's like, hey, you got to read this because the writing

656
00:41:22,564 --> 00:41:26,275
is really good? What was the influence? Okay, so let me

657
00:41:26,275 --> 00:41:29,842
tell you something first of all about the magazine. The magazine doesn't have any

658
00:41:29,874 --> 00:41:33,618
politics in it. We don't focus on any negative topic. There is

659
00:41:33,650 --> 00:41:37,330
enough media for all the negative topics that are happening. We focus on the

660
00:41:37,330 --> 00:41:41,025
positive things that are happening in the country. Everything that's joyful,

661
00:41:41,346 --> 00:41:45,118
and true, we focus on that and we publish it. And right now, if you

662
00:41:45,118 --> 00:41:48,890
go to Amazon, by the way, and you look for any book in English about

663
00:41:48,890 --> 00:41:51,795
the daily life in Armenia, anything that describes Armenia today,

664
00:41:52,838 --> 00:41:56,529
you will find that the last book was almost around 1991.

665
00:41:57,556 --> 00:42:01,151
Everything else is either Armenian genocide,

666
00:42:01,248 --> 00:42:04,939
Armenian history, Armenian diasporan communities, but there is no

667
00:42:05,019 --> 00:42:08,502
book about Armenia today. And there is a

668
00:42:08,566 --> 00:42:12,178
gap because a lot of Armenians abroad would love to read something positive about their

669
00:42:12,178 --> 00:42:15,532
homeland. And this, I would say, what Life in Armenia brought up.

670
00:42:16,335 --> 00:42:19,866
And we have that as a disclosure in every magazine issue that this is not

671
00:42:19,866 --> 00:42:23,461
propaganda. Whatever we're telling you is something happening. There is a lot of

672
00:42:23,734 --> 00:42:27,474
bad things and good things happening in this country, just like any other country, which

673
00:42:27,731 --> 00:42:31,486
you can read about anywhere else. But this magazine only shows

674
00:42:31,518 --> 00:42:35,050
you the good things that are happening so that at least you can learn that

675
00:42:35,050 --> 00:42:38,657
they're happening. 'Cause otherwise no one was spotlighting them. 'Cause, you know,

676
00:42:38,673 --> 00:42:42,504
negative news sells more, it spreads easier. Meanwhile, the

677
00:42:42,504 --> 00:42:45,117
good things don't, like takes a lot of time to get shared.

678
00:42:46,335 --> 00:42:50,005
And— Are you crazy or something that you would do like a positive spin on

679
00:42:50,101 --> 00:42:53,323
Armenian lifestyle in a magazine? Don't you know that we suffered a

680
00:42:53,323 --> 00:42:56,930
genocide and that we are the first Christian nation and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

681
00:42:57,330 --> 00:43:01,177
blah. And just imagine until 1990, from

682
00:43:01,258 --> 00:43:04,992
1991 until today, there was not a single publication

683
00:43:05,105 --> 00:43:08,295
about life in Armenia. I also wrote a book, by the way. It's called My

684
00:43:08,295 --> 00:43:11,821
Life in Armenia. And right now I have like more than 1,000

685
00:43:11,821 --> 00:43:14,755
pre-orders. I'm about to release it in a few months from now.

686
00:43:15,107 --> 00:43:18,842
Congratulations. That, that debunks all the myths about life here.

687
00:43:19,676 --> 00:43:23,106
Whatever people tell you about life here, which is not true today, maybe it was

688
00:43:23,219 --> 00:43:26,986
true 10 years ago, maybe it was true 20 years ago, but today it's

689
00:43:27,050 --> 00:43:30,833
not. So when you say, how did the magazine grow? Of course, because we,

690
00:43:30,993 --> 00:43:34,841
we offered people the kind of information they were looking for, but they

691
00:43:34,905 --> 00:43:37,859
couldn't find. And this is why one of the main things that I get as

692
00:43:37,907 --> 00:43:40,942
a comment all the time, Matt, are you sure you're in Armenia?

693
00:43:41,665 --> 00:43:45,407
Which means a lot of those readers still, like, they find it funny that

694
00:43:45,504 --> 00:43:49,005
all those good things and nice things and inspirational stories are happening here

695
00:43:50,016 --> 00:43:53,598
because the assumption is that it's not. That's incredible.

696
00:43:53,871 --> 00:43:56,955
It really is incredible. And it's commendable because

697
00:43:57,709 --> 00:44:00,986
it would be so easy with the Armenian culture and the

698
00:44:01,098 --> 00:44:04,246
Armenian outlook on life in general. Let's just face it, the Armenian outlook on life

699
00:44:04,246 --> 00:44:07,987
is a very, downtrodden, and you don't blame them for what

700
00:44:08,003 --> 00:44:11,215
they've been through in general. And it will take generations for your

701
00:44:11,279 --> 00:44:14,297
positivity to permeate. But

702
00:44:14,972 --> 00:44:18,809
let's just face it. I mean, well, here's an example. There's a movie,

703
00:44:19,002 --> 00:44:22,181
a documentary being made on the wine trade again, and

704
00:44:23,000 --> 00:44:26,404
very professional. In fact, it's really interesting to me because this show,

705
00:44:27,030 --> 00:44:30,723
and I'm hoping that because of this feature, that

706
00:44:31,268 --> 00:44:34,830
it doesn't take us down the rabbit hole of the genocide and all the rest

707
00:44:34,830 --> 00:44:37,589
of Armenians' outlook on life

708
00:44:38,728 --> 00:44:42,225
is that it's being produced by Odars. It's being filmed by

709
00:44:42,273 --> 00:44:45,690
Odars. It's being edited by Odars and it's being directed by Odars. And I'm

710
00:44:45,787 --> 00:44:49,188
hoping that that will take us away from the,

711
00:44:49,974 --> 00:44:53,423
the Duduk music that takes you into the—

712
00:44:53,744 --> 00:44:56,679
just takes you down every time you hear it.

713
00:44:57,826 --> 00:45:01,405
And that they produce a show that's going to show you this positive lifestyle,

714
00:45:01,518 --> 00:45:04,759
what's going on. Because it's just, let's just face it, it's part of the DNA.

715
00:45:04,904 --> 00:45:08,191
You've experienced it every day, probably. But

716
00:45:08,808 --> 00:45:12,369
for instance, I did a show we were talking about earlier, The Back

717
00:45:12,433 --> 00:45:14,297
Label. But the first

718
00:45:16,675 --> 00:45:20,435
take on the show, just the intro, which

719
00:45:20,467 --> 00:45:24,118
was done by an Armenian editor here in Los Angeles, a very professional

720
00:45:24,134 --> 00:45:27,574
Hollywood editor. And it was an opening scene of

721
00:45:28,079 --> 00:45:31,158
Ararat. Like, what else could be so quintessential?

722
00:45:35,217 --> 00:45:38,871
And she started with Duduk music. And it's just like, oh

723
00:45:38,952 --> 00:45:42,525
my God, my shoulders droop when you hear this. And so it's

724
00:45:42,525 --> 00:45:46,038
so positive to hear such positive things

725
00:45:46,136 --> 00:45:49,544
coming from your camp. Let me just say one thing here.

726
00:45:50,372 --> 00:45:53,813
I don't want to sound like I'm trying to ignore all the pain or anything

727
00:45:53,845 --> 00:45:57,516
that has happened. Of course not. I'm just saying that there is right now enough

728
00:45:57,532 --> 00:46:01,219
media about that, and maybe there is a need for more. However, the

729
00:46:01,219 --> 00:46:04,618
daily life in Armenia today is not being highlighted enough,

730
00:46:05,387 --> 00:46:08,545
and this is just starting. There is room for more and more and more.

731
00:46:09,379 --> 00:46:13,065
And whatever we produce every month is just a PDF magazine, by the way.

732
00:46:13,466 --> 00:46:17,313
It's a 100-page magazine. That's only like— we

733
00:46:17,313 --> 00:46:20,952
don't do Instagram, we don't do TikTok, we don't do videos. We are

734
00:46:21,000 --> 00:46:24,559
going to start doing that probably around the end of the year. To start

735
00:46:24,559 --> 00:46:28,405
producing videos for Life in Armenia. And still we have all those readers.

736
00:46:28,469 --> 00:46:32,187
And I will bring here just one example. I remember that was almost a year

737
00:46:32,235 --> 00:46:36,081
ago when I got a message from an Italian, non-Armenian, who was coming to

738
00:46:36,081 --> 00:46:39,879
Armenia, and he was asking me a lot of questions. And he already had

739
00:46:39,991 --> 00:46:43,677
one of our magazines, and he was asking me about different places to go to,

740
00:46:43,837 --> 00:46:47,186
and he was bringing a group of friends. So I asked him, how did you

741
00:46:47,202 --> 00:46:51,004
get the magazine? Because I, I I don't like publish

742
00:46:51,068 --> 00:46:54,761
the magazine in any Italian platform. And he said there is this group

743
00:46:54,761 --> 00:46:58,582
for like high school, not high school, university students in Italy.

744
00:46:59,096 --> 00:47:02,548
And there is an Armenian who posted the magazine in that group on WhatsApp.

745
00:47:03,271 --> 00:47:06,803
And he downloaded the magazine and he shared it with his friends and they

746
00:47:06,803 --> 00:47:10,384
decided to come here. So I found that Armenian

747
00:47:10,641 --> 00:47:13,884
who posted the magazine in that group and I talked to him. Now,

748
00:47:13,900 --> 00:47:17,291
surprisingly, The Armenian did not read the magazine, by the way.

749
00:47:19,442 --> 00:47:23,292
Well, it's 100 pages. But he was— because he knows the country, but he was

750
00:47:23,389 --> 00:47:26,849
happy to find something positive about his own country that he can show to his

751
00:47:26,946 --> 00:47:30,407
friends. And he shared it with his friends. Now, his friends read the

752
00:47:30,407 --> 00:47:33,964
magazine because it's interesting for them, and they decided to visit the country.

753
00:47:34,480 --> 00:47:38,320
And this is just one example. When you give people something to share, something to

754
00:47:38,336 --> 00:47:42,080
feel, okay, Armenians are proud of their country, but sometimes you need

755
00:47:42,160 --> 00:47:45,807
something to share with others. to show them how beautiful your homeland is.

756
00:47:46,323 --> 00:47:49,888
And that's why we are now printing the magazine. And that's not for,

757
00:47:50,356 --> 00:47:53,599
I mean, printing will not add a lot more readers, but I got a lot

758
00:47:53,599 --> 00:47:57,022
of requests for people wanting the magazine to be in print so they can use

759
00:47:57,022 --> 00:48:00,281
it as a coffee table magazine. So that, for example, in your

760
00:48:00,459 --> 00:48:04,165
office or in your apartment, someone walks in and they ask, what is this?

761
00:48:04,279 --> 00:48:08,022
Oh, that's my country. You can read about it here. I think

762
00:48:08,022 --> 00:48:11,525
that's a, I mean, my head just went to like

763
00:48:11,926 --> 00:48:15,686
every room at the Alexandria or the Marriott or the Golden—

764
00:48:16,023 --> 00:48:19,815
what's it called? The Golden Tulip has it in the room. Why wouldn't

765
00:48:19,815 --> 00:48:23,028
they do that? Because why wouldn't you want— Yes. I mean, right now I'm sure

766
00:48:23,028 --> 00:48:26,868
the travel destination logs and things in hotels and on the

767
00:48:27,126 --> 00:48:30,917
Take One racks are about all the churches and all

768
00:48:30,917 --> 00:48:34,693
the places you can drive to and not the things about

769
00:48:34,757 --> 00:48:38,549
just living Exactly. The daily life. The,

770
00:48:38,999 --> 00:48:42,164
I mean, again, when I call it the daily life, it's also connected to the

771
00:48:42,164 --> 00:48:45,538
digital nomad life because you live as a person in here. You're not a tourist.

772
00:48:46,004 --> 00:48:49,378
You're not just going after the tourist attractions. You're staying in the country.

773
00:48:49,924 --> 00:48:53,089
You want to know where are the coworking spaces, where you can buy the food,

774
00:48:53,137 --> 00:48:56,881
what are the events happening, who are the startup founders who are succeeding,

775
00:48:57,571 --> 00:49:01,299
what can you do, cultural events. You want to learn about all of that,

776
00:49:01,427 --> 00:49:04,640
about the daily life. You know, it's interesting, when we were

777
00:49:04,640 --> 00:49:08,240
there last and we were upstairs

778
00:49:08,240 --> 00:49:11,700
at the— I mean, the restaurant at the Alexandria Hotel is amazing, right? It's very

779
00:49:11,700 --> 00:49:14,520
European and the quality of the food is extraordinarily

780
00:49:14,520 --> 00:49:18,160
high. And we're sitting with— I won't mention any names, but

781
00:49:18,160 --> 00:49:21,860
I'll just mention the level of client. This was during

782
00:49:21,860 --> 00:49:24,560
the tech conference a couple years— that's when we were there last, during that tech

783
00:49:24,560 --> 00:49:28,320
conference. WCIT, if I'm not mistaken. And so here comes the

784
00:49:28,320 --> 00:49:31,795
president of Moderna, which is Armenian guy, and he's just Now he's

785
00:49:31,988 --> 00:49:35,762
swimming in money because of COVID vaccines and stuff. And

786
00:49:35,762 --> 00:49:38,957
he walked over to the gentleman I was sitting with who was

787
00:49:39,873 --> 00:49:43,566
the president of MGM Grand Hotel and worked for Kirk Kerkorian

788
00:49:43,566 --> 00:49:47,324
forever. And I mean, this handshake, if you

789
00:49:47,324 --> 00:49:50,953
could imagine the social influence that this handshake, just these 2

790
00:49:50,953 --> 00:49:54,791
people talking to each other, they'd never met before, both titans in

791
00:49:54,791 --> 00:49:58,597
their industry. And I thought the horsepower just in that moment,

792
00:49:58,985 --> 00:50:02,657
was incredible. And what a story that would be to tell,

793
00:50:02,770 --> 00:50:06,344
just that alone, that these 2 guys were in Armenia at the same time and

794
00:50:06,344 --> 00:50:09,918
shook hands and both having major influences in the

795
00:50:09,983 --> 00:50:13,782
world for their respective industries. I thought that was a

796
00:50:13,782 --> 00:50:14,364
phenomenal situation.

797
00:50:18,892 --> 00:50:22,444
I had a question here. So these other types of

798
00:50:22,444 --> 00:50:24,929
media outlets, and we're almost out of time here, which is hard to believe, but

799
00:50:25,692 --> 00:50:27,608
like Zartunk, Civilnet,

800
00:50:29,185 --> 00:50:32,735
You're a complete departure from that. And leading into this

801
00:50:32,735 --> 00:50:36,545
idea of tourism, because there's a huge movement for

802
00:50:36,545 --> 00:50:39,905
tourism in Armenia right now. I had Sissian Boghossian on the show and a couple

803
00:50:39,905 --> 00:50:43,688
others that were talking about tourism. Is Life, is the magazine

804
00:50:45,095 --> 00:50:48,478
not developing necessarily, but is it working towards

805
00:50:48,577 --> 00:50:52,344
supporting tourism or it already does? I'm sorry, can you

806
00:50:52,344 --> 00:50:56,158
repeat the question? Are you talking about my magazine or? Yes, Life in Armenia.

807
00:50:56,206 --> 00:50:59,823
Is it sort of supporting this tourism movement or just— Of course. Yes,

808
00:51:00,207 --> 00:51:03,991
absolutely. So there's one thing, again, no politics, no

809
00:51:04,071 --> 00:51:07,678
grants, no funds. We don't accept any grant offers. And I

810
00:51:07,678 --> 00:51:11,108
meant for Life in Armenia to be relying on advertising revenue

811
00:51:11,701 --> 00:51:15,420
so that I can just keep it away from everything so that no one

812
00:51:15,452 --> 00:51:19,300
can influence it or anything else. Again, no politics, which makes people more

813
00:51:19,300 --> 00:51:22,714
interested into reading it. And of course, we support tourism because,

814
00:51:23,083 --> 00:51:26,561
again, digital nomads, as I told you, they spend Like one

815
00:51:26,593 --> 00:51:29,445
digital nomad equals 20 traditional tourists. So

816
00:51:30,503 --> 00:51:34,205
we support that kind of tourism and others who want to stay for short period.

817
00:51:35,487 --> 00:51:39,269
But there's been a lot of public press about

818
00:51:39,397 --> 00:51:43,019
tourism in Armenia, not just out of the Armenians, but there have been, I think,

819
00:51:43,756 --> 00:51:47,473
Zagat's and Forbes and a couple other major trades have

820
00:51:47,570 --> 00:51:51,239
talked about tourism in Armenia. And

821
00:51:52,170 --> 00:51:55,817
Certainly your magazine would play into that. It was sort of a rhetorical question,

822
00:51:55,993 --> 00:51:58,852
but it would seem like there's been a

823
00:51:59,045 --> 00:52:02,386
worldwide recognition of this

824
00:52:02,498 --> 00:52:06,257
country to go visit and see what's going on, see what's happening

825
00:52:06,273 --> 00:52:10,096
there. Yes. And I would say one of the main reasons, by

826
00:52:10,144 --> 00:52:13,886
the way, is safety. Like, safety on the streets is a main—

827
00:52:13,999 --> 00:52:17,147
I mean, it's a main thing for any tourist or someone who wants to stay.

828
00:52:18,824 --> 00:52:22,518
I would think that's, well, wasn't there a

829
00:52:22,534 --> 00:52:26,325
ranking of safety major cities in the world? And it

830
00:52:26,325 --> 00:52:29,438
was like one of the top 5. Armenia is always among the top 5. And

831
00:52:29,470 --> 00:52:33,227
we did like recently an index like that. We researched everything

832
00:52:33,743 --> 00:52:37,102
and we published that. So Armenia is the second, Yerevan,

833
00:52:37,538 --> 00:52:40,819
the second safest city for female remote workers in the world.

834
00:52:41,902 --> 00:52:45,461
Because you can work. Oh, I mean, simply, if you work in a coworking

835
00:52:45,461 --> 00:52:48,890
space at 2 AM, you want to go back home after you finished your shift,

836
00:52:49,115 --> 00:52:51,742
at least no one is going to stab you. You can just walk home as

837
00:52:51,774 --> 00:52:55,235
a female from anywhere back home and you will arrive safely.

838
00:52:56,004 --> 00:52:59,834
That's the main— What do you mean culturally that makes you safe?

839
00:53:00,491 --> 00:53:04,320
I would say it's a cultural thing. It's coming from like the people themselves.

840
00:53:04,513 --> 00:53:07,878
I mean, you wouldn't see a lot of like force and a lot of police

841
00:53:07,878 --> 00:53:11,629
officers on the street. It's not coming from law enforcement. It's coming from

842
00:53:12,065 --> 00:53:15,861
the daily, from people. And I've been all around the country, by

843
00:53:15,861 --> 00:53:19,398
the way, not just in Yerevan. So I keep traveling to different regions, different cities,

844
00:53:19,414 --> 00:53:23,168
and I've never felt unsafe anywhere. Well,

845
00:53:23,702 --> 00:53:27,215
this is my last subject here. I'm going to wrap this up and we'll

846
00:53:27,409 --> 00:53:30,778
probably have to do this again one day. We haven't talked about wine.

847
00:53:31,549 --> 00:53:32,255
Yeah, that's true.

848
00:53:35,430 --> 00:53:39,084
All right, let's talk about wine. Um, yeah,

849
00:53:39,244 --> 00:53:42,758
it's a— it's wine, like, my favorite subject, obviously.

850
00:53:43,111 --> 00:53:46,802
I sold a lot of wine, tasted 100,000 in my career, and

851
00:53:46,866 --> 00:53:50,461
have done all sides of it— wholesale, retail, manufacturing,

852
00:53:50,974 --> 00:53:54,232
importing, exporting, etc. And it's a very

853
00:53:55,163 --> 00:53:58,693
slow, difficult, um,

854
00:53:58,853 --> 00:54:02,336
traditional business, and it's extraordinarily

855
00:54:02,432 --> 00:54:05,944
difficult for even an American wine

856
00:54:05,976 --> 00:54:09,695
company who has tons of backing to get a brand

857
00:54:09,903 --> 00:54:13,590
developed, recognized, and in the streets. And it's even harder

858
00:54:13,590 --> 00:54:17,277
today than it ever has been with the consolidation of wholesalers in

859
00:54:17,277 --> 00:54:21,029
America, and particularly in Los Angeles. And here's this

860
00:54:21,029 --> 00:54:24,860
little country that not only has to try and

861
00:54:24,892 --> 00:54:28,627
develop a worldwide recognition of a grape, Aranyi in

862
00:54:28,739 --> 00:54:32,442
particular. Yep. But, well, let's

863
00:54:32,442 --> 00:54:35,875
say James Tufankian put it, you know, it's a positive that

864
00:54:35,907 --> 00:54:39,243
we're the— you've never heard of us because

865
00:54:39,694 --> 00:54:42,771
wine was born here. But it's also a negative because no one's heard of you

866
00:54:42,771 --> 00:54:46,442
and wine was born here. So what have your dealings

867
00:54:46,474 --> 00:54:49,791
with in life in Armenia? What kind of dealings have you had in the wine

868
00:54:49,839 --> 00:54:53,206
trade? And what are you talking about? So we started

869
00:54:53,302 --> 00:54:57,152
almost like 2 years ago to feature like wine in Armenia

870
00:54:57,168 --> 00:54:59,729
in every magazine issue. So every month we have an article about wine.

871
00:55:01,008 --> 00:55:04,760
Sometimes it's just in general about the wine in Armenia. We don't try

872
00:55:04,776 --> 00:55:08,463
to promote one company over the other. So we just talk to people

873
00:55:08,463 --> 00:55:11,942
about what makes Armenian wine different. We talk about Armenian

874
00:55:13,032 --> 00:55:16,847
soil, we talk about wine, we talk about the grapes, we talk about Aranyi, we

875
00:55:16,847 --> 00:55:20,262
talk about the history. Again, for someone who's planning to stay here,

876
00:55:20,695 --> 00:55:24,110
we just tell them about everything. And then we leave it for them to try

877
00:55:24,238 --> 00:55:27,781
it. And because this is something you have to experience yourself, you have to come

878
00:55:27,829 --> 00:55:31,147
here and taste it. But we keep sending those messages. And

879
00:55:32,432 --> 00:55:36,013
2 months ago, we investigated like one of the oldest vineyards in the

880
00:55:36,013 --> 00:55:39,513
country. So we— I learned about this vineyard that is in

881
00:55:39,641 --> 00:55:43,415
Aravnadzor, and that was a 400-year-old vineyard. That

882
00:55:43,415 --> 00:55:46,803
was the documented age of it. Wow. So I went there with

883
00:55:47,027 --> 00:55:50,560
the— there was a French— she's the vineyard manager.

884
00:55:50,801 --> 00:55:53,241
So she comes to Armenia like once a month to spend a week here,

885
00:55:54,349 --> 00:55:58,043
Sophie Clousel, and the CEO of that

886
00:55:58,332 --> 00:56:01,962
company that owns the vineyard, Anoush Iskandarian. And we went

887
00:56:01,962 --> 00:56:05,479
there and we started digging deeper. So we met the

888
00:56:05,559 --> 00:56:09,189
elderly in the town. We met the oldest person there. We

889
00:56:09,270 --> 00:56:13,044
talked to the municipality. We checked the documents. And now I'm

890
00:56:13,044 --> 00:56:16,819
doing my own check in Matena-Daran so I can find more documents about

891
00:56:16,819 --> 00:56:20,641
it. So we got one conclusion that 400 years is

892
00:56:20,673 --> 00:56:22,810
documented. Now there was this

893
00:56:24,271 --> 00:56:27,707
research team that arrived to study Areni Cave.

894
00:56:28,285 --> 00:56:31,994
And they had evidence that the grapes that were being taken

895
00:56:31,994 --> 00:56:35,831
to Areni were coming from that vineyard based on tracing back

896
00:56:35,831 --> 00:56:39,348
the grapes. And if that's true, you're talking about thousands of years

897
00:56:40,199 --> 00:56:43,715
of a vineyard. And the French lady was just crying when she heard about it

898
00:56:43,715 --> 00:56:47,505
because she was saying, this isn't normal. This is something that has to be

899
00:56:47,713 --> 00:56:51,355
like— taken care of way, way, way much differently. And she's doing a lot of

900
00:56:51,403 --> 00:56:54,963
work. I mean, she's the person who taught me everything about wine in this

901
00:56:55,027 --> 00:56:58,411
country. And I would just quote one thing she said. She said,

902
00:56:59,036 --> 00:57:02,565
it's not about the machinery. It's not about the production lines. It's not

903
00:57:02,565 --> 00:57:06,125
about the tanks or whatever you can buy from any country. It's

904
00:57:06,189 --> 00:57:09,846
about letting the Armenian mountains do the winemaking while you

905
00:57:09,846 --> 00:57:13,518
just facilitate it. She said, just let the mountains

906
00:57:13,711 --> 00:57:17,145
do it. Nice. You don't interfere. You keep it organic and

907
00:57:17,466 --> 00:57:21,238
biodiverse as much as possible, and you just make sure that

908
00:57:21,238 --> 00:57:24,768
it's happening without you interfering in it. She said, the moment you

909
00:57:24,785 --> 00:57:28,364
interfere as a human, you're messing with it. Just let the Armenian

910
00:57:28,380 --> 00:57:32,199
mountains do the winemaking. Well, you're— I mean, that's

911
00:57:32,248 --> 00:57:35,907
exactly right. And it's a very

912
00:57:35,923 --> 00:57:39,759
interesting dichotomy of what the wine trade is. There is

913
00:57:39,791 --> 00:57:43,382
that complete influence. There's that complete thought process, that

914
00:57:43,382 --> 00:57:46,684
academic, romantic side of the wine business.

915
00:57:47,325 --> 00:57:51,156
It's also the side of the business that I believe connects wine to

916
00:57:51,156 --> 00:57:54,907
the human soul. This is why we feel different about a properly

917
00:57:55,163 --> 00:57:58,866
honest glass of wine compared to a glass of scotch or whiskey or

918
00:57:58,866 --> 00:58:02,457
vodka. It's just a different relationship with the

919
00:58:02,473 --> 00:58:06,320
human soul. But then there's the business of wine, and that's the part because you

920
00:58:06,320 --> 00:58:09,866
got to sell it. And that's It's interesting. There's a group out of France, out

921
00:58:09,866 --> 00:58:13,672
of the Rhône called Aranie Global. And it's a group run

922
00:58:13,704 --> 00:58:17,445
by women, very intelligent women in the wine trade. And they chose

923
00:58:17,622 --> 00:58:21,459
Aranie Global as the name because of the origins of

924
00:58:21,556 --> 00:58:25,297
the grape. However, the group is a think tank for the

925
00:58:25,345 --> 00:58:29,006
business of wine. In other words, we know that wine is consumer-driven

926
00:58:29,439 --> 00:58:32,089
and that we have to do what we need to do to sell it. But

927
00:58:32,089 --> 00:58:35,885
at the same time, it's got this whole different personality, which is what you're

928
00:58:35,901 --> 00:58:39,169
talking about. Because the reason I brought that up was

929
00:58:40,981 --> 00:58:44,662
the minute that the Europeans and the American wine

930
00:58:44,694 --> 00:58:48,195
trade is looking into investing in time,

931
00:58:48,260 --> 00:58:52,028
investing money into a new country of wine, that's when you know, at

932
00:58:52,063 --> 00:58:55,886
least you've got some traction. Because Napa Valley, for

933
00:58:55,886 --> 00:58:59,595
instance, you know, a lot of immigrants came here in the 1700s, 1800s.

934
00:58:59,852 --> 00:59:03,192
And that's where these wineries came from. But contemporary

935
00:59:03,946 --> 00:59:07,607
investment by the French and Argentinians and Chileans, it didn't

936
00:59:07,623 --> 00:59:11,413
happen until relatively recently. And that's when they decided, wow,

937
00:59:11,493 --> 00:59:15,330
this is this new world and it can grow grapes and

938
00:59:15,330 --> 00:59:19,120
we can make wines there so that we can sell it. And so that

939
00:59:19,120 --> 00:59:22,652
the fact that you have the French coming there and the Italians coming there and

940
00:59:22,652 --> 00:59:26,393
the Germans coming there, particularly on the winemaking side, is a huge

941
00:59:26,490 --> 00:59:30,086
thing that has been recognized and that

942
00:59:30,199 --> 00:59:33,956
they're prepared to invest in that country. But here's the

943
00:59:33,956 --> 00:59:36,991
flip side. You probably know Caras.

944
00:59:37,986 --> 00:59:41,567
Juliana, who's the niece of Ernäkian,

945
00:59:41,760 --> 00:59:45,437
who owns not only Caras but also a winery in Argentina.

946
00:59:46,801 --> 00:59:50,077
She said that Michel Rolland, who's one of the famous

947
00:59:50,189 --> 00:59:53,866
enologists, visited the Ararat Valley to say, yes, you can grow

948
00:59:53,882 --> 00:59:57,511
grapes here, scared, scared her to death because he

949
00:59:57,511 --> 01:00:01,317
said, now that we can grow grapes here, we won't know

950
01:00:02,071 --> 01:00:05,363
what it can do for 100 years. And she's like,

951
01:00:06,069 --> 01:00:09,714
I'm 35 already. I don't have 100 years to figure this out. But

952
01:00:09,794 --> 01:00:12,877
the point of that is it takes generations to

953
01:00:12,893 --> 01:00:16,735
understand what a vineyard can do. and

954
01:00:16,832 --> 01:00:19,897
what land can do, what kind of grapes you can get out of it, and

955
01:00:19,913 --> 01:00:23,513
how many different ways you can look at that grape when you get it out

956
01:00:23,513 --> 01:00:27,197
of. And this French woman's saying, yeah, we

957
01:00:27,197 --> 01:00:30,121
don't want to touch it. We want to produce

958
01:00:31,294 --> 01:00:34,332
what this place is giving us. That's basically what she's saying.

959
01:00:35,830 --> 01:00:39,415
Nice. We want to not modify

960
01:00:42,592 --> 01:00:46,394
what nature gives us. And that's what's so important about an old vineyard. So

961
01:00:46,394 --> 01:00:50,212
what's she doing? Is she continuing to study the

962
01:00:50,277 --> 01:00:53,645
grapes? What's her purpose out there?

963
01:00:54,857 --> 01:00:58,302
So first of all, like this vineyard that I'm telling you about, it has

964
01:00:58,415 --> 01:01:02,101
been for years before, like they, this company took over the place.

965
01:01:02,197 --> 01:01:05,818
For years it was being managed by different farmers, local farmers who did

966
01:01:05,818 --> 01:01:09,584
not take care of it. So they were like, you know, using all these

967
01:01:09,680 --> 01:01:13,435
kinds of pesticides and chemicals and plastic

968
01:01:13,435 --> 01:01:17,209
and whatsoever until she decided that within the next 3 years,

969
01:01:17,241 --> 01:01:20,500
I'm going to turn this vineyard into an organic one. So I'm going to take

970
01:01:20,581 --> 01:01:24,290
out all the pesticides little by little. So she's going through the process

971
01:01:24,434 --> 01:01:27,469
of preserving biodiversity, turning it into an organic one.

972
01:01:28,207 --> 01:01:31,836
And it's a lot of work and a lot of investment to make sure that

973
01:01:32,318 --> 01:01:35,979
you can— I mean, a lot of people, they still don't

974
01:01:35,995 --> 01:01:39,046
realize the importance of that, that for example, you don't have to let

975
01:01:39,528 --> 01:01:43,126
The vines carry as much as they can. You have, for

976
01:01:43,126 --> 01:01:46,691
example, to control it. You have to make sure that you don't overwhelm the work

977
01:01:46,691 --> 01:01:50,434
that they're doing. She calls them the grandma vines, and she's trying

978
01:01:50,530 --> 01:01:52,859
to work with them on that scale. And

979
01:01:54,000 --> 01:01:57,774
probably within the next 3 to 4 years, it's only the work

980
01:01:57,855 --> 01:02:01,677
of turning it into an organic one. So they're not going to make wine

981
01:02:01,790 --> 01:02:04,617
of whatever the vineyard is producing right now.

982
01:02:06,129 --> 01:02:08,625
Think about it for a second. This is my favorite subject when it comes to

983
01:02:08,625 --> 01:02:12,297
organic and biodynamic wines, because now it's a certification,

984
01:02:12,570 --> 01:02:15,847
Demeter in Europe. I think, I think Armenia uses the same

985
01:02:15,896 --> 01:02:19,678
certification that Europeans do. But think about it for a minute. 400 years old,

986
01:02:20,198 --> 01:02:23,843
this winery. So you're talking about,

987
01:02:24,398 --> 01:02:28,235
uh, 1600s. I suspect that it

988
01:02:28,235 --> 01:02:32,040
was organic and/or biodynamic for at least

989
01:02:32,040 --> 01:02:35,556
300 years prior, right? Yep. I mean, there was no

990
01:02:35,829 --> 01:02:39,378
pesticides, insecticides, herbicides back then. Yep. And

991
01:02:39,378 --> 01:02:43,103
so we screwed it up. Yep. Like the humans

992
01:02:43,199 --> 01:02:46,908
came and screwed it up. And it leads me to like want to

993
01:02:46,908 --> 01:02:50,039
taste a wine. I mean, it's almost impossible to bring it forward.

994
01:02:50,682 --> 01:02:54,375
It is impossible to bring it forward. But even the Burgundians in Burgundy, France,

995
01:02:54,615 --> 01:02:56,285
they're around 1200.

996
01:02:58,738 --> 01:03:02,228
They knew 800 years ago

997
01:03:02,292 --> 01:03:06,023
what these things can do, what these vineyards can do. And here we are

998
01:03:06,088 --> 01:03:09,929
as humans, we screw it up and then we applaud ourselves for cleaning it up,

999
01:03:10,652 --> 01:03:14,476
which I've never understood that self-patting

1000
01:03:14,829 --> 01:03:18,567
type idea. But so she's a rock star. And then we go after all

1001
01:03:18,616 --> 01:03:22,418
those certificates so we can be proud about what we did, unfortunately.

1002
01:03:22,876 --> 01:03:26,726
Which costs money. It's what humans do to many, many fields, not just vineyards in

1003
01:03:26,742 --> 01:03:30,368
this case. So how long, how many years is she into

1004
01:03:30,416 --> 01:03:34,042
this process? She's— So now, no, no, no, now it's the first

1005
01:03:34,042 --> 01:03:37,572
year and there are still 2 more years. I see. Okay. Yeah, it takes, it

1006
01:03:37,572 --> 01:03:40,700
takes 3 years to clear. They say it takes 3 years to clear it.

1007
01:03:42,064 --> 01:03:45,321
And then you could think, but here's an interesting point that was made by one

1008
01:03:46,492 --> 01:03:50,280
Italian gentleman who's got great lineage in the wine

1009
01:03:50,329 --> 01:03:54,008
trade. And he said about his vineyard in Patagonia,

1010
01:03:54,088 --> 01:03:57,302
Argentina, he said, the

1011
01:03:57,382 --> 01:04:01,174
armadillos have come back. Now, apparently

1012
01:04:01,207 --> 01:04:04,591
that is some kind of thermometer or litmus test as to whether or not you're

1013
01:04:04,591 --> 01:04:08,277
really organic or biodynamic, that the armadillos

1014
01:04:08,697 --> 01:04:12,318
come back to the vineyard. But I had not heard of this 400-year-old vineyard in

1015
01:04:12,350 --> 01:04:15,162
Armenia. I do know that— I will take you there the next time we're in

1016
01:04:15,162 --> 01:04:18,940
Armenia. Let me take you there. We can organize like a short trip there and

1017
01:04:18,940 --> 01:04:22,100
we can meet this French lady. I can organize the whole thing. Just let me

1018
01:04:22,100 --> 01:04:25,220
know if you're up for that. I'd love to take a CivilNet crew with us

1019
01:04:25,220 --> 01:04:29,060
and do some filming. Okay. That'll be great. How far is it from

1020
01:04:29,060 --> 01:04:32,720
Yerevan? It's like an hour and a half. Oh, it's not far.

1021
01:04:32,760 --> 01:04:36,580
Yeah, Ravnotzor is very close. Well, this has

1022
01:04:36,580 --> 01:04:40,300
been fascinating. We've already passed over an hour, which is way past my

1023
01:04:40,300 --> 01:04:43,621
bedtime. Oh, that's good. I think we can continue this

1024
01:04:43,621 --> 01:04:47,238
conversation again and we'll do it soon. And

1025
01:04:47,903 --> 01:04:51,092
I did ask my wife 2 nights ago,

1026
01:04:51,745 --> 01:04:55,328
can we get to Armenia in October? And

1027
01:04:55,328 --> 01:04:58,547
that'll be the best time, by the way, of the year. The best time is

1028
01:04:58,579 --> 01:05:02,186
October. The best colors for the mountains to see all those,

1029
01:05:02,299 --> 01:05:04,582
like the trees. And it's the best time of the year.

1030
01:05:06,199 --> 01:05:09,945
I think this would be an interesting junket to go out and see this

1031
01:05:09,945 --> 01:05:13,471
vineyard and talk to the French woman. Yep. And I can practice my

1032
01:05:13,471 --> 01:05:15,651
French. That's great. Okay.

1033
01:05:15,796 --> 01:05:19,514
I'll take that as a promise. And I'm seriously waiting

1034
01:05:19,562 --> 01:05:23,041
for you to get here and I will organize the whole thing. Well,

1035
01:05:23,714 --> 01:05:27,416
this added to the reasons because I'm due for a

1036
01:05:27,416 --> 01:05:30,863
couple more episodes anyway with some wineries. And

1037
01:05:30,863 --> 01:05:34,677
this would be a great expression because I've not heard of this and no one

1038
01:05:34,774 --> 01:05:38,515
in the diaspora talked about this. I will tell you a funny story though,

1039
01:05:38,885 --> 01:05:42,725
and we'll get off. There's a wine show here in Glendale, California

1040
01:05:42,725 --> 01:05:46,244
called Guineafest, and it's, and it's a rather successful wine

1041
01:05:46,340 --> 01:05:50,036
show and cultural show. And I was— I, when I

1042
01:05:50,052 --> 01:05:53,715
go, I taste everything that's there, and sometimes that's over 100 wines.

1043
01:05:54,374 --> 01:05:58,134
And I'm tasting wine at this one booth, and this gentleman shows

1044
01:05:58,166 --> 01:06:01,589
me the label, and it's— I recognize the label immediately.

1045
01:06:02,102 --> 01:06:05,740
It's the copy of a poster put out by a wine bar in

1046
01:06:05,788 --> 01:06:09,361
Paris called Willy's Wine Bar. It's a very famous place. He's been making

1047
01:06:09,377 --> 01:06:13,015
posters since 1983, and he hires a special— an artist.

1048
01:06:13,239 --> 01:06:16,380
They all submit their ideas, and he picks one for that vintage.

1049
01:06:17,181 --> 01:06:20,787
And so I said, I asked the guy, I said, hey, did you get licensed

1050
01:06:20,851 --> 01:06:24,136
by Willy's? He goes, what are you talking about? I said, this is a very

1051
01:06:24,136 --> 01:06:27,437
famous place, a very famous poster. He says, he goes, show me.

1052
01:06:28,289 --> 01:06:30,457
So I get on my phone, I go to the website of Willy's Wine Bar,

1053
01:06:30,474 --> 01:06:33,896
and I show him the poster for sale. He goes, you know, I

1054
01:06:34,008 --> 01:06:37,832
paid an Armenian artist in Yerevan good money to create this label.

1055
01:06:38,009 --> 01:06:41,656
Oh my God. Oh my God. And I said, I said, well, I go, you

1056
01:06:41,656 --> 01:06:45,255
need to have a conversation. So I didn't hear from him afterwards.

1057
01:06:45,415 --> 01:06:49,030
And then I saw him in Paris at the wine show. Armenia had a great

1058
01:06:49,030 --> 01:06:52,854
booth called— it's called Wine Paris. And he was pouring his

1059
01:06:52,886 --> 01:06:56,434
wines. I went up to him. He recognized me immediately. I said, so what

1060
01:06:56,434 --> 01:06:58,681
happened? He goes, I punished him.

1061
01:07:02,492 --> 01:07:05,794
The typical Armenian way. Yeah, exactly. So

1062
01:07:06,116 --> 01:07:09,675
Matthew, it's been a great pleasure to have you on the show and hear what's

1063
01:07:09,723 --> 01:07:13,527
going on with you and life in Armenia. And I want— I'm

1064
01:07:13,527 --> 01:07:16,753
not sure I can read a 100-page PDF, but I'm going to try. Thank you

1065
01:07:16,753 --> 01:07:19,898
so much. Thank you. And again, when you get here, it will be an opportunity

1066
01:07:19,898 --> 01:07:23,720
to meet the digital nomad community. I will also like introduce you to that community

1067
01:07:23,720 --> 01:07:27,497
that you said you didn't know about. You will learn about

1068
01:07:27,497 --> 01:07:31,323
everything from them. I'll look forward to it. Thank you so much.

1069
01:07:31,371 --> 01:07:33,131
Thanks for having me. Cheers.