Hartashen (Syunik region)

Hartashen, a specific context

After the 44-day war declared by Azerbaijan in 2020, Hartashen, a village 10 km from Goris in the Syunik region, became a border. Despite the insecurity and the fact that the village has been abandoned by public authorities for many years, Armenian families are still determined to live on their lands.
We work with the Family Care Foundation and inhabitants to create better living conditions in the village.

This project aims to create a better economic and social environment in Hartashen through culture. The proximity will be able to benefit from these actions and integrate in a process of revitalization of this region despite the political situation that is deteriorating more and more.

View of the building © Elena Baghdasaryan

Young volunteer from the temporary workshop © Elena Baghdasaryan.

Ceramic school

The purpose of this ambitious project is the creation of a ceramic school and the rehabilitation of an old Culture Center of the Soviet period that’s been abandoned for 30 years to transform it professional training center in the cultural and artistic fields. . .

The challenge is to maintain diverse activities in the village, particularly in crafts (carpets, embroidery, jewelry, etc.), culture (shows, concerts, film screenings, artist residencies, etc.) and tourism, and to create a economic and social dynamics.

We want to create job, to train young people and to imprve the quality of life of the population in the Syunik region. To revive a historic building to participate in the economic development and cultural and social revitaliation of Hartashen village.

Project description

While waiting for this rehabilitation, about twenty teenagers are currently taking pottery classes in a temporary workshop set up in the outbuilding of a village house in Hartashen. Continuing this program, these young people had the opportunity to meet French ceramic experts, in Hartashen in March 2022 and in Gyumri in May 2022 and october 2023.

This school will be more structured and equipped than the temporary workshop set up in a village house. Those who wish, can come and take classes after school to learn how to do ceramics.

The objective is clear: to educate people who want to be in the ceramic trade in order to provide them with a job and an opportunity to stay at home – this concerns mostly children and adolescents but also women and all those who want to take part in this project.

These twenty adolescents already have a satisfactory level in border to market a first production stamped «Hartashen». Indeed, this production is already exhibited in the shops of Armenians Villas hotels in Gyumri and Yerevan.

Our desire is to perpetuate this ceramic school by allowing it to finance itself with the sales of these productions.

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