Nagorno Karabagh is one of those disputed territories which only occasionally creep into the news. Populated mainly by Armenians, it claims to be an independent country, yet no nation recognises the legitimacy of the government in the territorial capital of Stepanakert. Small wonder then that Nagorno Karabagh is no tourist hotspot. hidden europe correspondent, Karlos Zurutuza, has been travelling through the Caucasus region, and filed this report from the village of Vank in Nagorno Karabagh.
Hospitality throughout the Caucasus region is as good as it comes, and nowhere more so than in the small community of Vank in the Khachenaget valley. Levon Hairapetyan is the big name hereabouts - a local entrepreneur who made money abroad, and who has funded the local hospital, a school and improvements to the road up the valley to Vank. All that aside, he has also funded the Hotel Eclectica - or, to be more precise, the extravagant nautical folly which he originally built to house hospital staff.