“It’s the village that sustains the city”

Recalling the tastiest memories has become Vera Grigoryan’s beloved activity. She shows colorful dried fruits and sujukh that is made of walnuts and special grape paste.

Vera rolls back the coil of the history and remembers with a smile her Tamar grandma’s sujukhs that were hung on the rope in the yard.
-We cunningly and stealthily tried to approach sujukhs and could cut some pieces, then we used to shorten the strings…- says Vera and laughs; she is now a master of dried fruits.
35 types of dried fruits, many exhibitions and certificates are the result of her 10-year work.
The production of traditional dried fruits has its history. Vera Grigoryan is from Oshakan village.  “Oshakan is the center of dried fruits as children see and eat dried fruits from the very day they are born”, says Vera.
Mrs. Vera is a pedagogue by her specialty. She was the director of Oshakan School for 5 years.
When I was a school director, we used to have lots of guests and treat them to my dried fruits. Many of them wanted to buy some… At that time I had the idea of uniting a few women and starting our own business. Our first client was the Embassy of Great Britain. Then we created our own company.  Mrs. Vera’s dried fruits have a huge success not only in Armenia but also abroad. She has also created new types of dried fruits. Dried tomatoes are one of her newly created types which is used in salads. It has a high demand and sometimes is called simply “Vera’s Salad”. Vera Grigoryan is also involved in public activities. She is the founder of the “Village woman” NGO with the following slogan: “It’s the village that sustains the city”.

Lili1t Kochinjan