Why the base of Mount Ararat and not the breeze of Greek Islands? Frozen and untilled, cold and unbearable, Hayk Nahabed chose a seeming inhospitable yet secluded and undesired land. The narrow gate, the hidden treasure, the pearl beyond price, Ararat became home to the Armenian people, defended by heroism and by bow and arrow - the dwelling place of Noah's Ark and the location of the hidden and unreachable Garden of Eden.
Building churches rather than pillars, cathedrals reaching the heavens, rather than statues reflecting mankind, tribal rather than ordered in senatorial civility, yet rich, proud, lordly, celebratory, ingenious, bread from stone, water from dryness, and making something come from nothing.