Museum
ARARAT Museum
Oak-barrelled brandy cellars where casks are reserved and named for visiting heads of state.
0:00≈ 2 min
Location
0:00≈ 2 min
About this audio guide
This guide to the ARARAT Museum in Yerevan starts in a dim cellar aisle among oak casks stamped with the names of heads of state, including one that sits sealed and unclaimed for a president who rarely shows up. It traces the distillery back to its founding by merchant Nerses Tairyan in the 1870s, and to 1899, when Moscow spirits baron Nikolay Shustov leased it, then bought it outright a year later for fifty thousand roubles. Shustov already controlled roughly eighty percent of the Russian Empire's brandy, wine and vodka trade before he set his sights on this small Armenian factory.
This audio guide was created using AI.