After the war in Karabakh, and the beginning of privatization, some
businessmen started to produce alcohol. At first there were a lot of
companies producing alcohol, but later the number of these companies
got cut down. Now, there are two primary companies producing alcohol in
Karabakh: “Karabakh Gold” and “Artsakh Alco”.
“Artsakh Alco” is famous for its mulberry vodka.
The other big company, “Karabakh Gold”, operates since 2002, it has
branches in Martuni city and in Karmir Giugh Village of the region. The
company has about 300 employees.
According to Arayik Harutiunian, who is a share holder of “Karabakh
Gold” company and the head of the financial, budget and economic
management permanent group in the National Assembly, the company
started its activities with $500.000 USD capital, and now its capital
covers 2 million dollars. This company paid about 220 million dram tax
every year, and this year it will pay about 250 million dram.
Currently, the company has advanced technologies and qualified staff.
“Now we grow vine, make wine and other alcoholic drinks. We have about
200 hector territory for vine growing. It is worth to mention, that we
buy grape from people too. By the way, we have increased the price for
grape twice since we started our production. Now we are able to buy
7000 tones of grape every year. We also produce alcoholic products and
sell it to Yerevan Brandy Factory”,-said Araik Harutiunian. He assures,
that they sell their product only in Armenia and in Karabakh. The
company will start to produce brandy in about 6-7 months.
Besides the products of these big companies, alcohol is also imported
in Karabakh from Armenia and other countries. Here people also produce
vodka and wine themselves in their houses with small quantities. In
different places people make alcohol drinks themselves, and the most
famous among these alcohol drinks is mulberry vodka. Some families
produce several hundred liters of mulberry vodka and sell a part of it.
For instance, last year the crop was bad because of the bad weather
conditions, that’s why it was difficult to find mulberry vodka in the
market and the price for it was too high ( the price of one liter
ranged from 3.000-5.000 dram). Currently, the price for one liter of
mulberry vodka in Stepanakert market is about 1500-2000 dram. Vodka,
made of cornel, is more expensive ( the price for one liter of cornel
vodka is 2500-3000 dram). The cheapest vodka is made of grape and other
fruits, and the price of those fruits ranges from 650-700 dram for one
liter.
Some people prefer to buy home made vodka. “It is cheap and has good
quality, especially mulberry vodka, which is very healthy. A lot of
people use it as medicine for them”,-says one of the citizens of
Stepanakert during our conversation.
When asking people in shops what they prefer, we found out, that they
mainly bought “Lernayin” vodka, produced by “Karabakh Gold” company (a
0,5 l. bottle price is 500 dram) and vodka produced by “Avshar”, “Vedi
Alco” and “Artsakh Alco” companies.