From roots to wings
On October 26, we were in the Lori region. Autumn had embraced the villages and forests, canyons and mountains with its multicolored blanket. The nature was so beautiful that it was impossible to look away. This time, the hike was going to be through a time machine. Yes, you didn’t read that wrong; we discovered a hiking time machine. And that is possible if you visit the house-museum of the great poet Hovhannes Tumanyan in Dsegh and walk 6.5 km through the Debed Canyon to reach the COAF SMART Center. By visiting Tumanyan’s house-museum, the children learned about his identity and works, saw the conditions he lived in as a child and where he created as an adult, and touched the foundations of our literature and culture. And by visiting the COAF SMART Center, we saw how education, technology, and community development join forces to shape the future of the rural community.
Tumanyan’s house-museum is like the seed planted centuries ago, symbolizing the entirety of national thought, human values, and culture, while the COAF SMART Center can be seen as the tree grown from that seed—a place where traditions and modern opportunities blend to serve future generations. These two visits from Dsegh to Debed gave the children the opportunity to travel the full path: “from roots to wings.”
