Progress On ARK’s New Ecocamp, ‘The Dacha’

As you may know, in April, we wrapped up a crowdfunding campaign where we raised nearly $4,000. It’s now May and we want to show you how far your contributions are going.

90% of the money we raised was to be allocated towards the construction of our second ecocamp, which we are calling ‘The Dacha’ (the Russian word for ‘country house’, as it was once our founder’s childhood summer house). It is located in the idyllic village of Arajadzor, an area 10 km outside of Kapan. We have much work to do on this property, as it hasn’t been cared for in decades, and it’s quite old. 

But the view… Oh, the view! ​  ​ Looking far off in the distance  from the Dacha  reveals the light blue profile of the majestic mountains of Iran, which makes everything worth it. And as our recent visitor, the British adventurer and leader of the Transcaucasian Expedition, Tom Allen, exclaimed with delight, “If there was a place like this in the UK, it’d cost upwards of 300,000 pounds!”

So, we feel pretty good about it. 

For the last month, we have been hiring local laborers to come and perform specialized work. Yesterday, they were working on renovating the very steep area we plan to transform into a kitchen and communal area. We expect this new kitchen area to be ready by June 10th. Eventually, travelers will be able to come and sit, eat, and enjoy the nature from here!

There is also a small room, located in the upper level of our yard that we have recently decided we want to renovate into bedrooms.  ​There’s a lot of work to do here, as the rooms are currently barren—just cold, hard cement—and is currently like a jungle, smothered in vegetation, so we had our volunteers spend the day cleaning the route.
 

​Other plans we have for the Dacha include dividing the large bedroom into two different rooms, so they will be easier to keep warm during the cold months of the year. We will also renovate the heater to be like the permaculture heater we created in the first ecocamp, to ensure efficiency and sustainability.

And, we plan to turn this basin here into a pool!

The future ARK pool!!!

That’s all for now!    Are you getting excited yet?!

We are.