Overcoming life’s challenges and never giving up, Razmik Grigoryan and his family built their own business from scratch. What once seemed like an impossible dream has now taken the shape of a greenhouse, where the family grows a variety of crops together.

“When I was about to join the training sessions, I thought I wouldn’t be able to pass all the stages, let alone be selected as a beneficiary and have my own greenhouse,” says Razmik Grigoryan. “But, as it turned out, I managed. At first, the greenhouse work seemed very difficult, but when we saw the first fruits, we got inspired and started working with even more enthusiasm. That’s the best part of it.”

Within the UNDP Sustainable Communities programme’s Greenhouse initiative, Razmik received a 150-square-meter tunnel-type greenhouse in the town of Kapan, Syunik region. As part of the programme, he participated in both theoretical and practical trainings on greenhouse farming and vegetable cultivation. Razmik also received guidance on greenhouse installation, 450 seedlings and 8 boxes of seeds to launch production, along with six months of ongoing consulting and on-site technical support.

Razmik regularly reads online materials about greenhouse cultivation and applies what he learns in his own production. In the greenhouse, the family grows tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and greens. Razmik jokes, “We’ve forgotten what it’s like to buy vegetables.”

“From our recent sales, we earned about 400,000 AMD, but that’s only the financial income. We also feed our family with the greenhouse produce. Since we started, we haven’t bought tomatoes, cucumbers, or peppers from a store. If we include what we’ve consumed ourselves, the total income amounts to around 600,000 AMD. And this is just our first year, when we still lacked much experience,” says Razmik.

During our conversation, Razmik’s wife, Mrs. Hazaravard, joins us, smiling and holding a large melon in her hands. Turning to her husband, she says, “Come on, tell them how we grew this melon.”

“Well, we don’t even know how or where it appeared in our greenhouse,” Razmik laughs. “At first, we thought it was a cucumber, but as it grew, we realized it was a melon.” He smiles and offers us to try it. “We’re tasting it for the first time ourselves — it’s very sweet and delicious.”

While we enjoy the melon grown in their greenhouse, Mrs. Hazaravard proudly shows us her jars of homemade preserves.

“We’re very satisfied with the sales. We’ve also used the produce at home, and I’ve made preserves as well. Whenever guests or neighbors visit, we always treat them with vegetables from our greenhouse. Later, many of them came back to buy because they liked the taste and quality,” says Hazaravard.

After relocating from Nagorno-Karabakh to Kapan, the Grigoryan family had no source of income. The greenhouse business became their first financial support.

“During the war in the 1990s, I was wounded and now have a first-degree disability. When we came to Kapan, we brought nothing with us. Because of my health problems, it was difficult to find a job. The greenhouse protects us from many problems familiar to farmers. Rain, hail, or strong sun — all these can damage crops. You can wake up and find that a few minutes of hail destroyed all your work overnight. But with the greenhouse, we feel safe from those risks,” shares Razmik.

The Grigoryan family has already planned their next steps for the coming year and decided what seedlings they will plant. During the winter months, they have prepared the greenhouse to grow various greens — including the special herbs used for zhengyalov hats — until the weather warms up.