Armenia & Karabagh (The Stone Garden Guide) (ISBN 096721209X)

An all-inclusive, absolute "must-have" for anyone interested:
The first edition of The Stone Garden Guide: Armenia & Karabagh was the 2005 Independent Publisher award finalist in the category of best travel guide. Now in an updated second edition, Armenia & Karabagh remains thorough, practical, and completely up-to-date in its information concerning this predominantly Christian nation that borders Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Iran. Written by Matthew Karanian and Robert Kurkjian, two experts who have each spent a decade traveling in the region, Armenia & Karabagh is filled cover-to-cover with full-color maps, photographs, must-see sights, and solid general advice for business and pleasure travelers alike (drink bottled water instead of the local water unless it has been boiled, and also avoid using ice cubes in restaurants or using nonsterilized water to brush one's teeth). An all-inclusive, absolute "must-have" for anyone interested in experiencing the uniquely rich cultural heritage of Armenia for themselves.

Armenian Travel Guide - Excellent!:
I was planning a ten day trip to Aremenia and wanted a travel guide. I shopped around and this one seemed to be the best. I was very pleased with it when it arrived and I was even more pleased as I had it in hand while I traveled in Armenia. The book seems to capture the real Armenia in all its beauty. It is now a treasured souvenir of my trip. I recommend buying this book even if you will only be there for a few days.

Armenia - Our Heart, Soul & Passion Rediscovered:
Our annual family summer trip was a trip down memory lane but Armenia had changed so much. My last visit 1978, my mother 1938, my father 1991. Now we are a family of 10 introducing our children to their homeland. I am so happy, out of all the tour guides we choose The Stone Garden guide. Having traveled by back pack in my younger days I really enjoyed simple, honest, down to earth opinions and practical suggestions to out of the ordinary destinations. The conversational style of writing was easy to follow and filled with great reflections upon the current enviromental issues, regarding waterways, birds, flowers and especially the delicate aspects of the unprotected churches, caves and historical stone crosses. Each section is filled with travel neccesities along with historical, references to biblical events. Our planning was so smooth, we bought 4 books one for each family and clearly mapped out our day trips with great accuracy and alot of happy, energy contagious from the writers. As we read out loud to our parents, my dad proclaimed," This book is so good, why do we need a tour guide, just read it as we are driving." Thank you, Matthew & Robert for your years of research, great photographs but mostly for helping us recapture the ancient soul of Armenia

Necessary but flawed:
If you're planning on travelling through Armenia and Karabagh, you must get this book. It's far and away the most comprehensive guide available to the region. The authors leave practically no corner uncovered, and the listings are excellent. A few serious caveats, though. 1) It is assumed that you will either drive or take taxis practically EVERYWHERE. There is very little information on public transport, either within the cities or between. 2) There is absolutely NOTHING about vegetarian food. I don't think I've seen a guidebook this size in 20 years that so thoroughly ignores the subject. 3) It is inappropriately political in spots. For example, the authors mention that it is not possible to cross the border into Nakhichevan. That's useful news. They then go on to tell us what horrible things the Azeris are doing to heritage sites in Nakhichevan. That's irrelevant for the purposes of this book. At another point they advise us that "Azerbaijan is thought to harbour terrorist cells." Again, what on earth does that have to do with travelling through Armenia and Karabagh? The aim is obviously to impress on the reader what a bad bunch of people the Azeris are, but the end result for this reader was to think that I had better not rely on any of the history in this book because it is obviously completely one-sided. (The book's whitewashing of what happened in Aghdam is particularly notable in this regard.) The authors' bias is understandable given their own backgrounds, but they really should have done better to keep it out of the text. If these problems can be corrected for future editions I will happily revise my rating upward.

A compact, informative, and accessible guidebook:
This is an excellent guidebook. It is helpful and informative without being boring or dry. There are plenty of richly colored pictures, ranging from shots of ancient monasteries and cross stones, to buildings, monuments, and statues erected during the Soviet period, to the faces of ordinary people. The Nagorno-Karabakh section is quite extensive, politics and ethnocentrism aside. If you are planning to visit Armenia/Karabakh, and are looking for a good guidebook, then the Stone Garden Guide is the one to get.