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http://www.siriusxm.com/howardweb/mp3/01054.mp3

This was played multiple times on SiriusXM 100 and 101.

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #18,653 in Books.  This morning the book was ranked roughly 2,500,000 in the Best Sell Rank.

#10 in Books > Arts & Photography > Photography > Travel

#34 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Specific Groups > Adventurers & Explorers

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Armenian Reporter

Hetq Online

Yerevan Magazine

7000 KM To Go is available on Amazon – both Hard Cover Color Book or in the Kindle format!!

Click here to buy on Amazon!

7000 KM To Go

A Road Rally through the Balkans, Anatolia, and the Caucasus

A Travel Photo-Journal

In his new book, 7000 KM To Go, travel expert Ric Gazarian and his team race across the Balkans and the Caucasus in an 11-country, 17-day car rally.  The rally begins in Budapest, Hungry and ends in Yerevan, Armenia, Gazarian’s ethnic homeland.  This non-fiction account is described as a cross between Cannonball Run, Amazing Race, and Midnight Express, and in it Gazarian recounts the challenges – from mundane to potentially life-threatening – that his team faced racing through these foreign lands.

Adventures include an accidental visit to a country not on the itinerary, a visit to one of the newest countries in the world, breakfast with mafia/special forces soldiers on the Black Sea, and a police escort out of No Man’s Land in a country that does not legally exist.

“This book shares my love of travel and adventure, “says Gazarian. “The rally provided an excellent opportunity to cover a lot of ground, especially off the beaten path.”

7000 KM To Go is Gazarian’s first book and includes more than 100 color photos.  Gazarian has traveled to more than 70 countries and seven continents.  He is based in Chicago and is currently planning his next trip.

Ten percent of profits will be donated to Armenian Volunteer Corp and Manana Youth Group.

For background, interviews, photos, and media copies of 7000 KM to Go, contact Ric Gazarian at 617.901.928, or ric@7000kmtogo.com. This book (color hard copy and Kindle, both with over 100 photos) is available via all major internet retailers.  For bulk purchases please contact the author.

www.7000kmtogo.com

ISBN 9780983928904, Color, hard cover

ISBN 9780983928911, Kindle

Slide show by Araz Artinian

                                                                         Total:  $8967

I have lost my keys before. I have donated old clothing. I haven’t bothered to pick up loose change that I have dropped on the ground. I have thrown away a perfectly good functioning VCR. But this was new ground for me.

I threw away the Yerevan Express, our 1993 Jeep Cherokee. Our faithful, yet often predicted for a soon-to-be demised truck.

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A final interesting postscript. It appears all participants in the Caucasian Challenge will be banned from entering Azerbaijan. Good riddance.

Baku may blacklist rally drivers for unsanctioned Karabakh visit

Mon 30 August 2010 14:28 GMT | 18:28 Local Time

Text size:

Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry

Azerbaijan is to look into reports that participants in an international motor rally have visited Nagorno-Karabakh without Baku’s permission.

The drivers in the Caucasian Challenge rally are reported to have travelled from Armenia into the territory of Karabakh, which is de jure part of Azerbaijan, but de facto operates as a semi-independent area dependent on Armenia.

If the investigation finds that the rally participants did in fact enter Karabakh, they will be declared personae non grata in Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman Elkhan Polukhov said today.

He said Armenia organized these events in an attempt to legitimize the puppet regime in Azerbaijan’s occupied territory.

According to the Caucasian Challenge website, the rally began in Budapest, and continued via “Hungary, Serbia, Kosovo, Albania, Greece, Turkey, Georgia, Nagorno Karabakh and Armenia”.

Armenia Today reported that the rally arrived in the Karabakh capital Stepanakert, the Armenian name for Khankandi, on 27 August and published photographs of the trip.

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry will declare any foreigner who visits the occupied territories without the permission of Baku persona non grata, Elkhan Polukhov said in November 2009.

This year, members of the Russian and French parliaments have been blacklisted over visits to Karabakh.

A slow start to the day…one too many toasts from the night before.  The group gathered in front of the hotel, leisurely packing the trucks.  I said a farewell to the Armenians I had met before who I had shared the home made vodka with on the steps of the hotel.  It was the last leg of the rally, the 17th day.  We had traveled through 11 different countries and drove over 6000 km.  Some days were long or hot or frustrating, but they were all memorable.

We drove north west to Yerevan on a good but very windy and hilly road.  The heat increased as we enjoyed the view passing Iranian truckers heading to the capital.  As we turned the bend on one of the mountains, a panorama presented itself to us that is revered by all with a Hayastan connection.  Mt. Ararat rested majestically over looking Yerevan.  We stopped for pictures.  The nearly full  moon still stood in the late morning sky.

Thursday

Start:  Goris, Armenia

End: Jermuk, Armenia

Start time: 10:30 am

End time:  6 pm

KM driven: 196

Major Waypoints:  Tatev

We headed to a very windy and mountainous drive to Tatev monastery.   We brought with us two guests who were vacationing in Armenia for two weeks who were also staying at the hotel.  One hailed from Canada, the other from Germany.  Both lived and worked in Damascus, Syria.  Three westerners earlier this year were hiking on the Kurdistan-Iranian border, and were captured and jailed by the Iranians.  One of the women we were driving had taught one of the hikers Arabic.