About Hrachya Ohanyan

WOODWORKING AS ART

Hrachya Ohanyan is an Armenian master woodcarver with over four decades at the bench. He began his fine woodcraft in 1985 and founded his workshop in Yerevan in 2010, built around one belief: "there is a soul in the tree, which only skillful hands can give shape and colour to."

The workshop makes backgammon boards, chess sets, wall clocks, souvenirs and one-of-a-kind pieces, but his backgammon boards and chess sets are his best-loved work. His signature is the Masis contour, the silhouette of Mount Ararat, a copyrighted outline carved into many of his boards.

Every piece passes through at least 14 stages of handwork, with a dedicated master at each step, before it leaves the workshop.

The art of carving wood

A tree that is treated with care does not die. It lives on in a new form and keeps the warmth, scent and flexibility of natural wood. Our carvers work with methods handed down through generations of Armenian craftsmen: the wood is cut and prepared, then a pattern or a scene is carved into it by hand, until a plain plank becomes a chess set or a backgammon board made to be played for generations.