The Kalavan Retreat Center is a social and educational initiative, curating influence from the international community to create opportunities for co-habitation, and education, and deep personal development in Kalavan village, Armenia. It was founded by American-Armenian Gregory V. Diehl in 2024 after moving here in 2019 to refurbish an old house and contribute to the village's cultural and economic evolution. It's purpose and form have adapted to the reality of the circumstances in Kalavan and Armenia as a whole to serve the highest virtue and accomplish the most good possible under artificially restricted conditions.
We are currently accepting international volunteers who are eager to commit a few hours of work per day to the center's physical and artistic development in exchange for room and board with like-minded others.
"It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime."
―Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
In our first year of hosting international volunteers at the Kalavan Retreat Center, we've had a number of extremely positive and extremely negative experiences. It's been a very interesting social change for me, personally. Before this experiment began, I was largely socially isolated. Now, I have found myself in a position of social leadership...
What convinced me in 2018 to invest my time, money, and energy in Kalavan was the public media narrative being pushed by local politicians that it was a place intent on rapid cultural and economic development. That idea aligned closely with the values I'd been honing from my experiences traveling around the developing world since I was a...
There's an old 80s sitcom in America called Cheers. None of my Armenian friends seem to know it. It's set in a bar where a bunch of friends meet every episode, kind of like Central Perk from Friends. It has a very famous opening theme song, the chorus of which goes repeats the motif of going where...
Recently, we commissioned a new logo for the Kalavan Retreat Center. It includes a motif of mountains representing Mt. Ararat and Armenia's recognizable landscape and also a funny little squiggly doodle with a flower at the top.
Since winter, we've had about 30 international volunteers and guests stay at The Kalavan Retreat Center. Some were only here a few days, and others a few months. Some left and came back. Others are already planning return trips from abroad. As a result, we are currently constructing new accommodation in the form of an attached studio apartment...