People call the craftsmen who make copper pots and pans Klekchis. Yervand Asryan is known in Karabakh as the Klekchi Yervand Dayi. He lives in the village of Vank in the Martakert region. His house is situated on a hill near the Gandzasar monastery. Pointing to Gandzasar Yervand Dayi says: "I'm a keeper of God's path. I offer myself to the cross, I offer myself to God's name, I offer myself to God, I don't eat without God." Then he turns toward his workshop and adds: "And the other thing is my dungeon... I make my living through this dungeon, through this shop."

Yervand Asryan is eighty years old. He learned the craft of smith at the age of ten and has practiced it for seven decades now. He has made copper pots and pans for every village in Karabakh. "I made pitchers and gave them to every household in all of Karabakh. They all are good people. Good or bad, I made pots, sold them, gave them away; others gave things to me, and I have lived well here."

These days, people don't use copperware much and the number of orders has decreased, but there are still people who know where Yervand Dayi is. An American-Armenian businessman who founded a carpet factory in Karabakh ordered five large pots for dying yarn from the silversmith. "They came from America and asked for me. They ordered some pots. I made five pots for them. Each one holds 560 liters. I made them and he gave me 200 dollars for each pot in exchange and told me, 'Uncle Yervand we will take your picture and hang it on the wall.'"

The payments received in exchange for his work are not Yervand Asryan's wealth; he has his peculiar notion of what wealth is. First he says that he is the richest man of Karabakh since he is in good health, then he says that the best source of wealth is a having good attitude toward people. But Yervand Dayi's greatest wealth is his friends. "If you videotape me and show me on TV, my friends from all the corners of Armenia and Karabakh will see it and come to visit me. Friendship is a good thing if you have friends. Friendship is a wonderful thing. If one has friendship, one has humanity. If one doesn't have friendship, one is not even a human being," Yervand Dayi says and begins to enumerate all his friends by name - from the World War II up to today.

When we speak with him about the daily life of people in Karabakh he asks in surprise, "Do Karabakhtsis live badly?" And he answers right away, " That's a lie. There is plenty of wealth in Karabakh." He believes that this wealth is not oil or gold but hard work and honor. "The people of Karabakh are all honorable people. They are hardworking people. They are smart. They all are jacks-of-all-trades."

Talking about the Karabakh war, Yervand Dayi says that neighboring Azerbaijanis should yearn for peace more, since they didn't benefit from the four-year-long war at all. "The war. Nobody benefited from the war. I don't want war. I want peace, I want love." He believes that hatred cannot exist between good people. He recalls how during the war he fell into Azerbaijani hands. "I was heading somewhere one night and the Turks [Azerbaijanis] caught me and wanted to kill me. But have I been a bad man to be killed? I was good to all - to Turks, to Armenians, then and now."

Yervand Dayi points to his tools that wear out and become useless over the years. He points to pots and pitchers he made; even though they are repaired from time to time, they too wear out and become unusable. According to eighty-year-old Yervand Asryan, it is only man that doesn't wear out since a man dies but mankind remains forever. "If you were born you must render some help to all people, teach something. If you cannot teach, ask someone else. If you cannot be humane, hold your tongue," the master smith says.