The north of Armenia looks like Mordor. Copper smelters, reactor chimneys, obsidian mines, hundreds of abandoned Soviet factories and industrial zones. The countryside is bleak and extreme. The roads are steep, rough and terrifying.

If you were making a James Bond style film and you needed a giant abandoned factory, or small town to blow up northern Armenia is the place to go.

Armenia has been so pillaged and ransacked there’s really nothing left. And then their huge earthquake/ the Russians leaving/ and then they declared war on Azerbaijan and were blockaded for years. They had no food except lake fish and potatoes. They had to cut down all the trees for fuel. Which contributes the overall effect of Mordor.