AWARD-winning haggis from local butcher J A Waters & Sons in Selkirk High Street will soon be making its way to Yerevan, Armenia, for the annual Burns supper organised by the Armenian British Business Chamber in conjunction with Charles Masraff, chef-proprietor of Selkirk’s newest restaurant The Place.
Charles who has recently returned to Scotland from Armenia with partner Linda Fergusson helped found the business chamber there and has run the Burns supper for several years.
Charles told The Wee Paper: “Every year this attracts a multi-racial, multi-cultural audience of some 250 people and apart from entertaining the guests with a memorable Scottish evening, it provides a charitable purse of some $25,000 which is distributed among the poorest of the population many of whom live, since Soviet times, in remote rural areas.”
He added: “The audience is made up of locals and expats who contribute to the charity through the cost of the tickets and by bidding at an auction of items provided by local businesses and individuals.”
Charles is taking a number of local textile items which have fetched considerable sums in the past, as have special bottles of malt whisky and old vintages of the local Armenian brandy which became Winston Churchill’s favourite tipple having been gifted a case by Societ leader, Stalin.