Politics
The New U.S. National Security Strategy: Implications for Armenia
The 2025 U.S. National Security Strategy signals a shift toward sovereignty-centered, transactional realism. Sossi Tatikyan explores how this new doctrine reshapes U.S. engagement in the South Caucasus and its implications for Armenia’s security, diplomacy, peace process with Azerbaijan, and partnership with Washington.
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Security Dimensions of the EU-Armenia Strategic Agenda
The security component of the Strategic Agenda incorporates Europe as an important part of Armenia’s developing security architecture, writes Nerses Kopalyan, where the confluence of hard power capacity and small-state resilience become integrated, at the institutional level, with European and Transatlantic standards.
Read moreOpinion
Armenia’s Hate Speech Blind Spot
The arrest of two Armenian podcasters has reignited debate over where free expression ends and criminal liability begins. Beyond one case, the episode exposes Armenia’s unresolved legal blind spot in addressing sexualized, gendered abuse without undermining democratic speech.
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The False Politics of Revisionism
In this sharp critique of political revisionism in Armenia, Nerses Kopalyan examines how distorted narratives seek to undermine the Velvet Revolution, erase popular sovereignty, and normalize cynicism, victimhood and authoritarian nostalgia as tools to weaken democracy and collective agency.
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Missing in Action? On Russian Deployments From Armenia and Artsakh to Ukraine
As Russia’s war in Ukraine drags on, there are allegations—some founded, some unfounded—that troops and resources have quietly been redeployed from Armenia’s Gyumri base and the former peacekeeping mission in Nagorno-Karabakh. Justin Tomczyk examines online activity that reveals this movement of forces and what a planned surge of troops to Gyumri means for the region.
Read moreRaw & Unfiltered
Armenians of Jerusalem: An Occupied Minority
This in-depth Q&A with Dr. Bedross Der Matossian examines the past and present of Jerusalem’s Armenian community, one of the world’s oldest continually inhabited Armenian centers, exploring its history, struggles under shifting regimes, rising pressures from settlers, and the existential threat posed by the Cow’s Garden land dispute.
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Aging, Dignity and the Armenian Woman
Aging in Armenia is not just a matter of years but of dignity and belonging. Ani Jilozian examines the lived experiences of older women and reveals how health programs, social neglect and cultural expectations shape wellbeing, belonging and ultimately, the right to be seen in later life.
Read moreEnvironment
The Queen, Armenia’s Forests and Bureaucratic Hurdles
A royal visit spotlighted Armenia’s forests, but also exposed how bureaucracy, competing land interests, and weak governance continue to undermine reforestation. As Armenia prepares for COP17, ambitious pledges collide with stalled permits, mining pressures and a system struggling to turn promises into forests. Hranoush Dermoyan reports.
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System Failure: Draining Strategic Aquifers for Short-Term Profit
Armenia’s most vital aquifer is collapsing under decades of unchecked fish farming, illegal drilling and political neglect. The Ararat plain’s groundwater, critical for drinking water and agriculture, is being drained faster than it can recover, forcing the government into a race against ecological collapse. Hovhannes Nazaretyan explains.
Read moreIt Has to Be Said
Yerevan’s Air Crisis: Inside the Pollution Emergency
Yerevan’s worsening air pollution has moved from background concern to a public health emergency. Hovhannes Nazaretyan examines the main drivers including construction, quarries, transport and waste and why government responses have so far fallen short.
Read moreIt Has to Be Said
Arts & Culture
Who Am I to Tell Your Story?
Et Cetera
“Caucasian Blues”, a Collaboration That Couldn’t Find Its Voice
A long-awaited South Caucasian co-production promises hope through collaboration, but “Caucasian Blues” struggles with stereotypes, weak writing and shallow politics, revealing how much harder genuine, transformative regional storytelling still is. Taline Oundjian’s review.
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Venice 2015 Ten Years On: Creative Resistance and Contemporary Crises
A decade on, Andre Torossian revisits Armenia’s landmark diaspora exhibition “Armenity” at the Venice Biennale, reading it through today’s post-2020 realities—war, displacement and the loss of Artsakh—to ask who speaks for Armenians, how identity relates to territory, and what forms of Armenity can endure.
Read moreCreative Tech
AI, Drones, Blockchain and Agriculture
Columns
Khash-Khash and Kyalla
Explore Armenia’s most unconventional dishes through the eyes of Maria Gunko who views every meal as cultural inquiry. Blending humor, discomfort and discovery, she examines how food rituals reveal identity and the intimate logic of a place.
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Tsolak Topchyan: Art as Antidote to an Unstable World
Blending repetition, geometric precision and tactile threadwork, Tsolak Topchyan turns instability into rhythm and renewal. His latest exhibition in Yerevan traced how abstraction, labor and quiet variation can become tools for steadiness, and subtle resistance, in a world marked by upheaval.
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What a Ceasefire in Ukraine Could Mean for the South Caucasus
The war in Ukraine still dominates Eastern Europe’s political agenda, but its consequences extend far beyond. In the South Caucasus, amid Georgia’s prolonged crisis, a ceasefire could become a test of political maturity, revealing which states seize new opportunities and which risk deeper isolation.
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À la Victoire
Reflecting on democracy, dissent and the dangers of entrenched power, Sheila Paylan tells the story of jailed Rwandan opposition leader Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza with growing concerns in Armenia, urging vigilance against the erosion of hard-won democratic space.
Read morePodcasts
The Light Cast by the Shadow Puppets
After discovering 180 of her great-great-grandfather’s shadow puppets in an attic in Aleppo, actor, writer, producer and director Sona Tatoyan realized that she had just stumbled upon a living thread connecting her to her family’s pre-genocide past. In this episode, Tatoyan speaks about her multimedia performance AZAD (The Rabbit and the Wolf), where she brings these puppets back to life, and explores what it means to carry memory onto a contemporary stage, a powerful act of storytelling.
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From NFL to Wall Street to Armenia
Jon Najarian, co-founder of Market Rebellion and TradeMonster, discusses how his first trip to Armenia and his daughters' influence have deepened his relationship to his heritage. He shares a remarkable family story, from the founding of the Lazar Najarian–Calouste Gulbenkian School in Syria to pioneering organ-transplant surgery in the United States.
Read moreLIFESTYLE
Charge
As SALT marks its first anniversary, we wrap up 2025 by reflecting on tradition while looking ahead. With 2026 shaping up to be a charged election year, SALT will be there to offer a refreshing space for pause, perspective and inspiration beyond the political noise.
