Sevan on My Skin

What does it mean to love a land? In this moving piece, Maria Gunko takes

the reader on a journey into the heart of a land where mountains breathe history and rivers carry memory. While tracing Armenia’s landscapes and contradictions, she ponders how affection endures when beauty, uneasy history, and complex geopolitics collide.

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Sevan on My Skin

Maria Gunko

Jul 15, 2025

A sweltering Yerevan summer, a pilgrimage to Lake Sevan, and the shock of diving into

its icy waters. Maria Gunko captures the sensory journey of heat, relief, memory, and the joy of feeling comfortable in your own skin.

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Symbols or Spectacle? Armenia’s Pavilions at Venice and Milan

Maria Gunko

Jun 5, 2025

A critical reflection on Armenia’s national pavilions at the 2025 Triennale Milano and Venice Biennale

of Architecture, Maria Gunko explores how they navigate themes of heritage, technology and everyday architecture, offering contrasting visions of authenticity, identity and the politics of representation.

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Sisian: Where Mediocrity Meets the Sublime

Maria Gunko

May 8, 2025

A work trip to Sisian unfolds from dreary mediocrity into an unexpected revelation. Through the

evocative paintings of Armen Hakobjanyan, Sisian’s stark landscapes transform, revealing a timeless beauty hidden beneath the town’s crumbling surfaces, and quiet melancholy.

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The Subtle Details of Syunik’s Cities

Maria Gunko

Apr 10, 2025

A journey through Syunik’s cities reveals overlooked details: laundry lines, rustwoven structures, and abandoned railways,

that tell richer, more intimate stories of place than tourist checklists ever could. Maria Gunko’s reflection on memory, materiality and urban meaning.

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Nocturnal Yerevan

Maria Gunko

Feb 24, 2025

Maria Gunko explores the city’s transformation after dark, where familiar spaces shift, new rhythms emerge,

and urban night pulses with secrecy, revelry and uncertainty. From hidden bars to shadow economies, it captures the mystery, intimacy and contradictions of Yerevan’s nocturnal self.

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Reading Metsamor, the Armenian Nuclear City

Maria Gunko

Jan 30, 2025

Metsamor embodies a complex interplay of post-Soviet deindustrialization, utopian aspirations, and organic transformation. Once a

symbol of Soviet modernity, it now reveals a layered reality—marked by decay, resilience and the unplanned vibrancy of everyday life.

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Tracing Armenian Heritage in Venice

Maria Gunko

Jan 7, 2025

Delving into the rich cultural legacy of Venice’s San Lazzaro degli Armeni island, Maria Gunko

reflects on the enduring significance of Armenian heritage around the world, the beauty of discovery, and the philosophical charm of places seemingly untouched by time.

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They Versus We

Maria Gunko

Nov 28, 2024

In this month’s column, Maria Gunko explores how the pronouns "they" and "we" are

used to navigate narratives of destruction, complicity and survival. She examines the shifting boundaries of agency and the struggle for meaning in a post-socialist, post-truth landscape.

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Outside In

To Love Armenia

Sevan on My Skin

Symbols or Spectacle? Armenia’s Pavilions at Venice and Milan

Sisian: Where Mediocrity Meets the Sublime

The Subtle Details of Syunik’s Cities

Nocturnal Yerevan

Reading Metsamor, the Armenian Nuclear City

Tracing Armenian Heritage in Venice

They Versus We

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