In Soviet Armenia, beyond the struggles of daily life, people were free to choose to be a part of the arts. But freedom in art was still limited. The situation changed after independence, there was freedom to be found in art but to choose art unreservedly, seemed ill-founded. Day-to-day struggles brought forth a dimension where the audience and the dancer were not connected.
When the war broke out in Artsakh in the early 1990s, Aida Serobyan was a 36-year-old doctor and mother of three. She decided to volunteer for two months as a field doctor, but ended up staying for two years until the end of the war in 1994. Although she helped to heal the injured, she herself was wounded four times on the battlefield. This is her story.
Public Radio of Yerevan, known as Radyoya Erîvané or Erivan Radyosu* beyond the Armenian-Turkish border, has left a mark in the memories of thousands of Kurds across the Middle East, Europe and the former Soviet republics. Throughout the years when Kurdish language and culture were banned in Turkey, Radio Yerevan served as a bridge between the Kurdish people and their culture.