Raw & Unfiltered

In this poignant essay, Lalai Manjikian writes about the frantic rhythm of managing a career and motherhood. The transition to motherhood, she writes, is not necessarily easy and nor is it the aestheticized perfect pastel images on social media. It is messy, painful, and exhausting, yet, interspersed with pockets of unimaginable heart-expanding joy.

Even as “Global Armenians” seem to be thriving around the world, they don’t appear to be thriving in the Republic of Armenia. Global Armenians, like the ocean-crisscrossing Armenian merchants of the 16th-18th centuries, contributed to vibrant Armenian communities around the globe, “preserving a nation is not the same as preserving a community,” writes Dr. Hratch Tchilingirian.

Armenia’s Ministry of Culture shut down an exhibit entitled ECLIPSE at the Tumanyan House Museum in Yerevan stating that it was ‘politicized’. Since the public no longer has the opportunity to physically go and see the exhibit, Narine Tukhikyan, the director of the Tumanyan House Museum, provided EVN Report with all the curated artifacts so that it could live on virtually.

After decades of moving from city to city, writer and journalist Paul Chaderjian ends up with a relic that has no place in his two suitcases of mere essentials. A personal story that comes full circle from orphanages in Aleppo to civil war Beirut to Fresno and New York to Doha and Istanbul.

Journalist, activist and cartoonist Lucine Kasbarian's political cartoon "Eli and Gor, A Cross-cultural Parallel" is a reflection of her desire to make incisive and humorous commentaries about the Armenian condition.

An experimental film and an introspective by Seda Grigoryan where her experiences of covering the Daredevils of Sassoun saga merge with impressions and sentiments from a visit to Western Armenia.

Comedian and co-founder of ArmComedy Sergey Sargsyan offers some interesting advice about what to do when confronted with hateful comments on social media.

How does one navigate identities? Serving as the Deputy Chief of the Political/Economic Section at the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan, Ruben Harutunian writes that it was a unique opportunity to return to his hometown to support the effort of building ever-stronger ties between the United States and Armenia.

The story of Gayane Arevshatyan’s home-restaurant began twenty years ago, after a tragedy that radically changed her life. It was the Armenia of the 1990s - the cold and dark years. The country had survived a devastating earthquake, the Karabakh War, the disintegration of the Soviet Union, blockade, an energy crisis...In a matter of years, lives and narratives had turned upside down.

Nareg Seferian discusses his experiences dealing with ethno-national identity, the current situation with the Armenian identity around the world, and how it plays out vis-à-vis the Republic of Armenia.