Tag: Soviet Armenia

The November 10 ceasefire agreement ended the 2020 Artsakh War, but the issue of demarcating the new state borders between Armenia and Azerbaijan has been a major concern since then.

Vigen Galstyan explores the humble charm of Soviet Armenian mechanical clocks in this first instalment of a series of articles about Armenia’s not-too-distant past as a major producer of everyday consumer goods and a hot spot for industrial design in the USSR.

Vanadzor’s Hovhannes Abelyan Theater, built in the early 20th century, is just a few meters away from the Fine Arts Museum. Both buildings hold the memories and feelings of Armenia’s third largest city.

Armenia’s Physics Institute with its Cosmic Ray Division is trying to overcome many challenges by collaborating with different international institutes. A new generation of scientists believe that more investment is needed to support research and science.

Armenia’s transition in 1991 brought about a state with a blatant disregard for democracy. The current government should realize the importance of moving forward with a more systematic, effective and coordinated transitional justice platform.

The resort town of Dilijan in Armenia is known for its lush mountainous landscapes. It is also home to the Composers’ Union Resort, a place that hosted world famous composers in the 1960s and became a cultural hub in the former Soviet Union.

A prominent Armenian Bolshevik activist and head of the Baku Commune Stepan Shahumyan’s ghost now wanders through his native Caucasus. Armenians have largely forgotten his century-old verbal attacks on nationalism and insistence on internationalist fraternity of peoples, yet his statues remain and streets, villages and towns are named after him in Armenia and Artsakh.

A sharp departure from the confinements of Soviet era filmmakers where any production had to be commissioned by the state and would remain under strict supervision, a 2003 law on mass media, forbids censorship in the Republic of Armenia. But in post-Soviet Armenia censorship has time and again found ways of meddling with cinema.

Arpine Haroyan looks back at how an avant-garde art movement called Futurism impacted the work of a number of young Armenian intellectuals in Constantinople, Tbilisi and Yerevan at the turn of the 20th century.

When a massive earthquake rocked northern Armenia in 1988, EVN Report’s Vahram Ter-Matevosyan was a fifth grade student in Gyumri. In this personal essay, he recounts his experience of being trapped beneath the ruins of his school for 18 harrowing hours.