Yerevan

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Civil Contract mayoral candidate Tigran Avinyan and National Progress candidate Hayk Marutyan.

2023 Elections in Armenia

Ruling party falls short of majority in Yerevan elections

by Arshaluys Barseghyan

•2 min read

Armenia’s ruling Civil Contract party has failed to win a majority in the Yerevan City Council elections, despite receiving most votes. Their main challenger, National Progress led by Hayk Marutyan, came in second place. The preliminary result of Sunday’s election gave Civil Contract 24 of 65 seats on the council, with 33% of the vote. This was a dramatic decline from the previous elections in 2018, when Hayk Marutyan led the party’s list, winning 81% of the vote. National Progress, now led

Armenia

Protesters clash with Police outside Armenian PM’s residence

by Ani Avetisyan

•1 min read

Police and protesters have clashed in the Armenian capital Yerevan as anti-government protesters besieged the residence of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. On Friday evening, police deployed stun grenades and batons to disperse protesters gathered near the PM’s residence, making several arrests. The violence errupted as protesters attempted to march to Parliament but were blocked by police. Protests demanding Pashinyan’s resignation and supported by the Armenian opposition have been ongoing

Armenia

Being Baha’i in Armenia

by Armine Avetisyan

•6 min read

Armenia’s small Baha’i community has lived in the country for over a century; now they are finding their place in the new post-revolutionary order. ‘I still keep silent about my religion. I know it’s wrong, but I’m still afraid. My parents are strict in this regard, they see and accept nothing but the Armenian Apostolic Church.’ Astghik (not her real name), 28, is a follower of the Baha’i faith; one of around 500 in Armenia. ‘When discussing any religion in my surroundings, my fri

Armenia

Armenia’s blind struggle to find a livelihood

by Manya Israyelyan

•5 min read

Faced with ignorance and discrimination, finding work as a blind person in Armenia can be a difficult task. Rafayel Keveyan, 23, lives in Gavar, a small town east of Yerevan. He lost his sight at the age of four after being given the wrong drugs while being treated for measles. Along a journey that did not lack challenges, Rafayel found his passion in music and devoted himself to it. Rafayel began playing the piano at the age of seven; soon after, his parents sent him to a musical school.

Armenia

In pictures | Nowhere else to go: the stories of Yerevan’s homeless

by Armine Avetisyan

•6 min read

Yerevan’s homeless population comes from all over Armenia and beyond, but they all have ended up in the same place. There is one shelter in the city, with a capacity of 100, but it is not enough to house the hundreds living on Yerevan’s streets. There are no official figures on the number of homeless people in Armenia. According to Shavarsh Khachatryan, the director of the Hans Christian Kofoed homeless shelter, there are approximately 400 homeless people in Yerevan alone. Around 100 live i

Armenia

Opinion | Accepting our past is the only way we can move forward

by Javid Agha

•5 min read

In Azerbaijan, as in Armenia, remembrance of the victims of past atrocities often takes on a one-sided nature. Despite attempts to twist and politicise such events to serve nationalist causes, a more compassionate approach is needed to move forward, and a remembrance that above all, innocent victims are always sacred. Last week, Azerbaijan mourned her martyrs who fell during the Soviet violence committed 29 years ago in the capital, Baku. TV channels aired patriotic movies (ironically

Armenia

Taxes, corruption, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Turkey: Pashinyan’s vision for the ‘New Armenia’

by Shota Kincha

•10 min read

Having swept to power in a landslide electoral victory, the new government of revolutionary leader Nikol Pashinyan is now laying out its vision for a ‘New Armenia’ — with ambitious plans for peace and reform. Following the sweeping victory of his My Step bloc in 9 December’s snap parliamentary elections, Nikol Pashinyan vowed in a Facebook live stream the next day that his government would start to implement all their pre-electoral promises as soon as the new leadership settles in. Ear