Armenia - Articoli

#ElectricYerevan: journalists targeted

29/06/2015 -  Simone Zoppellaro Yerevan

A rally in the Armenian capital against yet another electricity price increase triggers the police. Beatings, insults, and even violence against journalists


Genealogy: Armenia’s Eurosong

19/05/2015 -  Simone Zoppellaro Yerevan

A group of youth coming from the four corners of the world is representing Armenia at the Vienna Eurovision Song Contest. Meet Vahe Tilbian, Armenian of Ethiopia


Human rights in Armenia: the Muižnieks report

18/03/2015 -  Andrea Oskari Rossini

Nils Muižnieks, Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, made public on 10 March his report on the state of human rights in Armenia. Our interview


Turkey and Armenia: the threads of diplomacy

09/09/2014 -  Simone Zoppellaro Yerevan

Relations between Ankara and Yerevan have recently taken small steps towards a reconciliation all too long waited for. Yet, signals are still mixed, and the wound of genocide is still open


An August escalation in Nagorno Karabakh

14/08/2014 -  Simone Zoppellaro Yerevan

Recent clashes on the separation line between Armenia and Azerbaijan in Nagorno Karabakh have left some 20 victims and fears for a new open conflict in Europe. Local associations sign a call for peace


New Julfa, the Armenian quarter of Isfahan

07/08/2014 -  Simone Zoppellaro Isfahan

In the Iranian town of Isfahan, in the ancient district of New Julfa, lives an Armenian community. From the Ararat supermarket to the Ani cafe, everything here is reminiscent of the deep link of the Armenians to their homeland


Israel and the Armenian Genocide

27/06/2014 -  Simone Zoppellaro Yerevan

Next year the centennial of the Armenian genocide will be remembered. In the international debate on recognition, a special position is that of Israel


Yerevan: the Mikoyan monument

28/05/2014 -  Simone Zoppellaro Yerevan

The decision to build a monument to the memory of Anastas Mikoyan, Armenian leader in the former USSR, has sparked a controversy on the soviet legacy and on Russian-Armenian relations


Armenians of Kessab: Hostages of the Civil War

24/04/2014 -  Mikayel Zolyan Yerevan

The small Armenian-populated town Kessab in north-western Syria found itself in the middle of a battle since the end of March. 99 Years after the Genocide the Plight of Syria’s Armenians Stirs Memories of 1915


Is an Armenian “Maidan” possible?

03/03/2014 -  Mikayel Zolyan Yerevan

The Armenian political elite and the general public are divided on the account of the Kiev events. The main question, however, is whether the Ukrainian revolution may spill out to Armenia


Yerevan - Ankara, the big chill

05/02/2014 -  Mikayel Zolyan Yerevan

Seven years after Hrant Dink’s tragic death in Istanbul, his dream of an Armenian-Turkish reconciliation seems as distant as ever


Children of the South Caucasus

24/01/2014 -  Onnik Krikorian Tbilisi

Georgia's deinstitutionalisation policy has proved successful in addressing the needs of children deprived of parental care, but some concerns remain. In neighbouring Armenia and Azerbaijan, thousands of kids are still living in Soviet-era institutions


A swinging Russian mood in Yerevan

10/12/2013 -  Mikayel Zolyan Yerevan

“To the barricades!”: protests in the Armenian capital against the visit of the Russian President as Armenians are divided over joining the Customs Union with Moscow


A journey to Armenia

14/11/2013 - 

In the spring of 1930, the Russian poet Osip Mandel'štam set out on a long journey with his wife Nadežda in the Caucasus, the last one before being comdemned to confinement and later death in a Siberian concentration camp. The travel of the two writers, their life and poetry, are the subject of Osservatorio's new documentary project . The multimedia


Between Moscow and Brussels: Armenia’s foreign policy dilemma

26/09/2013 -  Mikayel Zolyan Yerevan

A Customs Union with Russia, Belorus and Kazakhstan turns Yerevan away from signing an Association Agreement with Brussels. While the Armenian public opinion is divided, civil society activists have been intimdated


Armenian homophobia

14/08/2013 -  Onnik Krikorian Yerevan

Proposed anti-gay propaganda legislation raises human rights concerns in Armenia, where violence against sexual minorities is supported by representatives of the institutions


Karabakh, statements and arms deals

19/07/2013 -  Mikayel Zolyan Yerevan

A statement on Karabakh by the presidents of the mediator-countries hardly contained anything unexpected. But a 1 bln dollars arms deal between Russia and Azerbaijan was cause for concern in Yerevan


The battle for Yerevan

02/05/2013 -  Mikayel Zolyan Yerevan

Tensions remain high in Armenia following clashes during the presidential inauguration of April 9. The opposition hopes are for a turning point at the May 5 municipal elections in Yerevan, home to one third of the country's population


Social Media in the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict

17/04/2013 -  Onnik Krikorian

Social media have become one of the few places where young people from Armenia and Azerbaijan can meet. Yet, not without risks


Pope Francis I: a view from Armenia

09/04/2013 -  Mikayel Zolyan Yerevan

Armenians have followed closely the election of the new Pope, debating its possible consequences in the process of international recognition of the Genocide. In social networks, however, the event became an opportunity to discuss the role of the Church in modern society


Journey to Soviet Armenia, port stop in war-torn Naples

14/03/2013 -  Hazel Antaramian Hofman

A group of 162 American-Armenians on a journey form New York towards Armenia in 1949 stops in the port of war-torn Naples. Women and men who soon afterwards would be living in Stalin's USSR are astonished by the misery they see in post war Italy


Armenian Spring in the Making?

27/02/2013 -  Mikayel Zolyan Yerevan

Opposition refuses to accept the official results of the Presidential election, as former Foreign Minister Raffi Hovannisian announces the “Revolution of Hello”


Armenia-Azerbaijan: crossing to “the other side” in times of ceasefire

31/01/2013 -  Arzu Geybullayeva Baku

Armenia and Azerbaijan are in a bitter conflict. Dialogue between the sides is difficult, but some visits across the border are still happening. The story of an Azerbaijani journalist in Armenia


Armenia: elections without a choice

21/01/2013 -  Mikayel Zolyan Yerevan

A deep economic crisis and complicated regional scenario will seemingly not stop the incumbent, Serzh Sargsyan, to be elected for a new term as Armenian president


Yerevan World Book Capital: 8 months of infinite reading

31/12/2012 -  Nuné Melkoumian Yerevan

On April 22, Yerevan became the 12th city to be designated World Book Capital by Unesco. A look back at the most significant projects of the year


Saint Lazarus, the persecuted

23/10/2012 -  Paolo Martino

‘Everybody talks about Syria, but nobody does anything. Instead of stopping the whips, people count while we are being flogged. How is that possible?’ Ibrahim is twenty years-old, lives in Damascus and longs for a different Syria. The last episode of “From the Caucasus to Beirut”, a journey on the discovery of the Middle-Eastern Armenian diaspora


A tourist in Damascus

10/10/2012 -  Paolo Martino

Damascus. When I get there, in December 2011, the uprising against Bashar Al Assad has been going on for ten months. In the city, under the ever-present eye of the dictator, everything seems calm, though at the same time absent and precarious. Even for the historical Armenian community, once again prey to its destiny of chronic lack of safety. The thirteenth episode of “From the Caucasus to Beirut”


It’s your sister, Vartuhi

25/09/2012 -  Paolo Martino

‘With time, the Countries we live in - Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq - have become our home. Arabic has become our language. Unleavened bread has become our food. But let’s not forget it: we belong to a different history’. In the twelfth episode of the series “From the Caucasus to Beirut”, Paolo Martino returns among the Armenians of Lebanon


Sunsets and the printer of Amman

18/09/2012 -  Paolo Martino

Amman is the capital of a Country hovering between remaining faithful to a pro-Western monarchy and the shock wave of the Arab Spring. A community of three thousand Armenians, a small star in the firmament of the diaspora, lives and survives the contradictions of the Middle-East. The eleventh episode of our report “From the Caucasus to Beirut”


The burden of truth

03/09/2012 -  Paolo Martino

1915: in the countryside around Diyarbakyr, Armenians and Kurds have been living together for centuries. The Ottoman empire, on the verge of collapse, is about to launch its witch-hunt. Ethnic cleansing in Anatolia is systematic. But some men, helped by luck or their neighbors, manage to save themselves. The ninth episode of our report, “From the Caucasus to Beirut”