EVN Report

What does sovereignty mean when a state retains legal control over its territory but grants another entity exclusive rights to develop and operate it for decades? Examining TRIPP through international law, Davit Khachatryan explores the tension between sovereignty, control, economic interests and the long-term consequences of Armenia’s agreement. Read more

What if the Armenian Diaspora stopped asking what it can do for Armenia and began asking what it needs to become in its own right? Drawing on the history of New Julfa, Tigran Yegavian argues for a polycentric Armenian world in which Armenia and the Diaspora remain connected without one being subsumed by the other. Read more

Olesya Vartanyan thought she was checking her phone for viruses. Instead, a routine security check revealed that it had been targeted with Pegasus spyware. The discovery became a disturbing reminder of how easily surveillance can blur the boundaries between private and professional life. Read more

Lake Sevan is under growing ecological pressure from untreated wastewater, pollution and climate change. After years of stalled efforts, a major overhaul of wastewater collection and treatment could finally address one of its most pressing problems, but financing remains unresolved. Read more

After meeting a man in Artsakh who vowed never to leave, Sheila Paylan feared he had died when more than 100,000 Armenians fled Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023. Years later, a fallen wheat wreath makes her reconsider what it means to keep a promise, love a homeland and choose to survive. Read more

Once uncommon in Armenia, running has grown into a vibrant culture of clubs, races and communities. From Yerevan to Gyumri, Vanadzor and Dilijan, runners are reshaping attitudes toward fitness, friendship and outdoor life, turning a once-unfamiliar pastime into a growing part of everyday life. Read more

Azerbaijan’s recent campaign to erase and reappropriate Armenian heritage is more than an exercise in historical revisionism. Nerses Kopalyan examines the strategic logic behind this initiative, demonstrating how Baku’s dire political need for a culture war with Armenia is designed to address its own strategic depth, while countering Armenia’s growing political capital in Washington, D.C. Read more

The Kaps Reservoir has been in the making for four decades, surviving a Soviet collapse, earthquakes, governments and repeated delays. As Armenia prepares to restart the project, its unfinished history raises broader questions about the country’s ability to plan, finance and deliver major infrastructure projects. Read more

Using Jorge Luis Borges’ imagined world of Tlön as a lens, Sebouh David Aslanian examines Azerbaijan’s decades-long reinvention of Caucasian Albania, arguing that a fabricated historical narrative has been deployed to appropriate Armenian heritage, erase the region’s Armenian past, and reshape the South Caucasus in the present. Read more

Introducing [juris]prudence, a new column on EVN Report by Davit Khachatryan. Davit explores the international legal order from Armenia’s vantage point, examining how states, courts, treaties and legal principles shape the world Armenia inhabits. The column looks beyond the headlines to unpack what international law actually says, how it is used and contested, and why it matters for Armenia. In his inaugural column, “One Republic,” he examines a deceptively simple question: what happens to a state when its government, constitution and political direction change? Drawing on international law, he argues that governments may change, but the Republic of Armenia remains the same legal person, continuing to carry the rights, obligations and legal consequences of actions taken in its name. Read more

In this deeply personal reflection on the third anniversary of the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh, Yana Lalaian returns to the landscapes of Artsakh through memories of family, food, rivers and village life. As the possibility of losing that landscape becomes real, memory itself becomes a way of holding on to home. Read more

Three years after the displacement of Artsakh’s Armenians, the routines of exile have become ordinary. Siranush Sargsyan explores how a displaced community navigates grief, memory, identity and belonging while rebuilding lives in Armenia and abroad, and struggling to imagine a future beyond loss. Read more

Dana Mashoian Walrath’s “The Book of Genocides” uses art, history and family memory to examine ten genocides and the patterns of dehumanization that precede mass violence. Christopher Atamian reviews an unconventional work that asks whether remembering genocide differently can help us recognize its warning signs. Read more

As AI reshapes the global technology industry, Armenia’s traditional advantage in software development is underthreat. Ashot Arzumanyan argues that the country must reinvent its tech ecosystem around physical AI, specialized research, embedded systems and institutional capital to remain competitive. Read more

The European Union has invested heavily in Armenia’s resilience against foreign information manipulation. But when its own Special Representative reduces Azerbaijan’s state-sponsored historical revisionism to competing “narratives,” diplomacy risks becoming a vehicle for the very manipulation the EU seeks to counter. Read more

Armenia’s first PISA results are sobering, revealing serious gaps in student proficiency and raising questions that go well beyond curriculum reform. Arevik Anapiosyan examines what the results reveal about learning, critical thinking, attendance and classroom practice, and what an evidence-based response should look like. Read more

For more than three decades, the Armenia-Turkey border has been closed but trading continued through indirect routes. Beatriz Arslanian examines Turkey’s decision to authorize direct trade, its economic implications for Armenia, and whether incremental economic ties can help advance long-delayed political normalization. Read more

Why do nations cling to familiar stories, even when reality changes? Drawing on theories of ontological security, collective memory and political psychology, Andronik Papyan examines how the loss of Artsakh unsettled Armenia's national narrative and the search for a new sense of collective identity. Read more

Traveling through Sarajevo, Mikayel Zolyan reflects on the city’s long history of war, nationalism and coexistence. From the assassination that helped ignite World War I to the devastation of the 1990s, he considers how a society emerges from conflict and learns to live with its past. Read more

From AI infrastructure and quantum computing to major venture investments, summer 2026 brought a series of significant developments for Armenia’s tech ecosystem. Ani Toroyan looks at the projects, companies and capital reshaping the country’s ambitions in AI and deep tech. Read more