Fourteen railway wagons loaded with wheat will be sent from Russia to Armenia via Azerbaijan.
According to APA, the wagons carrying the wheat will depart from Bilajari railway station on August 6.
Published by Armenpress, original at
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Former National Assembly Speaker Alen Simonyan has congratulated the newly elected members of Armenia’s ninth-convocation National Assembly, his colleagues from the Civil Contract faction, and the newly elected parliamentary leadership on their election.
He announced this in a post on his Facebook page.
“I wish you effective work for the benefit of the Republic of Armenia and the well-being of our people,” Simonyan wrote.
Ruben Rubinyan has been elected Speaker of the ninth-convocation National Assembly. Hayk Konjoryan and Vahagn Aleksanyan have been elected deputy speakers.
The National Assembly has three deputy speakers, one of whom is nominated from among the opposition factions. The opposition deputy speaker will be elected at the National Assembly’s sitting on August 6. The candidate is Aram Vardevanyan of the Strong Armenia faction.
Published by Armenpress, original at
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Russia Lost Armenia. So Did Iran.
August 4, 2026
By: Kamran Bokhari
Armenia’s upcoming constitutional referendum could become a problem for Tehran, which would like to see Armenia and Azerbaijan at odds.
Russia’s bid to reassert its grip on the South Caucasus is failing—and the reverberations extend well beyond Moscow. Iran has all but lost its northern flank to a US-Turkey-Azerbaijan axis, and it has no answer. Even as they remain targets of Iranian attacks, the Arab Gulf states are increasingly eyeing the Trans-Caspian region as a lever of counter-pressure against the Islamic Republic. What was once a Russian and Iranian sphere of influence is fast becoming a corridor for their rivals.
The Ukrainian strike on an Iranian vessel in the Caspian Sea on July 31 expanded Kyiv’s campaign beyond the battlefield by targeting the logistics underpinning the Russia-Iran partnership. By projecting force into the Caspian basin, Ukraine challenged what Moscow and Tehran regarded as a secure corridor for military cargo and dual-use goods.
More broadly, the incident underscored the growing convergence of the European and Middle Eastern theaters, as Iran’s support for Russia made it a more direct target of Ukrainian retaliation. The strike also raised the prospect that the Caspian Sea could become another contested arena linking the Ukraine War with the broader regional struggle involving Iran.
The Iranian regime’s information operations project an image of triumph—having nominally “survived” its confrontation with the United States and Israel—but the strategic picture tells a different story. Russia, badly weakened by the war, can no longer anchor the northern buffer Iran once relied upon, leaving the Islamic Republic’s northern flank dangerously exposed. To its south, hostility with the Gulf Arab states has reached unprecedented intensity, especially after the collapse of the June 17 Memorandum of Understanding, when Washington resumed airstrikes on Iran following Tehran’s July 8 attack on three tankers.
Since then, the United States has launched multiple rounds of strikes on Iran, steadily expanding its target set from military facilities to bridges, airports, and electrical infrastructure. Tehran has responded by widening the conflict itself—striking a power and desalination facility in Kuwait and hitting a military base in Jordan on July 17 that killed three US service members.
Iran’s Houthi proxies also fired missiles at Saudi Arabia on July 13 and launched its own ballistic missile at a US military base on July 17. The deteriorating security situation has drawn nuclear-armed Pakistan more directly into the crisis: Islamabad has warned Tehran that any further attacks on Saudi territory—whether by Iran or the Houthis—would trigger Pakistan’s obligations under the mutual defense pact it signed with Riyadh in 2025.
Adding to the tensions, Reuters reported on July 17 that Pakistan and Kuwait are discussing a broader defense partnership that could include troop deployments, fighter aircraft, and air defense cooperation in exchange for expanded energy ties and investment.
Confident messaging aside, Iran is being squeezed from every direction—and the outcome of Armenia’s June 7 national election is one more piece of that deteriorating picture. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s victory in the elections represents a clear popular rejection of his Kremlin-aligned opponents—and a significant failure for Moscow’s effort to install friendlier leadership in Yerevan. It is also, by extension, a defeat for Tehran, whose regional partnerships have relied heavily on the same axis of resistance to Western and Turkish influence that Pashinyan’s electorate just repudiated.
However, the election is a beginning, not an endpoint. What comes next will determine whether Armenia’s gradual westward drift becomes irreversible. It will also shape whether a durable peace with Azerbaijan finally takes hold. Just as importantly, it will test whether the United States can translate this moment into lasting influence in a region that Russia has long considered its backyard and that Iran has long counted on as a strategic landbridge. Washington and its Gulf allies should pay close attention and actively encourage Yerevan to move forward.
Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party won roughly 49.8 percent of the vote, securing 64 seats in the new 105-seat National Assembly. While it retained its governing majority, Civil Contract lost seven of the 71 seats it previously held. The opposition immediately rejected the results, began mobilizing its supporters, and filed a legal challenge, which Armenia’s Constitutional Court rejected on July 4, upholding the results.
The process has unfolded against a delicate diplomatic backdrop. On July 6, Pashinyan made his first foreign trip since the election, traveling to Russia to meet Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. Mishustin signaled that Moscow is watching the new government closely—a pointed reminder of the stakes given the campaign’s pro-Western tilt. The Kremlin will likely continue seeking ways to exacerbate any divisions among the Armenian electorate, with efforts focused on stopping any attempts to amend the country’s constitution.
With its electoral proxies defeated, Russia’s next objective is to prevent Pashinyan from pushing through a constitutional amendment, which is needed for finalizing the 2025 peace agreement with Azerbaijan. Here, the arithmetic gets complicated. Civil Contract fell short of the two-thirds supermajority required for constitutional changes. That gap really matters. The preamble to the current Armenian constitution references the country’s 1991 Declaration of Independence, issued when the USSR collapsed and Armenia and Azerbaijan, along with other states in the South Caucasus and Eurasia, became independent.
The preamble includes language about the reunification of Armenia with “Nagorno-Karabakh.” This is the Russian place name. This territory was internationally recognized as belonging to Azerbaijan, as stated in 1993 UN Security Council resolutions 822, 853, 874, and 884, and has become the focal point of a bitter dispute between the two countries, one that stands to be resolved now, provided they can move forward with a peace agreement.
The main issue with the Armenian constitution, as it currently stands, is that any agreement signed by Pashinyan’s government may not bind future governments if they choose to reinterpret the constitutional provisions and once again make territorial claims on Karabakh. Without revisions to the constitution, the agreement will be just a temporary arrangement, and not the basis of permanent peace.
With a strong popular mandate behind him, Pashinyan has the political standing to present a constitutional referendum as a national endorsement of peace—if he can secure the votes.
Six seats short of a supermajority, Pashinyan’s most viable route is not to seek wholesale cooperation from the opposition, which is almost certainly out of reach. Instead, he is likely to work on building a narrow, issue-specific coalition around the provisions tied to the peace agreement. By framing the amendments as technical prerequisites for international normalization rather than partisan concessions, he lowers the political cost of supporting or at least abstaining for pragmatic opposition deputies. Even a handful of defections from non-aligned blocs could bridge the gap.
This is where Washington comes in. The Trump administration could provide critical diplomatic cover, using its relationships with both Yerevan and Baku to reinforce the logic of constitutional adjustment as part of the broader settlement linked to the “Trump Route” connectivity framework. Supporting Armenia’s constitutional process isn’t just good regional diplomacy—it directly serves US strategic interests at a moment when both Russia and Iran are comparatively constrained in the South Caucasus. Anchoring peace, infrastructure development, and institutional reform within a Western-backed regional order would entrench American influence in ways that will outlast any single administration.
The opportunities are real: a resolution to one of the post-Soviet world’s most intractable frozen conflicts, a more prosperous and stable Armenia, and proof that unresolved Soviet-era disputes can be settled rather than inherited indefinitely. Moscow is already working to prevent it all. Tehran is watching nervously. The question is whether Washington will work just as hard to make it happen.
Kamran Bokhari, PhD, is a senior resident fellow at the Middle East Policy Council and a senior director at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy in Washington. A strategic forecaster, Bokhari teaches Eurasian geopolitics at Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program. Dr. Bokhari is the author of Political Islam in the Age of Democratization (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/silk-road-rivalries/russia-lost-armenia-so-did-iran
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The results of the additional admission phase for full-time studies in bachelor’s and continuous and integrated educational programs at public and private higher education institutions in Armenia have been summarized. According to data provided by the Assessment and Testing Center, an additional 1,073 applicants have been admitted to Armenian universities through this additional phase. Earlier, a total of 9,885 applicants were admitted as a result of the main competition phase.
Thus, in September 2026, 10,958 freshmen will begin their studies in public and private higher education institutions in Armenia, constituting 69.1% of the applicants (15,859 applicants) who registered for universities and specialties and 49.35% of the total number of graduates from general educational institutions (22,205 graduates) in 2026. The number of applicants admitted during the main and additional phases corresponds to 86.15% of the total 12,720 places allocated for the 2026-2027 academic year.
It is noteworthy that the number of students admitted to full-time bachelor’s, continuous, and integrated educational programs has increased from 9,700 to 10,970 between 2021 and 2025. The figure for 2026 remains stable, showing an approximate 13% growth compared to 2021. In addition, there has been an increase of about 1,300 applications submitted during the main and additional phases of the university admission process. The increase in the number of registrations and specialty selections indicates a growing interest in continuing education through higher education programs.
Below, we will detail the phases of university admission and their outcomes in comparison to previous years’ statistics.
Who and When Could Participate in the Additional Admission Phase?
Applicants who did not get admitted to their chosen specialties during the results of the main competition phase but achieved positive scores in unified exams were eligible to participate in the additional admission phase. Unlike the main phase of the competition, where the applicant registers for one university with one specialty, in the additional phase, applicants have the opportunity to apply for available spots in one or multiple universities across up to six specialties.
Participation from candidates has seen growth, with over 50% of graduates participating in the university admission examinations. The government has allocated 12,720 places for the 2026/27 academic year, of which 2,133 are fully reimbursed by the state, while 10,587 are within the paid system.
In the first phase of the main university admission competition in December 2025, 12,447 applicants registered on the dimord.am platform to take the unified examination—about 800 more than the same period last year. The majority of applicants were graduates of the 12th grade, with over 50% of the 22,205 graduates from general educational institutions registering for the first phase of the unified exams.
During the second phase of the main competition from April 15 to May 10, 2026, 16,482 applicants registered on the dimord.am platform, surpassing last year’s figures by 471. Among these, 15,859 applicants registered for universities and specialties: 12,893 registered for two unified exams, while 2,897 registered for two internal university exams, and 69 registered for one unified and one internal exam.
In the main competition phase, 97% of applicants registered for state universities, while 3% registered for private universities. It is worth mentioning that applicants who registered in the second phase had the opportunity to maintain their scores from the first-phase exams, yet registration through the dimord.am platform and selection of the university and specialty remained mandatory.
A total of 28,929 applications were submitted during the first and second phases of the competition, exceeding previous year’s figures by approximately 1,300. In the third phase of the main competition, 493 applicants from Tavush region registered to take experimental unified exams based on new criteria; their number last year was 319. The performance of candidates in experimental examinations has shown improvement compared to last year.
For the 2025/26 academic year, 12,126 places (2,142 free and 9,984 paid) were allocated, with 11,608 applicants sitting for the exams in the first phase, while 16,011 registered in the second and third phases, resulting in at least one unified examination application totaling 27,619. Among these, 15,463 registered for both universities and specialties.
For the 2024/25 academic year, 16,037 places (2,117 free and 13,920 paid) were allocated, with 9,671 applicants registering for the first phase, and 11,785 in the second and third phases—totaling 21,456 applications received for at least one unified examination. Among the applicants, 14,242 registered for both universities and specialties.
Students admitted to universities constitute about 70% of the applicants who registered for specialties.
As noted, on July 18, the results of the main phase of the university admissions were published. According to the GTPC data, 9,885 applicants were admitted to universities in Armenia through the main phase. From these, 9,661 applicants (97.7%) were admitted to state universities, while 224 applicants (2.3%) were admitted to private universities. A total of 1,876 applicants will receive full reimbursement of tuition fees (including 50 students who will study under targeted education), and another 183 applicants have benefited from the privileges specified in points 78, 80, and 81 of the Armenian government’s decision No 597-N dated April 26, 2012.
On July 30, the results of the additional phase of university admissions were also summarized, with 1,294 applicants applying and 1,073 being admitted (83.2% in state and 16.8% in private universities). Therefore, of the 12,720 places allocated by the government for the 2026/27 academic year, 10,958 have been filled as a result of the admission phases. Admitted applicants represent 69.1% of the 15,859 registrants for university specialties. Out of those admitted, 96.3% will study in state, while 3.7% will study in private universities.
For the 2025/26 academic year, the number of admitted students (10,970) constituted 70.9% of the total number of applicants (15,463) registered for universities and specialties. In the 2024/25 academic year, out of 14,242 applicants registered for specialties, 10,720 were admitted (75.27%).
Promotion of Priority Directions in Education
In the context of promoting admissions to priority specialties for the state, for the 2026/2027 academic year, of the 2,133 places allocated for full reimbursement of tuition by the state in higher educational institutions, 1,282 (60.1% of the total places) were designated for the natural-mathematical sciences area. The number of completely reimbursed places allocated in priority specialties has increased year by year over the past three years, amounting to more than 1,270 for the 2,142 places allocated for the 2025/2026 academic year (over 59% of the total places), 1,264 for 2,096 places in the 2024/2025 academic year (61% of the total), and 1,174 for 2,146 places in the 2023/2024 academic year (55% of the total).
Most Demanded Universities and Specialties by Applicants
According to preliminary data, the highest number of accepted applicants during the main and additional phases belongs to Yerevan State University, Armenian State University of Economics, and National Polytechnic University of Armenia. Below is a ranking of the top universities by the number of accepted students, representing 84% of all admitted students (comparable to 2025 figures).
The list of most demanded specialties has remained unchanged compared to last year. The specialty of “Dentistry” at Yerevan State Medical University has the highest ratio of applicants per available spot, with 3 applicants for one place, followed by the specialty “Economics” at YSU with 2.7 applicants per place, and the specialty “Law” at RAU with 2.5 applicants per spot. Each of the specialties “Medical Affairs” at YSMU, “Applied Statistics and Data Science” at ASUE, and “Public Administration” at YSU received 2.3 applications per spot.
In absolute numbers, the leaders are “Medical Affairs” at YSMU (832 applications, 397 admitted), “Architecture” at YSAFA (442 applications, 245 admitted), and “Economics” at ASUE (402 applications, 205 admitted). In the additional phase, the specialty “Economics” at the National Polytechnic University of Armenia leads with 75 accepted applicants. Other in-demand specialties included “Service,” “Political Science,” “Translation Studies (English and Armenian),” “Information Systems,” “Chemical Sciences,” “Pharmacy,” and “Computer Engineering” from different universities.
Among private universities, the “Dentistry” specialty at Haybusak University in Yerevan and “Medical Affairs” at the Armenian Medical Institute led with 22 and 18 accepted applicants, respectively.
Results regarding admissions for priority specialties and other details regarding university admissions for 2026-2027 will be published as the data is compiled.
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The Multi Wellness Center, owned by businessman and opposition Prosperous Armenia Party’s arrested chairman Gagik Tsarukyan, is appealing the decision of the Yerevan Municipality in court, by which the center was recently deprived of the right to build, and the area had passed to the community.
According to the DataLex judicial information system of Armenia, the representative of Multi Wellness is asking the court to invalidate the transaction made by the Yerevan mayor on June 8, by which the city hall unilaterally terminated the contract signed with Gagik Tsarukyan.
Tsarukyan’s lawyer is also demanding that the court invalidate the decision of the Cadastre Committee of Armenia, by which the right to build of Multi Wellness was terminated on July 14 and the property was fully registered as the property of the Yerevan community. The Cadastre Committee does not comment on their aforesaid decision.
The Yerevan Municipality terminated the lease agreement for Tsarukyan’s Multi Wellness weeks ago. And last weekend, Yerevan Mayor Tigran Avinyan announced that it had reopened under a new name and would be under the control of the Armenian capital’s authorities.
Meanwhile, the aforesaid center had leased the land with the right to develop it until 2065 under a 2016 land lease agreement with the city authorities. But Avinyan took not only the land from Tsarukyan, but also the building built on it and the property inside.
The Yerevan Municipality did not elaborate on the grounds for this change and whether there are such provisions in the agreement. Azatutyun, the RFE/RL’s Armenian service, has sent a written request regarding both those grounds and the legality of the current managing of the complex’s income, as well as the provision of compensation to the businessman.
The date of the respective court hearing is not yet known.
As part of the illegal property confiscation proceedings, the Yerevan Ararat Brandy-Wine-Vodka Factory and the AraratCement plant, owned by the family of Gagik Tsarukyan, have been taken over by the state.
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Dr. Arnold Gazarian, a generous and visionary benefactor of Fresno State, died on June 16 at the age of 95. A dentist, community leader and philanthropist, Gazarian leaves an enduring legacy of advancing education and creating opportunities for students.
Dianne and Arnold Gazarian
Gazarian served on the Fresno State Foundation Board of Directors and the Maddy Institute Board of Directors, and he was chair of the Armenian Studies Program Advisory Board at Fresno State. In 2008, he and his wife Dianne received the Arthur Safstrom Service Award and the Top Dog Alumni Award for their contributions to Fresno State.
The Gazarians’ gifts to Fresno State included support for the Smittcamp Alumni House, the Fresno State Library and the President’s Fund, the Arnold and Dianne Gazarian Real Estate Center and the Haig and Isabel Berberian Endowed Chair in Armenian Studies.
“Dr. Arnold Gazarian’s remarkable generosity, leadership and commitment to ethical service strengthened Fresno State and created opportunities that will benefit all future generations of students,” said President Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval. “Dr. Gazarian’s support of Armenian Studies was visionary — through his support of business education, Armenian studies and civic engagement, he built enduring connections between the university and the community. We are deeply grateful for his vision and friendship, and we extend our heartfelt condolences to the Gazarian family.”
Gazarian strongly believed in the importance of business ethics based on his years of experience as a real estate investor. When he and his wife created the endowment for the Gazarian Real Estate Center in 2006, they made only one stipulation — the center could establish any curriculum it wished, as long as it taught business ethics.
“We hope that this gift will assist the university in making it a leader in educating real estate professionals, conducting real-world research and promoting high ethical standards,” Gazarian said in 2006. “We also hope that the center will bring together members of the real estate community to discuss issues of importance to the industry.”
Dr. Andres Jauregui, director of the Gazarian Real Estate Center, said that the Gazarians’ support nurtured a deeper connection between the university and the community of real estate professionals.
“In the 20 years the Gazarian Center has been in operation, we have strengthened engagement with the business community, which has provided our students with opportunities to network with real estate professionals and benefit from their experience,” Jauregui said. “Real estate professionals recognize the Gazarian Center as a bridge between the industry, students and faculty. We are very grateful for Dr. Gazarian’s generosity and vision. His legacy lives on in the many students who have benefited from his support.”
Gazarian was a highly active member of the Armenian community, and in 1988 he and Dianne established the Haig and Isabel Berberian Endowed Professorship in Armenian Studies, named in honor of Dianne Gazarian’s parents. This was the first endowed professorship at Fresno State.
“The Gazarians’ support for Armenian studies was unwavering and a fundamental reason why the program has grown and thrived,” said Barlow Der Mugrdechian, director of the Center for Armenian Studies. “Dr. Gazarian was a member of the Armenian Studies Advisory Board, and someone I could rely on from the community to give me sound advice. He will be missed by the Armenian studies program, the university and the community.”
“Dr. Gazarian was a valued member of the Maddy Institute’s Board of Directors,” said Blake Zante, executive director of the Maddy Institute. “His meaningful contributions to the Institute in its formative years provided life-changing opportunities for students to gain real-world experience in public service.”
In addition to his philanthropy for Fresno State, Gazarian was a member of the Downtown Exchange and the Knights of Vartan and established the Presidential Chair in Dentistry at UCSF School of Dentistry.
Gazarian is survived by Dianne, his wife of 67 years, their four daughters and their families.
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The writer of ‘Meet the Cartozians’ chats with her leading actress about the history behind the play, the complicated effects of assimilation, and Armenian pride and trauma.
Playwright Talene Monahon talked with Andrea Martin, the Tony-winning actor who originated the roles of Markrid and Rose in Meet the Cartozians, about the play’s development and impact. This is a longer version of an interview that appeared alongside the full playscript of Meet the Cartozians, which is published in the Summer 2026 print edition.
ANDREA MARTIN: How did this play come about? I think readers would like to know, because every time I explain the play to somebody who hasn’t seen it, they’re immediately attracted to the historical component of it.
TALENE MONAHAN: I started thinking about Armenian identity and how it intersects with whiteness during the summer of 2020, when I had a lot of time on my hands. There was this big reckoning with racial justice and I was thinking a lot about colorism. I got into sort of an argument with my mom about whether her parents, my Armenian grandparents, were white. I was like, “Of course they’re white.” And my mom was like, “I don’t know that their experience was of being white people.” Then I remembered there was a court case that settled this question, so I Googled that, and lo and behold, the entire transcript of this 1925 court case exists online. It’s really long, and in some places really boring, and in some places really fascinating. But the whole thing is sort of ugly and strange; the way people are talking about race and ethnicity and identity in the transcript is bizarre to a modern ear. And even though they don’t speak a lot in the case, I was really struck by the testimony of Tatos Cartozian and Hazel Cartozian. Then I read that there was a brother, and that he didn’t testify. I got really wrapped up with who these people might have been, and what it meant ultimately that they won the case.
At the same time I was going through this massive transcript of this court case, I was watching Keeping Up With the Kardashians for the first time. I found myself jumping back and forth between the two—the court transcript and the reality show—and thinking about Armenian American identity then and Armenian American identity now. That’s kind of how the idea for the play formed in my mind. I thought about some of the most famous Armenian women—and how I don’t know that they could exist in the way they do in society right now if this court case hadn’t gone the way it did one hundred years ago. I was thinking a lot about the legal privileges that whiteness grants, but also just the weirdness of the Armenian American identity, being sort of Christian from the Middle East, and from this really small country where people are like, “Is that Albania?”
I never thought anyone would produce the play. I was sure that it was so niche; there are so few Armenians, and no one’s gonna care except for me. In some ways, it felt like a writing exercise to debate these questions for myself. Every time I sort of felt like I understood something, then I started arguing with myself about it, which I think is why the characters are so confused in the play. In some ways, it felt like a writing exercise to debate these questions for myself. So it’s been heartening to feel like so many other communities relate to the play—that it’s not a uniquely Armenian experience. What I’ve learned is that this experience I had worried was too niche ended up being the play’s superpower. There is something about the kind of unknown, mysterious factor of Armenian identity in American society that allows our community to be a pretty ideal blank slate on top of which we can discuss these thorny questions of whiteness and the way it makes people behave. I ended up being like: It had to be the Armenians!
Left to right: Andrea Martin (Markrid), Raffi Barsoumian (Vahan), Tamara Sevunts (Hazel), Nael Nacer (Tatos), and Will Brill (McCamant) in “Meet the Cartozians” by Talene Monahon at Second Stage Theater in 2025. (Photo by Julieta Cervantes)
Well, Armenians are so dispersed around the world that, at the core of every Armenian is that we’re just looking for somebody to connect with. Your play did that. But you just said something I don’t think is true: I don’t think the characters you created are confused. I think what made them so profoundly interesting is that you had each person examine two different sets of reality. It made it so rich, to be able to play a character that has beliefs and is very adamant about their beliefs, but also can learn at the same time another belief. I think it was so dimensional.
When I say confused, what I mean more is that I’m not really interested in writing a play that delivers a single answer or a clear message. So maybe “confused” is a less generous way of describing what I was really going for and trying to work out, which is that there are many different perspectives on what it means to be a white person in America and what that experience is, and how it relates to a person’s religion, to the way a person presents physically, to a person’s citizen status. Even within a family, there can be different experiences. I don’t have an answer about what makes a white person. I think that is a question that we are still struggling to understand, and the play is not designed to answer that question.
But it’s designed to have people think when they’re leaving the theatre what it means to be white. I don’t think people left and just said, “Gee, that was really good. Anyway, should we go to the Smith?”
I hope so. That’s the dream. It was very moving to have people from different ethnic backgrounds relate to the conversations in the play; that was really exciting to feel. But also, having Armenians in the audience was so great because they were so enthusiastic—the thing about Armenians is we really hold this amazing duality:we are so starved for representation, and also we’re obsessed with ourselves!
Are we doing that for posterity—as a way to keep Armenians alive?
I don’t know. There’s so much pride, sometimes too much pride. Like, calm down. Armenians will tell you that they invented everything.
Well, I do love that they invented the Armenian alphabet. And they invented a pot.
Left to right: Tamara Sevunts (The Celebrity) and Nael Nacer (Robert) in in “Meet the Cartozians” by Talene Monahon at Second Stage Theater in 2025. (Photo by Julieta Cervantes)
I have to discuss going to Armenia. This is before I knew you. I was in Debet, in the countryside, and there’s this incredible school for Armenian children in a very rural town, this very well-resourced school, and there are all these Armenian children learning there. I walk in, and there’s the Andrea Martin Auditorium.
That is because of the Children of Armenia Fund, Garo Armen’s organization, which has transformed villages that were abandoned when the Soviet Union left. Garo has really given Armenia a future, because he’s educating children that wouldn’t have been educated. So I love Garo, and I love Alice Saraydarian, his beautiful partner. When they said they were going to name that auditorium after me, I’m like, “Oh my God, that’s better than a Tony.”
I’m curious to hear more about your relationship to Markrid and your relationship to Rose, and what it was like approaching two different characters in one play.
Well, luckily, I knew intimately the two prototypes of the characters. My grandmother, for instance, had come over from Turkey, and so I was very familiar with the person who feels misplaced, displaced, yet still has so much pride, and for whom it’s difficult to assimilate. I understood and had great affection for that woman, because I love my grandmother. And then, Rose is like many of the Armenian women I know today, probably my age, who are culturally involved and in everybody’s business. She knows the answer to everything and is not afraid of grabbing you by the arm and pushing you into another conversation—just aggressive and stubborn and loud and proud. These women I have great affection for too.
Do you have a favorite line or a favorite moment from the play?
Oh, God, I’ll probably start crying when I say it. The moment in the first act when the lawyer wants to know if I was married, did I have a husband, you wrote this beautiful, maybe six or seven lines, where she couldn’t give in to the great tragedy that he was no longer alive. She couldn’t help herself from having the memory of watching her husband beheaded, but she didn’t break; for the sake of her family, she had to remain sturdy and strong, and had to say, “My husband, yes, he makes things, he builds things.” She couldn’t allow herself to fall apart. I think that tells a story, in just those few lines, about so many women who couldn’t allow themselves to fall apart and had every right to, seeing their husbands, their children, their friends raped, beheaded. I mean, this is their life, but they couldn’t crumble. You captured that in that moment. It was so beautiful. So I remember that; thanks.
That speaks to this challenge I felt in writing the play, which is knowing that a lot of the audience wouldn’t know what the Armenian genocide was and hadn’t heard of it, so I had the burden of explanation. But at the same time, even though this family had been personally affected by the genocide, I felt strongly that they would never speak about it—it was culturally forbidden, and also it was still too soon. So one of the challenges I was reckoning with when I was writing Act One was, how do I convey that these are people who are carrying an unimaginable amount of trauma, without them ever having a conversation about it? And then it was interesting to contrast that with the second act, several generations removed from the genocide, which centers on a group of people who are talking very freely about trauma and the way they personally feel the effects of experience the genocide, talking so freely about this event that happened to their grandparents and their great-great-grandparents. I’m interested in the way we talk about these things, and how it changes over time as we get more removed from it generationally.
You know, you can be physically removed, but I think if you’re an Armenian, the reality of the genocide is in your body. I think that you’re just one beat away from expressing what that feels like, even if you’re not talking about it every day. I think it’s really passed down through generations, the pain. There’s a guilt, and it’s unresolved. I always think of Armenians constantly trying to defend themselves; maybe that’s why they’re so loud, to point out, “I’m strong, I can do this!” It’s complicated.
Another thing I thought a lot about was this idea of when we as assimilated Armenians can sort of opt into identity and when we can’t. Everyone in the family in the first act has an accent; they come from this foreign culture, and are actively working to assimilate, to sort of tamp down on these things that define them culturally, which in some ways is a very tragic process. I think a lot about this in my family, because my family today is obsessed with being Armenian. And a lot of that is because of things that have been passed down from our grandparents and the experience of growing up in a pretty tight-knit Armenian community. But there’s also this sense of…I feel like I have the privilege to opt in or out at any time of this identity on sort of like a superficial level. I get to be like, I’m going to look up a traditional Armenian recipe, or I’m going to get some Armenian jewelry, and no one’s going to “other” me for doing that. It’s going to be this fun sort of exotic thing that I do. And that is a privilege that really comes from being several generations into assimilation–which is related to the legal privileges gained from this case.
I also feel like we had different experiences growing up, because there’s this big Armenian community outside of Boston, so I had so much of my Armenian family right there in the area. We lived five minutes away from my grandparents, and we had Armenian grocery stores; I was baptized in an Armenian church, I went to sleepaway camp and Armenian nursery school. My mom was in an Armenian women’s club that met once a month. So it was a big part of my community and culture. My sense is that there was less of that up in Maine, where you grew up.
Yeah, no, there was none of that. The most important thing was to try to be not Armenian. My father’s goal was to assimilate. His father changed his name. I used to do that joke: “My grandfather’s name was Papazian, but he saw the name Martin on the side of a truck, so he took the name; he also took the truck.” That would get a laugh. Why was it so important to assimilate? Because when Armenians came here from Turkey or Armenia, what they had witnessed was so painful and grotesque that I think to start fresh in a new country, it was imperative to let go of all of that. I don’t know how people could hold on to the Armenian culture when all they saw was pain and all they all they wanted was safety, right? They escaped out of necessity, so I think they felt they had to assimilate or else maybe something terrible was going to happen to them.
Left to right: Nael Nacer (Tatos), Will Brill (McCamant), Raffi Barsoumian (Vahan), Tamara Sevunts (Hazel), and Andrea Martin (Markrid) in “Meet the Cartozians” by Talene Monahon at Second Stage Theater in 2025. (Photo by Julieta Cervantes)
I know we’ve talked about how this process felt different and new to you. Looking back, what do you think your process was on it, and how do you feel about it now?
I don’t know if you know this. You and I did a reading at Lincoln Center. I thought the play had more than I could even understand in one reading, but I was so drawn to it, and to your enthusiasm and kindness and youth and adulation for me—which really is the only thing that I cared about. [Laughter] We finished it, and I’m like, “Oh my God, she’s written this potentially really funny part, and I’m really frightened that I’m going to do it like I played the character in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.” I was really concerned that it was going to be over the top, and I didn’t want that. So I asked my agent if he would introduce me to David Cromer, and the first thing I said to him was, “If I do this, please don’t let me be Aunt Voula in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.” I’m sure he would have liked something like, “How are you? It’s so nice to meet you.” Anyway, he was fabulous, he said that’s not at all what was expected of me. That gave me confidence that I could do it with him at the helm, and that I wouldn’t lean on things that I’d known had worked in the past.
And you really didn’t. I think we all had to sort of find the line in the play between allowing it to be funny, but never at the expense of how real people behave.
I’ll tell you a big thing that surprised me, and also Cromer, was that we both had an idea that the first act was going to be really difficult to figure out, because we had people speaking Armenian, with different degrees of accents, a huge amount of legal exposition, and it was set in 1924, so there was a formality to it. There were just a million things that felt really hard. And we both felt that Act Two was going to be so easy and was going to play like gangbusters, and if we could just get the audience to Act Two, we would be okay.
It was really the opposite; the big challenge once we started previews was figuring out Act Two, whereas Act One, the way Cromer crafted it, was so successful that he felt that the audience came back and got mad because they were like, “Where’s that nice family? Who are these people talking about their gluten sensitivities?” Audiences were really kind of mad, and we had to win them over and show them that these were people who were also worth caring about, even though the stakes didn’t feel as high. So it was a real process, landing Act Two tonally, and also cutting it. Allowing Act Two to sing was about figuring out where to cut and being really sensitive to audience attention spans.
You had a beautifully exotic first act that wasn’t very long and whetted people’s appetite. You gave them characters they’d never seen before.
And then I took them all away!
Just as the audience was sitting back, saying, “Oh, wow, and look at that head gear, and that costume, and wait, this Armenian girl is falling in love with a lawyer, and what is that going to be like?” Then all of a sudden, they’re uprooted, and now you’re in the modern day, with loud Armenians talking about the Kardashians—it’s a big shift. But here’s the good news: You succeeded. People have never said words to me as kind as they did after that show, like, “This is the best play I’ve ever seen,” or, “This the best work you’ve ever done.” I’m like, “Really? I’ve done so much.” [Laughs]
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1- If Pashinyan Jails Catholicos Karekin II
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is crossing all permissible red lines, exceeding every limit on his power.
In the past eight years, Pashinyan has violated hundreds of laws and multiple provisions of the Constitution. Meanwhile, a large number of Armenians have been thrown in jail, not for violating the law, but for simply disagreeing with him — a fundamental right that all citizens are supposed to enjoy in a democratic state.
Pashinyan has made it clear that laws do not apply to him. He can violate any law, and no judge can stop him, as he has boastfully claimed.
Ever since seizing power in 2018, Pashinyan has viciously attacked the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church and its leadership. Despite his unchristian behavior, he frequently quotes the Holy Scriptures to deceive his gullible followers. The Holy Bible cites Matthew 4:5-7, Luke 4:9-12, and Psalm 91:11-12 — in which the devil, also quoting Scriptures, urged Jesus to throw Himself down from the top of the Temple, claiming that the angels would save him. Jesus responded by quoting Deuteronomy 6:16: “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”
Even though there has been an unsubstantiated rumor for a long time that the Catholicos had fathered a child, Pashinyan waited for seven years after coming to power to exploit this rumor when it suited his narrow political purposes. For over a year now, he has abused his high office by trying to depose Catholicos Karekin II.
Pashinyan has made public calls, issued personal threats, and even used vulgar language on his Facebook page to force the Catholicos to resign. Having failed in all of these attempts, he went as far as blackmailing 10 high-ranking clergymen to force them to side with him against the Catholicos. Under the guise of “reforming” the Church, he formed a “citizens’ committee” to replace the Catholicos. It is mind-boggling that a man who is too incompetent to rule the country wants to meddle in the internal affairs of the Church and decide who should be the next Catholicos. This is none of his business.
Naturally, all of these efforts are clear violations of Armenia’s Constitution, which calls for the separation of Church and State. But, since Pashinyan has established an autocratic one-man rule, he persists in trying to impose his will. In early January, when Catholicos Karekin II and a committee of six bishops dismissed Bishop Gevorg Saroyan as the Primate of the Masyatsotn Diocese, Pashinyan urged Saroyan to reject the Church’s internal decision and file a lawsuit to block his dismissal. The Church leadership then defrocked him on January 27.
The Court illegally ordered the Catholicos not to dismiss Saroyan and banned Karekin II from leaving the country, depriving him and the six bishops of the Supreme Spiritual Council of the opportunity to participate in an important episcopal conference in Austria. Nevertheless, the conference was held, and the 25 bishops who gathered from around the world expressed their support for the Catholicos and criticized Pashinyan’s government for prosecuting the Church.
The preliminary hearing for the trial of the Catholicos and the six other bishops is set for August 7, at 4 pm, at the Vagharshapat (Etchmiadzin) Court. This is the first time that the independent Republic of Armenia has filed criminal charges against a Catholicos of All Armenians. During their centuries-long rule, neither the Ottoman Empire nor Czarist Russia ever brought legal charges against any of the Catholicoi. The only exception was the murder of Catholicos Khoren I, who was strangled to death by Soviet security agents on April 6, 1938.
The dragging of the Catholicos to court is an illegal act and a flagrant abuse of power by Pashinyan’s government. Armenians have been telling the world with great pride for over 1,700 years that Armenia was the first state to adopt Christianity. Yet, their own government is treating the Church’s leadership as criminals.
The only good news is Catholicos Karekin II’s announcement that he will not resign even if he is arrested and imprisoned. He will continue to serve as the legitimate Catholicos even while sitting in jail.
The Pashinyan government has, over the past eight years, committed a series of unprecedented anti-Church acts:
— In 2018, it canceled the diplomatic passports of clergy members.
— It eliminated the subject of “History of the Armenian Church” from the public school curriculum.
— In 2024, it discontinued the services of the chaplains stationed at penitentiaries.
— It terminated the spiritual services of the chaplains in the Armed Forces.
— It plans to confiscate all Church buildings and properties.
— Its security forces raided the grounds of Holy Etchmiadzin to arrest an Archbishop.
— It arrested and imprisoned several high-ranking clergymen on bogus charges.
— In violation of Parliament’s rules, the authorities did not allow the Catholicos to say a prayer at its opening session on August 2, 2026.
— It collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes and penalties from the Church on candles bought by worshippers, even though the Church is a non-profit organization and those purchasing candles are making donations.
Judge Hakob Manukyan should dismiss the charges against the Catholicos and the six bishops on August 7 so that he will not become an accomplice to Pashinyan’s illegal actions. Otherwise, Judge Manukyan will become the subject of international ridicule when the European Court of Human Rights eventually rules that his verdict violated Armenia’s Constitution.
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Benny SunResident AdvisorThe Chicago-based artist has launched a fundraiser to assist with costs associated with her detainment.Palestinian-Armenian DJ Nanoos was detained in Manchester on accusations of terrorism following an incident described as a “right-wing demonstration.”
The incident took place on July 18th, the day after the Chicago-based artist headlined a Pardee Bass event at Northern Quarter venue Soup. Wearing a keffiyeh, Nanoos allegedly engaged with a gathering she believed to be a vigil for Iranian victims of war, but turned out to be a right-wing demonstration, per a statement she shared to Instagram yesterday. She was then detained for 11 hours by Greater Manchester Police on accusations of terrorism. Her phone remains confiscated by the police.
The artist was told she couldn’t leave the country until she reported back to the police the following week on July 25th. When she returned to the station, she was told there had been no movement on the case, and while she was free to leave the country, her phone was not returned.
Nanoos has launched a fundraiser, which has since raised over $5,000, to cover lost travel expenses and gig fees, costs of staying in Manchester and future legal fees as the investigation continues. She was previously set to continue her European tour through Edinburgh, Glasgow and Berlin.
“I never thought something like this would happen to me,” she wrote on her donation page. “And although DJing looks glamorous, the income is really rough, and there’s no safety net when everything falls apart at once.”
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Originally from the province of Van, he was born into a family of 14 members, of which only he and his mother survived the genocide.
His father and three of his uncles were killed in a work battalion on the way to Bashkale, after the mobilization of 1914.
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They were among the thousands of mostly young Israelis who on that May afternoon marched through the historic Old City for a national celebration that marks the capture of East Jerusalem in 1967. It is an annual show of force that the area’s mostly Palestinian residents find provocative.
On that recent afternoon, there were at least a dozen spitting incidents near the Armenian church alone, according to security-camera footage, witnesses and a Wall Street Journal reporter on the scene.
Incidents of anti-Christian hate, once sporadic, are becoming routine in Jerusalem, a city held sacred in Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Most Israelis condemn this behavior, but negative attitudes toward Christianity have become more common, particularly among young people, surveys show.
The incidents are embarrassing for Israel’s right-wing government, which says it is committed to upholding religious freedom in a region where discrimination is common. The government has appointed a new Arab Christian ambassador to help smooth relations with Christian communities, but critics say it isn’t doing enough.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right national security minister, was the defense lawyer of the arsonists. He has said spitting on Christians is an ancient Jewish custom and shouldn’t be considered a crime.
Benedictine Abbot Nikodemus Schnabel said the situation has worsened dramatically since he first arrived in Jerusalem in 2000. At the time, spitting was rare. “Now there is no day that people are not spitting at me,” said the German-born monk. The attackers often come for his pectoral cross and sometimes shout at him to remove it.
In the first half of 2026, Harani’s organization registered 107 anti-Christian incidents, more than double the figures it recorded in the same period in 2024. The majority occurred in and around Jerusalem’s Old City and the most common form is spitting and verbal abuse, including shouts of “Death to Christians.” Trash is often thrown at monasteries. The biggest culprits were young Israelis, the report found.
The overwhelming majority of Christians who live in Jerusalem are Palestinian Arabs. But much of the anti-Christian behavior targets foreign clerics, nuns and the city’s overtly Christian symbols, according to victims and rights groups that monitor such incidents.
In April, a French nun on Jerusalem’s Mount Zion was shoved to the ground by a Jewish extremist. The nun recovered from her head injuries and the perpetrator was quickly detained, but victims and rights groups say most incidents, which are usually nonviolent, go unpunished.
There is also a deep-rooted fear of Christian proselytizing, and they oppose the statues and icons in churches that many regard as idolatry. Many are resentful of the Catholic Church for criticizing the conduct of the war in Gaza and for speaking out in defense of Palestinians.
Ramon used to take Israeli high-school students on field trips to Christian sites, but as students and their parents increasingly objected to those trips, most schools gradually stopped offering them. Ramon ended her tours in the mid-2000s.
Some Jewish extremists say they want Jerusalem’s churches destroyed or converted into synagogues. Among them is 19-year-old Atara Serwatien. “It should be a Jewish state,” she explained.
In March, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa—the most senior representative of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land—was denied entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for Palm Sunday Mass.
Even if all sites of worship were closed to the public because of the continuing Iran war, Pizzaballa and another senior cleric planned a private ceremony in the church, where Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected. Nonetheless, they were still blocked by Israeli police.
“This incident is a grave precedent, and disregards the sensibilities of billions of people around the world who, during this week, look to Jerusalem,” the church leaders said in a statement. Israel acknowledged the mistake and Pizzaballa was allowed to celebrate Easter Mass the following week.
Anti-Christian behavior has tested the support of Israel’s staunchest allies in the U.S. When Mike Huckabee took over as U.S. ambassador to Israel last year, he was shocked to discover that evangelical Christian organizations were struggling to obtain visas. A strong supporter of Israel, Huckabee ran a tour company that brought thousands of Christian pilgrims to Israel and the West Bank and never had problems.
Huckabee went straight to Israel’s minister of interior, but the problem persisted, so he turned to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who finally helped release the visas.
She often accompanies a group of nuns from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, where they deliver food and clothes to the homeless and drug addicts. During one such mission, a group of young men from a yeshiva—a traditional Jewish seminary or academy—spat near the nuns.
Nudelman and her colleagues reported the incident to the head of the yeshiva, who vowed to take action. A few weeks later, when the nuns returned to the same spot, they were approached by students from the same yeshiva. Instead of spitting at them, the students greeted the white-veiled nuns with a warm “Shabbat Shalom!”
“For the first time, they were trying to reach out,” said Nudelman. “They wanted to understand.”
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