Four-year-old Vardan’s glance is on the screen, and his hands are in the sand on the table. He gathers the sand in his small fist and lets the sand smoothly slide down between his fingers and cover the glass table. Following a painter’s hands he copies the movements of her fingers on the sand and tries to draw the characters of his favorite tales – a hedgehog, a bear, and a rabbit.

Every Sunday, priests of the Armenian Apostolic Church serving at Saint Sargis Church in Nor Nork (district in Yerevan) pass Christian values to young people who have different occupations and interests, gathered in the bright church hall.

The New Year hustle in most families in Armenia starts not with holiday decorations, but rather with mathematical calculations.

Traditionally Armenians lay festive tables during New Year from December 31 and refresh them daily up until “Old New Year”, January 13. The feast table usually includes a pork shoulder, turkey, meat pancakes, tolma, ishli kufta, pasuts tolma (fasting tolma), various salads, dried fruits, sweets, cakes, beverages, etc., which according to the most humble calculations, need at least 150,000-200,000 drams (about $390-$520).

Stray animals in the streets of Yerevan continue to be a matter of concern for animal-lovers who believe that the municipality is not taking proper measures to solve the issue.

After visiting Armenia, Istanbul-Armenian Janet Petrosoglu felt the controversy of her national identity issues even stronger than before, against her prior expectation of finding some relief.

“In Armenia I felt that I would keep on living with an internal split. Turkish-Armenians are identified with Turks here; and we are still confined to living between three fires: in Turkey we are not treated as full-right citizens, because we are Armenians; in Armenia we are not treated as full-right Armenians because we are citizens of Turkey; and we are chastised by the Diaspora, because we do not voice the issue of the Armenian Genocide,” she says.

Lusik’s sea-blue eyes hold the reflection of the red-glowing tonir, the fire pit used in the process of making lavash, Armenian flatbread. She slaps another sheet of flour mix against the tonir’s hot wall. The paper-thin bread starts to change from yellow to brown, and with tender hands used to working in the heat, Lusik removes another piece that will add to the bulk of about 330 slices of lavash she makes every other day.

The newly built church in the border village of Movses has become the last hope of having a little safer life for the villagers who live under apprehension of daily shootings.

Residents of the village, about 300 meters away from the border with Azerbaijan (about 230 kilometers from Yerevan), say 90 percent of the village is under Azeri surveillance from an observation post.

The last sun of autumn lightened the orchards in the town of Meghri, bunched between high mountains. The short trees of pomegranate and fig bent with abundance, painting the landscape orange and red.

The harvest has come, but, like every year, sales of the fruit have not.

Criticism over TV production, particularly soap operas, continues in Armenia, however, the TV content undergoes no change. During the recent years a number of artists, psychologists, specialists in conflictology, and even lawmakers have touched upon the content of soap operas (which have huge TV audience and provide TV channels with substantial advertisement profits), demanding to improve their content in order not to harm people’s, especially young people’s psychology. In response to this demand, soap opera producers say that they reflect the real life and do not intend to make heroes out of criminals, but instead they try to bring to light all negative phenomena and morals and manners of public life.

A retrospective photo exhibition, called ‘On the Road of Independence’ by the late Armenian photographer Ruben Mangasaryan, makes the new generation aware of the difficult way that Armenia has passed while achieving independence.