Elizabet Abrahamyan Makes History, Crowned European Table Tennis Champion in Slovenia 🇦🇲 ➖➖➖ Elizabet Abrahamyan, the Yerevan-born table tennis player who represents Russia, has won the women's singles title at the 2026 European Table Tennis Championships in Ljubljana, Slovenia, reports Zartonk Sports, with video footage by agoilrosso/Instagram. The 23-year-old beat Germany's Annett Kaufmann 4:3 in Sunday's final, in a match that went the full seven games: 15:13, 11:5, 5:11, 9:11, 12:10, 6:11, 11:6. Abrahamyan entered the tournament seeded 35th and came through qualifying, becoming the first player in the history of the European Championships to win the women's singles title after starting in the qualification rounds. Her run to the final was built on comebacks. In the semifinal against France's Prithika Pavade, she saved a match point while trailing before taking the deciding seventh game 13:11. In the final against Kaufmann, a friend since their junior years, she recovered from 10:8 down in the fifth game and closed out the decider 11:6. Abrahamyan reached Ljubljana despite an injury, visa complications, and lost luggage on her way to the tournament. "I think this is the best match I've ever played," she said after the final. Born in Yerevan, where she began training, Abrahamyan moved to Nizhny Novgorod with her family at the age of 8. She is a two-time European under-19 champion.

Armenian Football Legend Nikita Simonyan’s Statue Unveiled in Moscow 🇦🇲 ➖➖➖ A statue of the legendary Armenian footballer and coach Nikita Simonyan has been unveiled at Spartak Moscow’s home stadium, reports Zartonk Sports. The statue stands in front of the stadium’s Stand A, which is named after him, and was raised to mark the 100th anniversary of his birth on October 12. It was unveiled before Spartak’s Russian Premier League match against Rubin Kazan. Born Mkrtich Simonyan in Armavir, he was later given the name Nikita by friends and became known as Nikita Simonyan. He spent most of his playing career at Spartak Moscow, from 1949 to 1959, and remains the club’s all-time top scorer with 160 goals. He was a four-time Soviet champion, a two-time Soviet Cup winner, and an Olympic gold medalist with the USSR at the 1956 Melbourne Games. Simonyan’s greatest mark on Armenian football came as a coach. In 1973, he led Yerevan’s Ararat to the Soviet Top League title and the Soviet Cup in the same season. That team, known as Ararat-73, completed the first and only league-and-cup double in Armenian football history, beating Dynamo Kyiv in the Cup final, and it remains the greatest achievement the Armenian game has produced. He later spent more than 30 years in leadership roles in Soviet and Russian football, first with the USSR Football Federation and then the Russian Football Union. Nikita Simonyan passed away on November 23, 2025, at the age of 99.

Sisian's Priest Prays for Ani Avetisyan & Her Children With a Cross From Jerusalem 🇦🇲 Father Davit Gishyan, the spiritual shepherd of the Sisian community, visited Ani Avetisyan in hospital on October 15 and blessed a cross brought from Jerusalem in her name, for protection and preservation from the Lord. Father Davit held a spiritual conversation with Avetisyan and performed a prayer of healing at her bedside. He and Deacon Samvel Grigoryan, who accompanied him, gave her spiritual books. Grigoryan described the visit on his Facebook page, calling her a heroine mother, and published the healing prayer. "Lord Jesus Christ, we ask you to heal Ani Avetisyan, her little ones, and relieve their injuries and pains," it reads, asking God to grant them perfect health and to extend mercy to Avetisyan, her children and her family. Avetisyan was shot on October 1 in Shaki, in Syunik, after an Azerbaijani serviceman entered her home and held her two children at gunpoint. She fought him off with her bare hands and a kitchen knife and was shot in the leg. She has said that if she had not acted, neither she nor her children would be alive. She remains hospitalized in Yerevan. Surgeons amputated a finger and shortened her leg, her husband said on October 8, and she faces three more operations and two to three months of care. Her son underwent hand surgery, neither child has returned to school, and their grandparents are looking after them. Avetisyan and both of her children were recognized as victims on October 12, according to Armenia's Investigative Committee. Nasimi Musayev was apprehended shortly after the attack and is in pretrial detention on five charges in Armenia.

Massis Kabob to Open First Armenian-Owned Restaurant in a U.S. Airport at Hollywood Burbank's New Terminal 🇦🇲🇺🇸 ➖➖➖ Massis Kabob is set to open its 8th location inside Hollywood Burbank Airport's new $1.3 billion terminal. The family-run company said the location is believed to be the first Armenian-owned restaurant in a U.S. airport. The terminal opened to travelers on Tuesday, October 13, with the first flight departing at 7 a.m. The opening comes as Massis Kabob, "The Original Kabobery," marks its 50th year in business. The late Hacop "Jack" Baghdassarian started the company in 1976 as a single stand in the Glendale Galleria food court. The family said his goal was to bring authentic Armenian cuisine into the heart of Southern California. "Dad wanted to have something that was Armenian in this brand-new shiny mall," his son Peter Baghdassarian said in a 2024 interview with KTLA. Baghdassarian, an immigrant with an 8th-grade education, spent years working 7 days a week to build the business. "He worked his tail off," his son Gevik Baghdassarian said. "He was the first one in and the last one out and made sure he was always there." Baghdassarian passed away in 2017 at age 69. He is remembered as a family man and a philanthropist who donated to local schools, scholarships and community organizations. The family still owns and operates Massis Kabob, which brothers Peter and Gevik Baghdassarian now run as they carry forward their father's legacy. On Saturday, September 3, 2022, they opened the company's first standalone restaurant, at the corner of Colorado Boulevard and Glendale Avenue in Glendale. In 2024, KTLA described Massis Kabob as "a household name with seven locations in the Southland." The family said the Burbank location places Massis Kabob among the first to represent the Armenian community in one of the region's most prominent new gateways. The airport serves more than 6.2 million passengers a year. Food service in the new terminal is run by Burbank-headquartered Metropolitan Culinary Services, which has provided food and beverage service at the airport since 1992. It won the new contract after the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority voted 7-1 in its favor. Company President Steve Mora said its "local-first approach, offering the best of restaurants from Burbank, Glendale, and Pasadena" helped win the deal. Massis Kabob joins Jones Coffee Roasters, Poquito Mas, West Coast Customs' SmashBurger, Perry's Joint and Flavortown by Guy Fieri among the terminal's announced vendors. The building has more than a dozen dining options. Glendale is one of the airport's 3 owner cities through the Airport Authority. Burbank voters approved the terminal through Measure B in 2016 with 70 percent of the vote. The 355,000-square-foot building keeps the airport's 14 gates and replaces a terminal complex whose original facilities opened in 1930.

ON THIS DAY in 1859, Diana Abgar, the First Armenian Woman Diplomat Who Saved Thousands of Genocide Survivors from Her Home in Japan, Was Born in Rangoon. 🇦🇲 Today marks the 167th birth anniversary of Diana Abgar, born on October 17, 1859, in Rangoon, British Burma. One of the earliest English-language voices to document and advocate against the Armenian Genocide, Abgar became the first Armenian woman diplomat and one of the first women ever appointed to a diplomatic post in the 20th century, serving as Honorary Consul of Armenia to Japan after securing Japan's recognition of the First Republic of Armenia in 1920. She did all of this without ever setting foot on Armenian soil, earning her the name by which history remembers her: The Stateless Diplomat. Her story begins with a 400-year-old wound. In 1604, Shah Abbas I of Safavid Persia forcibly deported more than 150,000 Armenians from the ancient trading city of Julfa, razed the city to the ground, and resettled the survivors in a new district outside Isfahan called New Julfa. Over the next three centuries, those exiled Armenian merchants built one of the greatest trading networks in the world, stretching from Isfahan to Calcutta, Rangoon, Hong Kong, Singapore, Manila, and Shanghai, becoming known across the Indian Ocean trade system as the "Merchant Princes of India." Diana was born into that network. Her father's family came from New Julfa in Isfahan, Iran, and her mother's family from Shiraz. Her father ran a trading post in Rangoon, which is why she was born there. She was raised in Calcutta, educated at a convent school, and grew up fluent in English, Armenian, and Hindustani. In 1889 she married Michael Apcar, a descendant of the House of Apcar of New Julfa and heir to the Apcar & Co. shipping dynasty based in Calcutta. In 1891 the couple moved to Japan to expand the family's trading operations into East Asia, settling first in Kobe and later in Yokohama, where Diana would live for the rest of her life. Japan is where everything changed. After the Adana Massacre of 1909 and the beginning of the Armenian Genocide in 1915, Abgar turned her writing, her reputation, and her home into a lifeline for her people. She wrote for The Japan Advertiser, The Far East, The Japan Gazette, and the diaspora journal Armenia, becoming one of the first voices in the English-speaking world to document the destruction of the Armenian people. She lectured publicly in Japan on the Armenian cause and corresponded directly with President Woodrow Wilson, pleading for international attention to the "Armenian agony." As Genocide survivors escaped the Ottoman Empire eastward across more than 6,000 miles of Siberian railroad to the port of Vladivostok, they discovered that the only boats out of Russia went to Japan, a country that had no refugee policy and would not let them in. Abgar intervened personally with Japanese officials, using her reputation to vouch for them one by one. According to her great-granddaughter and biographer Mimi Malayan, Abgar helped between three and four thousand Armenian refugees enter Japan and continue onward to the United States and Canada, personally funding, housing, feeding, and arranging transit visas and ship passage for them from her home in Yokohama. On July 21, 1920, in recognition of years of work she had already carried out without any official title, Armenian Foreign Minister Hamo Ohanjanyan appointed her Honorary Consul of Armenia to Japan "for defending the interests of the newly-born Fatherland, and mitigating the conditions of our compatriots." She authored 9 books in total, including "Betrayed Armenia" (1910), "The Truth about the Armenian Massacres" (1910), "Peace and No Peace" (1912), "The Great Evil" (1914), and "On the Cross of Europe's Imperialism: Armenia Crucified" (1918), all published from Yokohama by the Japan Gazette Press at a time when Western governments were still refusing to acknowledge what was happening to the Armenian people in the Ottoman Empire. Diana Abgar passed away on July 8, 1937, in Yokohama, at the age of 77, and is buried at the Yokohama Foreign General Cemetery beside her husband and two sons. Her grave is cared for today by the Japan-Armenian Friendship Association in Tokyo. In 2020, HayPost issued a commemorative postage stamp in her honor as part of its "Armenian history" series, and a park in Yerevan on Aram Street now bears her name. Born in Burma, raised in Calcutta, settled in Japan, Diana Abgar carried Armenia with her across three continents and seven decades of work for her people, serving a homeland she loved but never saw.

Leonardo DiCaprio Praises Armenia for Co-Leading a 17-Country Endangered Species Coalition Launched in Yerevan 🇦🇲 ➖➖➖ Leonardo DiCaprio credited Armenia by name for leading a new international coalition on endangered species, launched on October 16 at the COP17 Leaders’ Summit in Yerevan. “17 countries, led by Armenia and Colombia, joined the new Coalition of Action to Recover Endangered Species (CARES), committing to accelerate efforts to prevent extinctions and achieve measurable species recovery,” the actor wrote on Instagram in a post shared with Re:wild, the conservation organization he co-founded. “Preventing extinction isn’t enough. We need to bring threatened species back from the brink and recover them,” DiCaprio wrote. “Today’s announcements at the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP17) signal growing global momentum to make that happen.” Armenia and Colombia co-chair CARES, carrying forward their roles as the COP17 and COP16 presidencies. The coalition aligns national action with Target 4 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which calls for urgent action to halt human-caused extinctions, with measurable progress by 2030. “As host of COP17, Armenia wants this conference to be known by the action it sets in motion,” said Hambardzum Matevosyan, Minister of Environment of Armenia and president of COP17. The 17 founding governments are Armenia, Belize, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Fiji, Indonesia, Madagascar, Mexico, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the United Kingdom, and Vanuatu, with Reverse the Red serving as secretariat. Separately the same day, nine philanthropic funders launched the Species Recovery Alliance, committing more than 500 million dollars over five years for species that are extinct in the wild, critically endangered, or endangered. Re:wild is among them, alongside the Bezos Earth Fund. More than 31,000 species fall into those categories, and research cited by the alliance found 57 percent of threatened species need targeted intervention beyond habitat protection. COP17 runs from October 19 to 30 in Yerevan.

Armenia's Eduard Spertsyan Named to Marca's 100 Best Players of the Season List, With Messi, Ronaldo & Yamal 🇦🇲 ➖➖➖ Armenia national team captain Eduard Spertsyan has been named to Marca's list of the 100 best players of the 2025/26 season, reports Zartonk Sports. The list from the Spanish sports newspaper, announced on October 15, places the Armenian midfielder among the biggest names in world football, including Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kylian Mbappé, and Lamine Yamal. The other nominees feature Erling Haaland, Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham, Vinícius Júnior, Ousmane Dembélé, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Pedri, and Rodri. The winner is chosen by a jury of more than 200 members, with the result announced on October 22. The award is a separate honor from the Ballon d'Or, which is presented by France Football. Spertsyan, 26, was born in Krasnodar and came up through the academy of Russian club Krasnodar, where he spent his entire senior career before this summer. In 2024/25 he captained the club to the Russian Premier League title, the first in Krasnodar's history. He scored 14 goals in 42 appearances across all competitions in the 2025/26 season. In the summer of 2026 he moved to Saudi club Al-Ahli, where he has recorded two goals and three assists in his first eight rounds of the Saudi Pro League. He has represented Armenia since 2021 and was named captain of the national team in November 2025.

Iran Says It Trusts Armenia & Will Not Oppose Trump Route, as Yerevan Rules Out a U.S. Military Presence in Syunik 🇦🇲 🇮🇷 ➖➖➖ Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in Yerevan on October 16 that Tehran trusts Armenia on the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, the planned transit route through southern Armenia that would connect mainland Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave and to Turkey. "We don't have any concerns. We trust our Armenian brothers," Araghchi told RFE/RL's Armenian Service. He declined to comment further on the project. Other reporters at the COP17 Leaders' Summit asked whether Iran still has concerns about the route and about the American presence in the region. "We have concerns about any US presence in the region and around us," Araghchi said. "We trust them, and we know that they will do nothing against Iran's security." Armenia's Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said the same day that there will be no American military presence along the route, and that coverage of Iran's concerns in some Armenian media outlets has been significantly exaggerated. Mirzoyan Said There Will Be No American Military Presence Along TRIPP Mirzoyan was asked at a press briefing whether he had resolved Iran's concerns during his visit to Tehran. He said the Iranian side had asked whether there would be an American military presence along TRIPP. "There will not be," Mirzoyan said. "People ask, and we tell them there will not be." He said the documents and the situation on the ground both support that answer. "The Iranian side has questions, and those questions have been answered," Mirzoyan said. He added that his impression is that Iran is satisfied with the transparency of the process. Asked about Iranian statements that a third party's presence could destabilize the region, Mirzoyan said it is a textbook truth that an outside armed presence would complicate relations between two countries. He said he was not clear what Iran was referring to specifically. Mirzoyan was in Iran on October 4 and 5, where he met Araghchi, President Masoud Pezeshkian, and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and briefed Pezeshkian on the implementation of TRIPP. Araghchi referred to that visit in Yerevan, calling Mirzoyan his good friend and describing the talks as productive consultations. The Signed Agreement Gives a U.S.-Controlled Company 74 Percent of the Project for 49 Years The framework agreement between Armenia and the United States on strategic cooperation concerning TRIPP was initialed in Yerevan on May 26, 2026 by Mirzoyan and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, signed in Washington on June 1, and signed in Yerevan on June 4. Its published text creates a TRIPP Development Company incorporated in Armenia as a joint stock company, in which a Delaware subsidiary of the United States International Development Finance Corporation holds a 74 percent controlling stake and Armenia holds 26 percent. Article 6 grants the company land and development rights for an initial term of 49 years, with an option by mutual consent to extend for a further 50, at which point Armenia's stake would rise to 49 percent. Either party can terminate the agreement with written notice, effective one year later. The preamble states that Armenia retains full sovereignty, territorial integrity, and jurisdiction over all TRIPP project areas. Under Article 8, Armenia keeps responsibility for security, law enforcement, border control, customs, immigration, and tax collection, and has the right to maintain a physical presence at all of its border control facilities. The text contains no clauses on military presence or deployment. "If the term is extended, it will be ensured that the Republic of Armenia holds 49% of the company's shares," Mirzoyan said when he presented the ratification bill in July. The government referred the agreement to the Constitutional Court, which ruled that its obligations comply with the Constitution, and it now awaits ratification by the National Assembly. The Route Runs 43 Kilometers Through Meghri Along Armenia's Border With Iran TRIPP was agreed at a White House meeting on August 8, 2025, hosted by United States President Donald Trump with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, where the two leaders initialed the text of a peace agreement without signing it. The route covers a 43-kilometer (27-mile) section through the town of Meghri in Syunik, running along the Arax River and Armenia's border with Iran. Its main objective is to restore the old rail line, and the development company is to form separate vehicles for rail, road, oil and gas pipelines, fiber optic cable, and electricity. Iran's Ambassador Has Called for a Mechanism to Manage the Risks of a U.S. Presence Iran's ambassador to Armenia, Khalil Shirgholami, said in September that Tehran would not object to the route if Armenia's sovereignty and territorial integrity are respected and any threatening American military presence is ruled out. He has also called for a mechanism to manage what he described as the potential risks of an American presence and threats to Iran arising from the project, and said the American and Israeli military campaign against Iran had made those risks clearer. Iran raised its objections within days of the Washington meeting in August 2025. Deputy Foreign Minister Vahan Kostanyan traveled to Tehran, where he said Armenia had taken Iran's concerns into account and that the arrangement does not mean American involvement in regional security. Araghchi told IRNA the following day that no American troops would be stationed near Iran and that all of Iran's red lines had been respected. Ali Akbar Velayati, then a senior adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told Tasnim News Agency in August 2025 that the project is "a political plot against Iran and other neighboring countries" and "not merely a trade route." He said, "NATO wants to lie between Iran and Russia like a viper, but Iran will not permit it." Tehran has long opposed the "Zangezur corridor" concept and any change to the Armenian-Iranian border. A Carnegie Europe analysis published in March 2026 described Iran's government as divided, with its security establishment opposed outright while officials in the economic affairs and transportation ministries under Pezeshkian saw room for dialogue and suggested Iran could tolerate a railroad under Armenian jurisdiction. Pashinyan and Pezeshkian Met in Yerevan, Their Third Meeting in Under a Month Pezeshkian arrived in Yerevan on Friday morning and was welcomed at Zvartnots Airport by Armenian Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan. Pashinyan met him that afternoon on the sidelines of the Leaders' Summit. Pashinyan said the frequency of high-level meetings shows that both countries want to keep developing relations, according to the Armenian government's press service, and Pezeshkian said expanding ties across multiple sectors carries critical strategic importance. It was their third face-to-face meeting in under a month, after talks in New York on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly on September 24 and a meeting in Turkmenbashi, Turkmenistan, on October 9. The Leaders' Summit was held on October 16. COP17 runs from October 19 to 30 at the Meridian Expo and Event Center in Yerevan, with its opening ceremony on October 18.

UN Secretary-General Says Release of 19 Armenian Prisoners in Baku Is "A Matter of Great Interest to Us" 🇦🇲 ➖➖➖ United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres was asked in Yerevan on October 15 what the UN would do about the 19 Armenians Azerbaijan has unlawfully held since its ethnic cleansing of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), and he did not answer. "I am a strong supporter of the peace agreement," Guterres said at the press conference, adding that he hoped its provisions would be carried out. "I'm very hopeful that things will move fast in order to complete the peace agreement." Asked whether the UN would take any concrete step toward the prisoners' release, Guterres said only that it is "a matter of great interest to us." Pressed on why the UN was not putting more pressure on Azerbaijan's president, he pointed back to the agreement. "We call on all parties to implement all provisions of the agreement as quickly as possible," he said, "including those concerning detained persons." Asked how peace could hold while the men remain in Baku, he said the prisoners are "only one of the directions, and there are other directions." He called the unresolved matters regrettable and said he hoped they would be settled quickly. Guterres did not say what the UN itself is doing. He was in Yerevan for the leaders' summit ahead of COP17, the United Nations biodiversity conference Armenia hosts at the Meridian Expo Center from October 19 to 30. The Agreement He Pointed To Is Yet to Be Signed, and Pashinyan Wants It Signed by 2031 Pashinyan and Aliyev initialed the peace agreement at the White House on August 8, 2025, with President Donald Trump as mediator. What they signed that day was a joint declaration and a joint appeal to the OSCE to close the Minsk Process. The agreement itself has yet to be signed or ratified. Neither the agreement nor the declaration signed alongside it obliges Azerbaijan to release the prisoners. Azerbaijan has conditioned signing on Armenia amending its constitution to remove the reference to the 1990 Declaration of Independence, which mentions Artsakh. Hours before Guterres spoke, Pashinyan told a Cabinet meeting that signing and ratifying the agreement is the top priority of the government's 2026 to 2031 program. "I have also set this task for myself, with a specific timeline: to achieve its resolution by 2031," Pashinyan said, adding that he sees the possibility, and that otherwise he would not have said it aloud. The day before, he described what he expects Armenia to look like once the treaty is signed: a territory of 29,743 square kilometers fixed by delimitation and demarcation under the Alma-Ata Declaration, regional roads unblocked, and the enclave and exclave question settled by territorial exchange, with neither side holding claims against the other. Azerbaijan Is Holding 19, and 8 of Them Led Artsakh Azerbaijan seized the 8 former leaders in September 2023, as its offensive drove the entire Armenian population of Artsakh, 120,000 people, out of their homeland in a week. A court in Baku sentenced 5 of them to life in February: former president Arayik Harutyunyan, former Defense Army commander Levon Mnatsakanyan, former first deputy commander Davit Manukyan, former foreign minister Davit Babayan and parliament speaker Davit Ishkhanyan. Former presidents Arkadi Ghukasyan and Bako Sahakyan received 20 years each, as did Ruben Vardanyan, the businessman who served as state minister. Vardanyan was convicted on more than 40 counts including "financing terrorism" and "creating illegal armed groups." Among the others, Madat Babayan and Melikset Pashayan were given 19 years each, Garik Martirosyan 18, Davit Alahverdyan and Levon Balayan 16 each, and Erik Ghazaryan, Gurgen Stepanyan and Vasily Beglaryan 15 each. Journalists were barred from the proceedings and the only account of them came from Azerbaijan's state news agency. Armenian lawyers and human rights organizations have called the trials a sham. The European Parliament and 101 Members of Congress Have Already Demanded Their Release The European Parliament adopted a resolution on October 8 demanding that Azerbaijan immediately and unconditionally release the Armenian prisoners it holds. Days earlier, 101 members of the United States Congress, led by Senators Adam Schiff and Gary Peters and Representatives Gus Bilirakis and Frank Pallone, urged the State Department to help secure the release of the Armenian prisoners illegally held by Azerbaijan and to end Azerbaijan's military presence on Armenian territory. No Timeframe Has Been Set, and the Foreign Ministry Calls It a Humanitarian Issue Robert Abisoghomonyan, Armenia's deputy foreign minister, was asked on October 14 whether the prisoners could be raised at COP17. He said the ministry has put the matter on various platforms repeatedly, including specialized and sectoral meetings, and that it could come up in bilateral meetings with the high-level delegations arriving for the conference. "COP17 is mainly dedicated to the environmental agenda," he said, describing the prisoners as primarily a humanitarian issue handled through humanitarian organizations. Alen Simonyan, appointed Secretary of Armenia's Security Council in August, told reporters on October 16 that no timeframe has been set for the men's return, though he said the matter is worked on daily. "Didn't they return prisoners? This is a process," Simonyan said, and he criticized opposition figures for what he called noise and aggressive statements on the subject. He said Azerbaijan accuses the prisoners of crimes and has to explain the case to its own society, which he linked to the rhetoric coming out of Baku. Armenia currently holds 1 Azerbaijani prisoner of war, he said. Simonyan also said he had told Aliyev directly that his statements land hard in Armenia. "Mr. President, you should know that your statements are perceived extremely sensitively in Armenia," he said he told him, adding that Aliyev replied, "Okay, fine." On Azerbaijan's decision to skip COP17 in Yerevan, Simonyan said the choice was Baku's and should not be read into the peace process, and that there is no tension between the two sides and none expected. He said Armenia skipped a summit in Baku in 2019. He said there are no agreements with Azerbaijan on the enclaves and exclaves, that talks continue on exchanging Tigranashen for Artsvashen, and that no Armenian territory has been given to Azerbaijan and none will be.

Armenia Welcomes a Record 290,016 Tourists in September, the Highest Month of 2026 🇦🇲 ➖➖➖ Armenia welcomed 290,016 tourists in September 2026, a 26.6 percent increase year-over-year, making it the highest monthly figure in the first nine months of the year, according to the Tourism Committee of the Economy Ministry. The total number of visitors from January to September 2026 reached 1,757,349, 1.3 percent above the 1,734,247 recorded during the same period in 2025. September's 290,016 arrivals also set an all-time September record, surpassing the previous high of 260,618 in September 2023 by 11.3 percent and exceeding September 2019's 221,507 by 31 percent. The result reverses a two-month summer decline that had pulled 2026 below the prior year's pace for the first time, after back-to-back drops of 24.6 percent in July and 32.1 percent in August. September's arrivals were roughly 28 percent above August's 227,026, erasing the deficit in a single month. The nine-month total remains 5 percent behind the January-September 2023 pace of 1,849,973, when Armenia went on to record its all-time annual high of 2.33 million visitors. Monthly arrivals in 2026 have now exceeded their 2025 counterparts in seven of nine months: January saw 179,409 visitors (up from 139,482), February brought 121,285 (up from 117,372), March recorded 152,444 (up from 129,887), April reached 172,705 (up from 123,705), May closed at 199,541 (up from 181,436), June ended at 216,214 (up from 215,253), and September reached 290,016 (up from 229,124). July and August were the exceptions, dropping to 198,709 (from 263,592) and 227,026 (from 334,396) respectively. The highest number of tourist arrivals during the January-September period came from Russia (704,935 individuals or 40%), followed by Georgia (241,002 individuals, 14%) and Iran (146,340 individuals, 8%). The top ten source countries also included China (38,474; 2%), the United States (37,856; 2%), Germany (29,550; 2%), Ukraine (24,311; 1.38%), France (23,909; 1.36%), Italy (19,064; 1%), and Belarus (12,394; 1%), with other countries collectively accounting for 27.26 percent of total arrivals. Belarus entered the top ten for the first time in 2026, displacing India which had held a spot throughout the earlier months. By border entry, Zvartnots International Airport continued to serve as the primary gateway for visitors, accounting for 59 percent of total arrivals, down from 60 percent during the same period in 2025. It was followed by Bagratashen (21%, up from 20%), Bavra (10.24%, up from 10%), Meghri (6.4%, up from 5%), Gyumri Airport (2%), Gogavan (2%), and Ayrum (1%). By gender, men made up approximately 55 percent of all arrivals, while women accounted for 45 percent, continuing a gradual narrowing from the roughly 60-40 split that held through the first half of 2026. In terms of age distribution, the largest group of visitors was working-age adults aged 35-44 at 24 percent, followed by 45-54 (18%), 25-34 (18%), 55-64 (13%), and 65 and older (8%), with under 12 at 8 percent, 18-24 at 7 percent, and 13-17 at 4 percent. Armenia recorded 1.89 million arrivals in 2019, which fell sharply to 375,000 in 2020 due to the pandemic, before rebounding to 870,000 in 2021, 1.67 million in 2022, a record 2.33 million in 2023, 2.21 million in 2024, and 2.26 million in 2025. The Tourism Committee has stated that Armenia expects to welcome at least 3 million tourists annually within the next five years, a figure equivalent to the country's population, with projections reaching 5 million within a decade.

Yerevan Places 236 Hectares of the Hrazdan Gorge Under Protection, Barring Hotels & Apartment Blocks 🇦🇲 ➖➖➖ The Yerevan City Council granted the Hrazdan Gorge the status of a specially protected natural area on October 13, placing 236.26 hectares of the river canyon that runs through the center of the capital in the category of protected landscape. The decision also approved the boundary description and map of the area and a temporary management program. City officials have said it makes Yerevan the first municipality in Armenia to create a specially protected natural area of its own. The designation became possible only after the National Assembly amended the Law on Specially Protected Areas of Nature in late June, which gave the city the power to act by council decision. Work on giving the gorge protected status started in 2022. Sirarpi Haykazyan, head of the Environmental Protection Department of Yerevan City Hall, presented the motion and told the council that the gorge's existing infrastructure is largely worn out and its water polluted, and that neither can be worked around. Access is mostly by car at present, and pedestrian access is planned. "Hrazdan Gorge, as a 'protected landscape,' must have a management plan," she said. Writing that plan will take a long time. An organization has been selected through a tender announced by the Asian Development Bank, and until the plan is adopted the city will run interim measures meant to hold the gorge in its current condition while opening it to recreation, letting visitors "connect with nature while minimizing the impact on biodiversity and ecosystem processes," Haykazyan said. Hotels and Apartment Blocks Are Barred, and the Restaurants Already There Are Undecided Hotels and buildings, including apartment buildings, will not be permitted in the protected area. Councillors pressed on what happens to what is already standing. Iosif Kubatyan of the Azgayin Progress faction called the project excellent but said it had come too late, since the gorge as such no longer exists, and asked what would become of the restaurants and of large structures built on riverbed land. Haykazyan said no restaurants would be rebuilt in the gorge. Kubatyan answered that they had been put up long before any of this. "The restaurants were built before you," Kubatyan said. Deputy Mayor Armen Pambukhchyan, who chaired the session, said he could not say at this point what would happen to them or when, and that the question would be taken up later. Arshak Sargsyan of the Mer Hayastan faction said he would vote for the measure but wanted deadlines, asking about the children's railway, sidewalks, broken trees and an old rusted kiosk. Haykazyan said 22 projects have been drawn up, including one for the children's railway, that the kiosk most likely falls under the unauthorized structures the plan refers to, and that deadlines cannot be set yet. A Quarter of Yerevan's Red Book Plants Grow in the Gorge About a quarter of the 33 plant species in Armenia's Red Book that grow anywhere in Yerevan are found in the Hrazdan Gorge, and threatened species are still being discovered there. The justification put before the council lists vulnerable animals in Armenia's Red Book living in the gorge: 4 invertebrate species, 2 lizard species, 3 snake species, 9 bird species and 2 bat species. The Yerevan stretch of the Hrazdan River holds 6 fish species. Riverside forest belts run along the lower and upper stretches of the canyon with mountain steppe vegetation above them, and the document describes it as one of the least disturbed areas left in Yerevan. It also records invasive species spreading through the gorge, including tree of heaven and box elder, which are displacing native growth. The Decision Lands Days Before Armenia Hosts COP17 Haykazyan described the measure as a commitment tied to COP17, the United Nations biodiversity conference Armenia is hosting in Yerevan later this month. "The adoption of this draft will be a very important decision ahead of COP17," she said the day before the vote. The Government Is Spending 172 Million Drams on the Gorge Separately The Cabinet approved 172 million drams, roughly 456,000 dollars, for Yerevan City Hall on April 9 to improve the gorge, with landscaping, a promenade, rest areas, platforms for sporting events, a space for outdoor film screenings and a cafe. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Mayor Tigran Avinyan visited the site in the Arabkir district in September 2025 to review the plan. Avinyan called the project part of the concept for the reconstruction and reconfiguration of the gorge, and said the city had studied the gorge's flora and fauna and identified areas designated as cultural heritage.

Aliyev Calls Artsakh Hostages "Fascists" at Baku Summit as Turkey Leads Major Walkout on Israel's President ➖➖➖ Azerbaijani dictator Ilham Aliyev called the jailed leaders of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) "war criminals and child killers" at the summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Baku on Thursday, October 15. Their trial in Baku, he said, was "an analogue of the Nuremberg Tribunal. Only this time, Armenian fascists were in the dock," APA reported. Later in the session, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan led a walkout as Israeli President Isaac Herzog, whom Aliyev hosted the day before, began speaking. Representatives of more than 10 countries left the hall, Turkey’s state news agency Anadolu reported. Delegates from Pakistan, Iran, Kuwait and the Palestinian Authority were among them, while Qatar’s emir stayed, The Times of Israel reported. "Cooperation cannot thrive with boycotts," Herzog said in his speech, according to Israel National News. Pro-government APA quoted him as saying "Azerbaijan is a very tolerant country." After meeting Aliyev at the Presidential Palace on Wednesday, Herzog said "Israel and Azerbaijan share a unique relationship.” Aliyev also said Armenians who had threatened to take Baku "are today drinking Azerbaijani tea in our prisons." Azerbaijan unlawfully holds 19 Armenians in Baku, including former Artsakh leaders and prisoners of war. "We took revenge on the battlefield and offered peace to Armenia," Aliyev said, adding, "We did not stoop to the level of the barbarians and child killers who caused so much suffering to our people." He claimed "Armenia forced us into war," though Azerbaijan launched the 2020 war on Artsakh, in which 3,833 Armenians were martyred and 191 remain missing, according to Armenian official figures. Aliyev said Armenia used the 2020 ceasefire to rebuild its army and, "with the help of its new patrons in the West, attack Azerbaijan once again." In fact, Azerbaijan launched its offensive on September 19, 2023, after a 9-month blockade of Artsakh, ethnically cleansing the region and forcibly displacing 120,000 Armenians. That offensive came a year after Azerbaijan attacked Armenia's sovereign territory in September 2022. Aliyev told the summit that peace with Armenia "remains fragile," two weeks after telling his party's congress that "a third Victory Arch would likely be standing in the center of Yerevan" had Azerbaijan "given in to our emotions." The walkout came days after Aliyev's ruling New Azerbaijan Party defended Azerbaijan's ties with Israel in a public rebuke of Erdoğan's chief adviser Oktay Saral and AK Party lawmakers, who had condemned Azerbaijani schools for turning away girls in hijabs. Aliyev received Fidan on Thursday, and the two discussed "recent developments" in relations between their countries, APA reported, without giving details. Fidan also met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines, Russia's Foreign Ministry said. On Wednesday, Azerbaijan's state Media and Broadcasting Council accused Iran and Turkey of "coordinated troll attacks" against Azerbaijan on X, Telegram and TikTok, without naming a single account. Israel supplied 69 percent of Azerbaijan's major arms imports from 2016 to 2020, the five years before the 2020 war, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Turkey delivered at least 5 Bayraktar TB2 drones shortly before that war began. Inside Azerbaijan, the Interior Ministry said on Monday that police had arrested 37 people in Baku in a criminal case over public order violations. Courts have since handed hijab protesters 10 to 30 days of detention, Meydan TV reported. One man received 30 days for writing "Freedom to the hijab!" on a school building, and another in Nakhichevan received 25 days over a TikTok video, Caucasian Knot reported. A mother held since Tuesday was told she must "uncover your child's hijab and send them to school, or you go to jail," her husband told Meydan TV. The arrest count comes from Aliyev's own Interior Ministry, and activists say more than 200 people have been detained, according to Caucasian Knot. Neither figure can be independently confirmed, because Azerbaijan has jailed or driven out nearly all of its independent press. Reporters Without Borders ranks Azerbaijan 171st out of 180 countries for press freedom and counts 24 journalists behind bars. Courts sentenced Abzas Media journalists who reported on government corruption to 7.5 to 9 years in prison, and Meydan TV, the exiled outlet reporting the hijab detentions, has had its own journalists arrested in Baku.

Narek Grigoryan Wins Three Golds & Sets a New European Junior Record of 322kg 🇦🇲 ➖➖➖ Armenian weightlifter Narek Grigoryan won three gold medals in the men’s 75kg category at the 2026 European U20 Weightlifting Championships in Durrës, Albania, reports Zartonk Sports. He took gold in the snatch, the clean and jerk, and the total, and set a new European junior record in the total. Grigoryan lifted 146kg in the snatch and 176kg in the clean and jerk for a 322kg total, the record mark, finishing 11 kilograms clear of the field. Ukraine’s Maksym Berezhnyi took silver with 311kg and Andrii Sklez won bronze with 310kg. A second Armenian in the category, Hovhannes Hovhannisyan, finished fourth with a 299kg total.

Aleksandra Grigoryan Wins Three Gold Medals, Crowned European U23 Weightlifting Champion in Albania 🇦🇲 ➖➖➖ Armenian weightlifter Aleksandra Grigoryan won three gold medals in the women’s 57kg category at the 2026 European Junior and U23 Weightlifting Championships in Durrës, Albania, reports Zartonk Sports. She took gold in the snatch, the clean and jerk, and the total. Grigoryan lifted 90kg in the snatch and 112kg in the clean and jerk for a 202kg total, finishing nine kilograms ahead of her nearest rival. Romania’s Dana Berchi took silver with 193kg and Turkey’s Merv Ilden won bronze with 187kg. The 20-year-old from Gyumri is now a repeat European U23 champion, having also won the title in Durrës in 2025. Earlier this year she took silver in the 58kg category at the senior European Championships in Batumi. Two other Armenians medaled in Durrës, with Seyran Khudanyan taking bronze in the 60kg U23 total and Davit Arakelyan a silver in the 65kg U20 snatch.

Actor Joe Manganiello Releases “Bloodlines,” a Memoir of His Armenian Genocide Survivor Roots & Secret Health Battle 🇦🇲 ➖➖➖ Actor Joe Manganiello released “Bloodlines,” a memoir about a secret 7-year health battle that led him to his family’s survival of the Armenian Genocide, on Tuesday, October 13. Avid Reader Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, published the 320-page book. Manganiello played the werewolf Alcide Herveaux on HBO’s “True Blood,” Big Dick Richie in “Magic Mike” and “Magic Mike XXL,” and Flash Thompson in 2002’s “Spider-Man.” The illness was kept from the public until the book was announced. The publisher writes that a series of autoimmune illnesses hit his skin, thyroid, eyes, lungs and digestive system. Doctors could not fully explain his condition. Coverage ahead of the release reported multiple near-death experiences and a life-saving organ amputation. “It was the most brutally difficult time of my life, one I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, but also my greatest adventure,” Manganiello said in a statement to PEOPLE. Looking for answers, he turned to shamanic practices, pagan rituals, ancient myths and old family records. That search led him to his Armenian ancestry and the inherited trauma he carried. His maternal great-grandmother, Terviz “Rose” Darakjian, survived the Armenian Genocide in 1915. Turkish soldiers shot her husband and 7 of her 8 children dead and shot her too. She lived by pretending to be dead. With a bullet still lodged in her body, she strapped her infant to her back and swam across the Euphrates River. The baby drowned in the crossing. She then lived in a cave with other refugees until German soldiers picked her up. Manganiello told her story on the PBS series “Finding Your Roots,” hosted by Henry Louis Gates Jr., in an episode that aired February 7, 2023. In May 2024, he spent 10 days in Armenia at the invitation of the Children of Armenia Fund (COAF), on whose board he sits. On May 29 he toured the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute in Yerevan with Diaspora Affairs High Commissioner Zareh Sinanyan and left a note in the memorial book of honored guests. During the same visit he planted a fir tree in the Memory Alley at Tsitsernakaberd in memory of his great-grandmother and grandmother. He has 2 Armenian words tattooed on his forearms: “Հրեշտակ” (angel), which he showed in August 2023, and “Բախտ” (luck), which he showed in April 2025. COAF gave him its Humanitarian Award at its 20th anniversary gala in New York in 2023. In spring 2025 he headlined the Armenian Assembly of America’s Advocacy Summit in Washington, D.C., and on April 2 gave the keynote address at the Congressional Armenian Genocide Commemoration on Capitol Hill.

Armenia’s Two-Time Olympian Elmira Karapetyan Wins Air Pistol Gold at the Shooting World Cup in Cairo 🇦🇲 ➖➖➖ Armenian shooter Elmira Karapetyan won gold in the women's 10m air pistol at the ISSF World Cup in Cairo, Egypt, on October 14, reports Zartonk Sports. She topped qualification with 582 points and scored 242.4 in the final to take the title, a result confirmed by the Armenian Shooting Federation. Bulgaria's Miroslava Mincheva took silver with 240.2 points, and France's Camille Jedrzejewski won bronze with 219.3. Karapetyan, 32, was the first female shooter to represent Armenia at the Olympic Games, competing at Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024, where she missed the 10m air pistol final by a single point to finish ninth. She has won World Cup gold before, taking the title in Rio de Janeiro in 2023, and won a mixed team silver at the 2023 European Games. The ISSF World Cup Rifle and Pistol event runs in Cairo from October 8 to 16, serving as a preparatory competition ahead of the ISSF World Championship in Doha, Qatar, from November 1 to 14.

Armenian-Founded Krisp Ranks 2nd Among 500 AI Companies on Trust, Ahead of OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft and Anthropic 🇦🇲 ➖➖➖ Krisp, the AI voice company founded in Yerevan, ranked 2nd among 500 AI companies worldwide in the Cybernews AI Trustworthiness Ranking 2026, scoring 97 out of 100, the same score as Google Gemini. Cybernews released the ranking on August 18, covering companies from 36 countries across 21 categories. Each company received a score from 0 to 100 built on 4 weighted pillars: public perception and data privacy count for 35 percent each, security for 20 percent and organizational transparency for 10 percent. Krisp and Google Gemini both scored 100 in security, data privacy and transparency, and 91 in public perception, with Cybernews listing Google first. Salesforce and Adobe's Firefly also made the top 10, with 95 and 94. Microsoft's Copilot ranked 18th and OpenAI 22nd, while Meta and Anthropic placed outside the top 40. The average company in the ranking scored 65 overall and 32 in security. Cybernews found that 63 percent of the companies did not clearly disclose whether user data is used to train AI models, and 65 percent did not clearly state how long they keep it. "Trust in AI has to be demonstrated, not claimed," said Arthur Soghomonyan, Krisp's Senior Director of Security. The company said its security is independently assessed under SOC 2 Type II and PCI DSS, and that customer data at rest is encrypted with AES-256. "Trust will become one of the defining competitive advantages in AI," said Davit Baghdasaryan, Krisp's co-founder and CEO. Baghdasaryan founded the company in Yerevan in 2017 with Artavazd Minasyan, a longtime friend with a doctorate in mathematics. Before that, Baghdasaryan spent 9 years in Silicon Valley, most recently at Twilio, where background noise on conference calls kept getting in the way of his work. The company was first named 2Hz. Krisp uses machine learning to separate a speaker's voice from background noise in real time, and it works with any video conferencing app. During the 2020 shift to remote work, its active users grew 20-fold and its enterprise accounts 23-fold, TechCrunch reported. TIME named Krisp one of the 100 Best Inventions of 2020 in its artificial intelligence category. Krisp is now headquartered in Berkeley, California. It sells an AI meeting assistant, accent conversion and voice translation tools for call centers, and noise cancellation SDKs for developers. TechCrunch reported in 2021 that the company's entire research team was based in Armenia.

Armenia's Foreign Minister Says "We Could Easily Wake Up Tomorrow Morning" to News of Open Border With Turkey After 33 Years ➖➖➖ Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said normalization with Turkey has "matured considerably" and that the closed Armenia-Turkey border could open at any moment, speaking at the Warsaw Security Forum on Tuesday, October 13. "The border is still closed, but I think the process has matured considerably," Mirzoyan said. "We could easily wake up tomorrow morning to a headline in the news feed" announcing the border is open, he said. Mirzoyan spoke on the panel "Half-Baked or Step-by-Step? Rethinking EU Enlargement," which opened with remarks by Montenegrin President Jakov Milatović. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys and Romanian Foreign Minister Oana-Silvia Țoiu also took part, and Steven Everts, Director of the EU Institute for Security Studies, moderated. Turkey sealed the border in 1993 in support of Azerbaijan's war on Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) and has kept it closed for 33 years. The 2 countries still have no diplomatic relations, and Ankara has never recognized the Armenian Genocide, in which 1.5 million Armenians were murdered between 1915 and 1923. In the 44-Day War in 2020, Turkey armed Azerbaijan with combat drones and sent Syrian mercenaries to fight for Baku, which also deployed Israeli-made drones. According to official Armenian data, 3,833 Armenians were martyred in the war, including 3,755 servicemen and 78 civilians. When Azerbaijan launched its military assault on Artsakh in September 2023, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged "wholehearted support" for Baku. Days later, he met Azerbaijani dictator Ilham Aliyev in Nakhichevan and praised the victory as 120,000 Armenians were forcibly displaced in the ethnic cleansing of Artsakh. Ankara has tied the border opening to the signing of the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace agreement. The agreement was initialed in Washington in August 2025 and remains unsigned, with Baku conditioning its signature on a new Armenian constitution. Mirzoyan said Armenia has peace with Azerbaijan, "though several steps still remain." Azerbaijan continues to unlawfully hold 19 Armenians hostage in Baku. They include former Artsakh State Minister Ruben Vardanyan, sentenced to 20 years, and former Foreign Minister David Babayan and former Parliament Speaker Davit Ishkhanyan, both sentenced to life by the Baku Military Court on fabricated charges. At the White House on August 8, 2025, US President Donald Trump offered to ask Aliyev to release the "23 Christians" held in Baku, telling Pashinyan he believed Baku would agree. Azerbaijan handed over 4 of them in January 2026 as Armenia transferred 2 Syrian mercenaries serving life sentences for fighting in the 44-Day War. Aliyev has since said Baku does not plan to release the Armenians convicted by its military court. In July 2022, the 2 countries' special envoys agreed to open the border to third-country nationals, and Ankara has yet to implement the deal. Ruben Rubinyan, Armenia's special envoy for normalization with Turkey, said in August that Armenia was ready to open the crossing to third-country nationals and diplomatic passport holders and was waiting on Ankara to act. Rubinyan, who became Speaker of the National Assembly the following day, said Armenia's infrastructure had long been ready and that Turkey had begun rehabilitating its section of the Gyumri-Kars railway up to the Armenian border. On the EU, Mirzoyan said no one knows where Armenia's path ends: not Armenia, the EU or the member states. He said serious conversation about membership has only just started in Armenia, although parliament passed a law in March 2025 launching the accession process. "At some point in the future we will discuss together whether we should marry or not," Mirzoyan said. He cited the visa liberalization dialogue, the EU Monitoring Mission on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border and a second EU mission on hybrid threats, and said Armenia received autonomous trade measures, a Growth and Resilience Plan and European Peace Facility support as a non-candidate country. Mirzoyan said Armenia will keep improving relations with its neighbors regardless of its European aspirations, though he acknowledged that conflicts with neighbors would probably harm a bid for full membership. He said the United States is heavily involved in unblocking transport links between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which he described as a crucial link between West and East, from Portugal to China.

Gagik Galfayan Named One of Five 2027 California Teachers of the Year 🇦🇲 ➖➖➖ Gagik Galfayan, a seventh-grade history teacher at Woodrow Wilson Middle School in Glendale, has been named one of 5 California Teachers of the Year for 2027, and is the only honoree from Los Angeles County. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond announced the 5 on October 8. They will serve as ambassadors for the teaching profession and represent California educators through 2027. "California's Teachers of the Year represent the very best of our profession," Thurmond said. The others are Katie Andan of La Costa Heights Elementary School in San Diego County, who is also California's nominee for National Teacher of the Year, Edmund Maino of Tehachapi High School in Kern County, Wendy Saldivar of Loara Elementary School in Orange County, and Ashley Uraine of Yucaipa High School in San Bernardino County. He Spent 6 Years Teaching in Glendale's Armenian Immersion Program Before Wilson, Galfayan taught for 6 years in the Armenian Dual Language Immersion Program at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School, where instruction runs in Eastern Armenian and students are also introduced to Western Armenian and Mesropian orthography through literature and supplementary materials. Glendale Unified runs the program from preschool through high school. Jefferson and R.D. White Elementary take it from kindergarten, Wilson and Eleanor J. Toll offer it as a middle school elective, and Clark Magnet, Glendale and Hoover high schools carry it as a world language. He has now taught 7 years at Wilson, where he teaches history, Advanced History 7 and yearbook. He chairs the history department, runs the Debate Club and serves as the Glendale Teachers' Association site chair. He Advanced Through 72 District Nominees to Reach the State Round Galfayan was named Glendale Unified's Teacher of the Year in April. In September the Los Angeles County Office of Education named him one of 16 county Teachers of the Year at its 45th annual awards banquet, chosen from 72 district-level nominees on the strength of essays, lesson plans and panel interviews. County offices of education feed their winners into the state competition. Department of Education committees then review the applications, assess rapport with students, classroom environment, presentation and teaching technique, and interview the candidates before the State Superintendent selects the 5. The program has run since 1972. Mark Jeffers, Kareli Rodriguez, Brittany Walters and Stacy Williams were named finalists this year. His Principal Says His Presence Is What Sets Him Apart "In every classroom, he brings depth of knowledge, thoughtful instruction, and an unwavering commitment to student growth," said Alen Akhverdyan, principal of Wilson Middle School, adding that "his impact stretches far beyond a bell schedule." "What truly sets Mr. Galfayan apart is his presence. He brings a rare sense of calm and steadiness to our campus," Akhverdyan said. "Teachers, students, and parents deeply respect and admire him. He is understanding, compassionate, and grounded." Glendale Unified Superintendent Dr. Darneika Watson tied his teaching to his own arrival in the country. "As someone who came to this country as a child, he brings a deep understanding of the power of education to change lives, and that perspective is reflected in the way he connects with and inspires his students every day," Watson said. Board President Ingrid Gunnell said the recognition reflects "not only Mr. Galfayan's exceptional work in the classroom, but also the powerful example he represents for our students and community."

The Creator of "Born From Culture" Brings His Global Series to Armenia, a Love Letter to Armenian Heritage 🇦🇲 Director James Fenwick, creator of the global "Born From Culture" film series, brought his cameras to Armenia for its latest chapter, a love letter to Armenian heritage filmed across the country. The series tells stories of culture through movement, and the Armenia film is built around Mount Ararat, khachkar carving, hand-made lavash, ancient textiles, and the dancers of the Armenian State Dance Ensemble. Fenwick said he wanted every frame to feel unmistakably Armenian, drawing on UNESCO-recognized traditions and centuries-old crafts. The film features dancers Artur Aleksanyan and Narine Poladian, was made with support from Armenia's Tourism Committee, and is set to A$AP Rocky and Skepta's "Praise the Lord (Da Shine)."