Notes from the Pink City Archives

Building an Armenian Constitutional Court to Last

July 23, 2020 at 12:55 pm Raffi Elliott 0

This week, a long-awaited amendment to Article 213 of the Armenian Constitution—replacing at least three of the nine Armenian Supreme Court Justices—has come into effect. “Three new Constitutional Court judges will be elected soon,” Prime […]

COVID-19: Public responsibility or renewed lockdowns?

June 3, 2020 at 1:45 pm Raffi Elliott 0

With the number of daily confirmed cases of COVID-19 continuing to rise––and with that, the death toll––calls on the government to reinstate draconian lockdown measures have grown louder. Still, the Prime Minister, who himself has […]

Childbirth in a pandemic

May 27, 2020 at 12:53 pm Raffi Elliott 2

From the title of this piece, you may be asking yourself, “Why is the guy who rants about trade tariffs and preaches the benefits of flat taxes writing about childbirth now? Isn’t there a whole […]

Responsible parliament requires responsible parliamentarians

May 14, 2020 at 10:59 am Raffi Elliott 2

By now, anything that had to be said about last week’s brawl on the floor of Armenia’s National Assembly has already been said. The sight of these grown men (yes, they were mostly men) engaging […]

Unscientific observations from my daily walks through post-lockdown Yerevan

May 6, 2020 at 2:27 pm Raffi Elliott 1

Last week, I started going back to the office. After 50 days of ordering groceries online, watching Tiger King with my wife, teaching my three-year-old the basics of hockey (Canadians, eh?) and anxiously following daily […]

Celebration and Commemoration in Social Isolation

April 22, 2020 at 3:53 pm Raffi Elliott 0

April marks two of the most important dates in the Armenian calendar in quick succession. If these two dates could not be more antithetical to one another—the former a celebration of the most holy day […]

Data mapping is a necessary tool against COVID-19. But mass surveillance doesn’t have to be.

March 31, 2020 at 1:19 pm Raffi Elliott 0

This week, the Armenian government passed its most controversial measure yet in its struggle to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. On Monday, a motion that would allow authorities to access personal phone data passed a first […]

How the “Silicon Mountain” Handles Quarantine

March 25, 2020 at 9:30 pm Raffi Elliott 1

On Tuesday evening, when Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan addressed the nation to announce stricter lockdown measures, he urged people to stay home and do their banking, utility and grocery payments online instead. After a short […]

Social Isolation, Luxury Hotels and Internet Memes

March 18, 2020 at 10:09 pm Raffi Elliott 1

I remember watching news reports of the Fukushima nuclear disaster back in 2011. Looking through images of Japanese people in the affected areas stoically queuing up in an orderly fashion as the years of emergency […]

“Privet, Rob” and other musings

March 12, 2020 at 11:55 am Raffi Elliott 2

On the evening of September 25, 2001, Poghos Poghosyan, a native of Javakhk, was sitting at the famous Poplavok cafe in central Yerevan when he saw his former classmate, then-President Robert Kocharyan walk out, accompanied […]