June 7th is Armenia’s parliamentary election. This episode is a temperature check – a snapshot of the mood in 2026. You’ll hear a mosaic of voices from inside Armenia – people sharing their anxieties and hopes for the country as they prepare to head to the polls.

After losing Artsakh, are Armenians ready to normalize relations with Azerbaijan and Turkey? Can we maintain ties with Russia while also aligning ourselves with the EU? Are security and democracy mutually exclusive for Armenia?

Elections are about deciding which politicians should be in power. But they’re also an occasion to think about what is important and what could change. How do Armenians want to shape our future?

This episode made with support from One World Media.

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For our last episode of this season, we visit Vahandukht Melkonyan, the last resident of Kharkov – a village in the buffer zone between Armenia and Turkey. At 88, she lives alone here and spends her days tending to her animals. This border carries the weight of millennia of history – empires have come crashing against it. But in Vahandukht’s yard, that all feels like scratches on ancient stones.

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Walk into the right basement on a Friday night, and you’ll see something that doesn’t happen anywhere else in Armenia - a drag show. Gigi Aries is a drag queen, and she and her friends have been busy. A few years ago, you couldn’t see drag anywhere, but now there are monthly shows with lines around the block. There’s still a huge divide between what you can do at these underground events, and what is acceptable on the streets of Yerevan. But Gigi believes that drag can change Armenia.

Click here to see Gigi Aries online.

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