In February 2024, a photo allegedly taken in a preschool in the Armenian capital went viral on social networks. We checked whether portraits of Ukrainian and local nationalist leaders were actually placed there.
The photo shows a wall decorated with images of two flags: Ukrainian and Armenian. On either side of them, according to the corresponding captions on top of the photograph, hang portraits of nationalists Stepan Bandera and Garegin Nzhdeh. At the bottom of the image you can see children's drawings. “This is what the path to the abyss looks like,” they often say in the captions to the photo. Some see in the photo evidence that in Armenia “fascist ideology is imposed on children from the very first days.”
A photo with similar comments was actively distributed on social networks - in particular, channels published it on Telegram Zergulio (242,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), “Uncle Slava" (201,000), "Putin on Telegram"(157,000), Voblya (154,000) and "Alexander Semchenko"(101,000).
Issues related to the veneration of nationalist figures in post-Soviet countries are a frequent topic of publications in Russian media, especially if the biography of these individuals includes cooperation with the Wehrmacht during the Second World War. Often similar messages contain disinformation or manipulative information - “Verified” examined a number of such materials related to Stepan Bandera. Activity Garegin Nzhdeh, commander and leader of Armenian nationalism in the first half of the 20th century, also often coverage in the press is not entirely correct.
There is no doubt that photographs of Bandera and Nzhdeh hang on the wall - that’s quite famous pictures, which are freely available. But the author of the viral photo turned out to be journalist of the Armenian publication CivilNet Anna Yeganyan. On February 13, she published an article in which she said that the photo was taken not in kindergarten, but in the center Dopomoga - headquarters for assistance to Ukrainians and Armenian refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh), located in Yerevan. Yeganyan was filming a report on the activities of a humanitarian organization, and on February 9 she posted a photo on her personal Instagram, signing both portraits.
February 19 with a statement spoke already the Dopomoga headquarters itself. Activists added to the journalist’s story: “Yes, indeed, the picture shows a children’s table: many children come to us, and they have something to do while their parents are being trained or waiting for help or advice. There are also many symbols of Ukraine in our office. It pains us that our Motherland is being destroyed and cities are being razed to the ground, we have made a small Ukraine in Armenia, and when we come to the office, our pain subsides a little.”
The message also says that Nzhdeh and Bandera are “people who lived by the freedom and values of their people and gave their lives for it,” and the photograph distributed on Telegram channels became another tool for manipulative propaganda against these historical figures.
The same wall was repeatedly featured in photographs published on the organization’s Telegram channel Dopomoga. The shot taken by Yeganyan was first accompanied by an incorrect caption about the kindergarten by the authors of the Azerbaijani channel “No brakes"(post was posted on February 10 at 11:28 Moscow time). Then the photograph with exactly this description was picked up by Russian resources. As mentioned above, this photo has nothing to do with kindergarten.
Cover photo: social networks
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