Final Call - Russian Language Summer School 2026, Yerevan (ASPIRANTUM)

ASPIRANTUM’s 2026 Russian Language Summer School in Yerevan

The program offers 6–10 weeks (120–200 hours) of intensive Russian. Instruction is available at upper elementary and intermediate levels, focusing strongly on all core language skills in small groups.

We already have 20 confirmed participants across our Armenian, Russian, and Persian summer schools, and places are now limited. You can see the profiles of participating students here: https://www.instagram.com/aspirantumcom/

This final call is to remind prospective applicants of this opportunity.

The program also includes cultural excursions and activities across Armenia.

Full details and application:
https://aspirantum.com/courses/russian-language-summer-school

Application deadline: May 1, 2026

Russian Language 2026 Summer School in Yerevan

Khachik Gevorgyan

Yerevan
Armenia

Applications are now open for the 2026 Russian Language Summer School in Yerevan, Armenia.

The program offers 6–10 weeks (120–200 hours) of intensive Russian language instruction starting on June 21, June 28, or July 5, 2026. Courses are available primarily at upper-elementary and intermediate levels, with other levels possible upon request. Instruction focuses on all core skills—reading, writing, speaking, listening, grammar, and vocabulary—within small groups that allow for close interaction and rapid progress.

In addition to language classes, participants benefit from a strong cultural immersion program, including guided excursions to Garni & Geghard, Aragats & Amberd Fortress, Ejmiatsin, Khor Virap & Noravank, and Lake Sevan, as well as lectures, social events, and museum visits.

Early application deadline: February 25, 2026
Final application deadline: May 21, 2026

Full program details and application form:
https://aspirantum.com/courses/russian-language-summer-school

Testimonials from past participants:
https://aspirantum.com/testimonials
Video testimonials: https://www.youtube.com/@aspirantum

We warmly invite undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, and faculty to apply.

Contact Information

ASPIRANTUM – School of Languages and Cultures
Yerevan, Armenia
6 Yekmalyan street, 3-rd floor

Contact Email

russian@aspirantum.com

URL

https://aspirantum.com/courses/russian-language-summer-school

Critical Languages Institute Programs Open

Applications for the Critical Languages Institute's (CLI) summer language programs are open!

 

For the Summer 2026 Cycle, CLI is offering its first year and some second-year programs online (Persian, Turkish, and Russian). Online programs with a 4-week study abroad add-on are available for Albanian, Armenian, BCSM, Polish, Ukrainian, Uzbek, and Russian. For applicants to Macedonian, the Melikian Center has additional funds to support travel and participation in the International Seminar on Macedonian Language, Literature, and Culture in Ohrid.

They have added a 2nd-Year Romanian program in Bucharest, Romanian this year! 2nd-year and advanced programs are offered in Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Kyrgy Republic, Latvia, Macedonia, Poland, Romania and Uzbekistan!

CLI has funding for all of its language programs supported by endowed funds. This year, CLI will be able to award up to $8,500 for participants traveling abroad on one of our programs from these endowed funds, and CLI's first-year language programs are still $2,000 for 8-10 university credits.  

For more information, please visit their website or email cli@asu.edu. 

Reminder - Russian winter school - Discount for PhD students

We are pleased to announce the 2025 Russian Language Winter School organized by ASPIRANTUM in Yerevan, Armenia, from November 2 to December 26, 2025.

This intensive 4-8-week program (80-160 contact hours) is designed for international students, researchers, and professionals who want to deepen their knowledge of Russian through an immersive classroom experience.

Special discounted rates for PhD students only

$1490 - 4 weeks

$1990 - 5 weeks

$2490 - 6 weeks

$2990 - 7 weeks

$3490 - 8 weeks

For more information and to apply, please visit:
 https://aspirantum.com/courses/russian-language-winter-school

CFP: After-Post Photography Workshop for Emerging Researchers (Yerevan, November)

After Post-Photography 10: Workshop for Emerging Researchers

Yerevan (Armenia), 6–8 November 2025, Yerevan Center for International Education

In 2025, After Post-Photography marks its 10th year with an in-person gathering in Yerevan, Armenia

(6–8 November). After several online editions, we are excited to meet again in person — to share

new research, ideas, and stories.For more information about the conference and past editions, visit

our website: https://after-post.photography/

As in past years, the first day of the conference is dedicated to APP+, our workshop for emerging

researchers in photography studies. This session provides a space for participants to present

research in progress and receive in-depth feedback. Each paper is assigned two respondents — one

emerging researcher and one participant from the main program — who read the draft texts

submitted in advance and open the discussion. The wider group then contributes to the conversation,

making the workshop a collective exchange.

Call for Papers – Deadline Extended to September 15

We invite proposals from graduate students, early-career researchers, and others working on

photography and related visual culture. Topics may range widely — from x-ray movies, photo-novellas

in Brazil, poverty in private photography, new approaches to photo-realism, the use of AI-generated

images in elections, smartphone optics, and beyond

Please submit proposals (up to 1,600 characters, in English) to app@mur.at by 15 September.

Submissions will be reviewed anonymously; please remove your name from the proposal itself. If

your project analyzes visual material, include sample images or links.

Timeline for APP+ participation

Submission deadline: 15 September 2025

Notification of acceptance: 20 September 2025

Full texts due: 25 October 2025

Arrival in Yerevan: 5 November 2025

More about the After Post-Photography Conference Program

This year’s program includes both academic panels and special events. Keynotes will be given by

Svetlana Gorshenina (Sorbonne University, historian and art historian ) on historical photographs of

Russian Turkestan in recent “memory wars” on Facebook and Jorge Ribalta (Barcelona -

independent curator, photo historian, and artist) on “Documentary against Post-Photography. A

Curatorial Experience.” There will also be a roundtable on “Photography and Empire: Colonial

Legacies and Decolonial Futures” and a panel “Complex Spaces and Complex Pasts through

Ordinary Photographs” curated by the Cultural and Social Narratives Lab (Yerevan).

Practical Information

Yerevan is easy and affordable to reach, with direct flights in early November from cities including

Athens, Dortmund, Milan, Paris, Prague, Rome, Vienna, and Warsaw. Affordable accommodation is

also widely available at this time of year.

APP+ team: Pavel Sharkov, Olga Davidenko, Ksenia Kuznetsova

APP organizing committee: Olga Davydova, Maria Gourieva, Farrah Karapetian, Daria Panaiotti,

Friedrich Tietjen, Erika Wolf

CFA: Monterey Summer Symposium on Russia 2023 in Armenia & Georgia

Deadline: February 1, 2023

The Monterey Initiative in Russian Studies (MIRS) at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey invites applications for the Monterey Summer Symposium on Russia 2023.

It is our pleasure to announce the upcoming Monterey Summer Symposium on Russia 2023. It will be held in Armenia and Georgia, running from July 2 to July 17, 2023. Armenia and Georgia are two very different countries, differently positioned geopolitically, though with shared history in the Soviet Union and Russian Empire. They stand at a proverbial crossroads of international affairs. China’s Belt and Road Initiative runs through the South Caucasus, which are crucial to global energy supplies. On energy and regional security, the United States plays an important role, while Turkey and Iran are neighboring countries, connected to Armenia and Georgia through bonds of tension and affiliation. Armenia and Georgia have been profoundly affected by Russia’s war in Ukraine, which has added degrees of uncertainty to a region long familiar with uncertainty.

 

At a time when direct contact with Russia is difficult, because of the war and its consequences, Armenia and Georgia offer unique lenses through which to understand the course of Russian politics, the drift of Russian foreign policy and the place of Russia in the world. Although the United States, Europe, and China are significant regional actors, they are hardly the only relevant ones; and they can be quite distant. The region’s own complexities must take center stage. Armenia’s close relationship with Russia can be compared with Georgia’s conflictual relationship with its large neighbor. While Russia’s influence (present-day and historical) in the region is impossible to ignore, it must be also recognized that regional actors in the South Caucasus have influence on Russia, and they often find ways of breaking away from or qualifying Russian influence. Careful consideration of these dynamics is helpful for an understanding of what Russian power is and what it is not.

 

Another pivotal reality is the way in which Armenia and Georgia have become key destinations for the Russian diaspora following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. There was a joke in the 1930s that the only place in the world where the battle between Stalin and Trotsky could truly be carried out was New York City. This joke has a contemporary resonance. Russian politics is taking shape not just in Moscow and not just in the Kremlin. It is visible and audible in the buzz of conversation, the debate, and the publications of many diaspora centers, from Berlin to Riga. Of these, Yerevan and Tbilisi have become two of the most important. The Monterey Summer Symposium 2023 will thus provide serious students of Russian history, culture, and politics a unique opportunity to get out of the classroom and off social media, and to engage people in real time on the major questions of the day.

 

In the Monterey Summer Symposium 2023, twelve selected fellows will learn about imperial geopolitics in Eurasia and the world. They will analyze the war in Ukraine in comparative historical context, examining the end of the Soviet empire and its on-going consequences. They will probe the history of the Soviet Union as a multi-national, multi-ethnic, multi-confessional state. They will delve into the South Caucasus and Caucasus more generally in the Soviet and post-Soviet cultural space, exploring their geopolitics. They will look carefully at the roles played by Russia, Iran, Turkey, the United States, and China in the region, including in the Black Sea region; and they will assess the impact of the war in Ukraine on the Caucasus. While addressing these themes, the Monterey Symposium fellows will conduct sociological field research on the influx of Russian citizens on Armenia and Georgia. They will finish the Symposium not just with a host of new ideas but – ideally – with a new angle of vision.

Symposium fellows will be taught by such leading experts as Thomas Graham, Dominic Lieven, Robert Legvold, Yuri Slezkine, Andrei Zorin, Georgi Derlugyan, Anatol Lieven, Craig Calhoun, Hanna Notte, Arthur Atanesyan, Elena Chernenko, and many others.

A complete application consists of a cover sheet, a Curriculum Vitae, a statement of purpose, an abstract of current research, details of Russian language proficiency, two letters of recommendation, and official transcripts. Applicants must have advanced proficiency in Russian. Applications will be accepted until February 1, 2023.

 

For more information and to access the application, please see: https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/academics/centers-initiatives/monterey-initiative-russian-studies/monterey-summer-symposium-on