THE TWO IMAGES, FROM THE SAME PRIME MINISTER, ON THE SAME CALENDAR DAY
April 25, earlier in the day. The Prime Minister publishes a video. In it, he calls the Armenians who, on April 24 — Genocide Day — wept at the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial, «երեքմանեթանոց լաց դնողներ» — "three-ruble criers," paid fake mourners. The framing is sneering. The video is broadcast on his official channels.
April 25, later the same day. The Prime Minister walks Yerevan streets. He joins citizens marking Citizen's Day. He poses for photographs with them. He distributes «թխվածքաբլիթներ» — cookies — to them. The framing is warm. The video is broadcast on his official channels.
The Two Citizens
PUBLIC RECORD The same word — «քաղաքացի», citizen — appears in both products. The video mocking the «երեքմանեթանոց» is, formally, addressed to a category of citizen: those who, in Pashinyan's framing, perform paid grief at the national memorial. The cookie-distribution video is, formally, addressed to a category of citizen: those who, on Citizen's Day, line up to receive a sweet from the head of government.
Both groups consist of Armenian Republic citizens who, on April 24 or April 25, made a choice. The mourners chose to attend Tsitsernakaberd and weep — many of them descendants of 1915 survivors, many of them carrying lifelong family memory. The street-cookie recipients chose to attend the Citizen's Day public event and accept a baked good from the Prime Minister.
The Civil Contract framing places the two groups in opposition. One is, in Pashinyan's published framing, performative paid grief. The other is, in Pashinyan's published framing, authentic civic participation. The Prime Minister himself decides which is which. The criterion of distinction is not the citizenship of the participants — both are Armenian Republic citizens — but the alignment of the participants with the present government's communication needs.
Why Cookies Specifically
«Թխվածքաբլիթ» is the Armenian word for biscuit / cookie / shortbread — a small baked sweet. The word is grammatically composed: «թխվածք» (baked-thing) + «աբլիթ» (small-flat). It is, deliberately, a low-register choice. The Prime Minister is not distributing wine, not bread, not flowers, not Genocide-commemorative items, not Armenian-flag pins, not military memorabilia. He is distributing cookies. The choice is photogenic, low-cost, photogenic, and structurally infantilising of the recipient.
A head of government distributing cookies on a national-political holiday is, in political-image-management terms, the language of municipal goodwill rather than national leadership. It positions the giver as a benevolent local notable — a mayor, a school principal, a corner-store owner — rather than as the leader of a country whose previous day was its largest national mourning event. The implicit register-shift is: Citizen's Day is not a day of state authority, it is a day of friendly small gestures.
The implicit shift dovetails with the broader April 25 communication architecture: lower the temperature of national symbolism, raise the temperature of personal-affective symbolism. The Maralik «Real Armenia» speech does this at the doctrinal level. The cookie distribution does it at the photographic level. They are the same project at different registers.
The Day's Closing Composite
OWL has, across April 24-25, mapped 14 distinct same-window communication products from the Civil Contract leadership and the named six. The cookie-distribution event is, at this writing, the closing image. The full sequence:
- April 24: ARF flag-burning at Genocide Memorial torch procession. Pashinyan condemns. Speaker Simonyan calls «ամոթալի».
- April 24: Pashinyan publishes "double-edged sword" cathedral statement; «Genocide must not become tool of international players».
- April 24: Civil Contract MP Tagui Ghazaryan: "What did Armenia get from 30 recognitions"; "Sargsyan asked the US not to recognise."
- April 24: Civil Contract official Ghevondyan: "Turkey will eat us is incomprehensible."
- April 24: Speaker Simonyan official statement: "Historical wounds can become a foundation for development."
- April 24: Anna Hakobyan visits Tsitsernakaberd inside ՊՊԾ cordon; attacks Kocharyan over Macron lawsuit.
- April 24: Catholicos visits Tsitsernakaberd separately; Public TV does not broadcast; Genocide Museum-Institute removes record of his visit.
- April 24-25: Republic of Azerbaijan formally demands Armenia prosecute the flag-burners.
- April 25: Pashinyan publishes "three-ruble criers" video.
- April 25: Pashinyan in Maralik delivers "Real Armenia ideology" speech; says "the citizen is the God of the state."
- April 25: Hraparak reports Pashinyan's bodyguards bused grandmothers to Maralik.
- April 25: Same scripted-praise format replays in Artik.
- April 25: Avinyan first plants trees in Fizgorodok, then joins doctrinal chorus.
- April 25: Pashinyan walks Amiryan Street; a "diaspora-Armenian" supporter publicly thanks him (despite the doctrine that excludes diaspora).
- April 25, evening: Pashinyan distributes cookies to citizens on Yerevan streets. Khorovats event scheduled at the Prime Ministerial residence.
Fifteen items. Two days. The cookies are item fifteen. They are the soft closing image of the political theatre, designed to leave audiences with a warm last visual rather than the doctrinal sequence that preceded it. By tomorrow morning, the cookie photo will be the dominant image of "April 25" in Civil-Contract-aligned media. By next week, the «Իրական Հայաստան» speech transcript will be archived. By June 7, voters who do not actively follow politics will remember "the PM gave out cookies on Citizen's Day" and not "the PM mocked Tsitsernakaberd mourners as paid actors." The cookies are the memory-management device.
What OWL Will Track
- Whether the cookies were sourced from a specific bakery or supplier (commercial-disclosure question for the Government Press Service).
- Whether the cookie-distribution event was open or invitation-only (street access vs. perimeter access).
- Whether the citizens who received cookies are identifiable in the published video, named or anonymous, or pre-organised participants.
- Whether opposition parliamentary deputies file an interpellation about same-day public-fund use for promotional gift items on Citizen's Day.
- Whether Oragir.news publishes follow-up reporting on the cookie-distribution itinerary.
- Whether the Pashinyan khorovats event tonight is open to press, closed-event with chosen guests, or off-the-record.
Cross-References Inside OWL
- "Three-Ruble Criers": Pashinyan Mocks Tsitsernakaberd Mourners On April 25 — same day, same PM, the contrast.
- "I Am A Diaspora-Armenian, Thank You": Third Scripted-Praise Headline Of The Day
- "The Akhranniks Brought Grandmothers In Cars": Hraparak Reports Pashinyan's Maralik Crowd Was Staged
- April 25, "Citizen's Day": Pashinyan In Maralik Delivering A "Real Armenia Ideology" Speech
- "The Citizen Is The God Of The State": Pashinyan's April 25 Theological Substitution
- Condemn The Citizens, Book The Barbecue
Sources
- Oragir.news, April 25, 2026: «Փաշինյանը միացել է փողոցում Քաղաքացու օրը նշող մարդկանց, լուսանկարվել, թխվածքաբլիթներ նվիրել (տեսանյութ).»
- OWL parallel investigations cited above for the rest of the April 24-25 sequence.
OWL is an anonymous collective of Armenian journalists. We take no money from any political party, bloc, movement, oligarch, foreign government, or foundation. Our reading of the cookies as a memory-management device is, by definition, an analytic claim — not an established factual finding. The two underlying products (the «երեքմանեթանոց» mockery video and the cookie-distribution video) are factual, on the same Prime Minister's published channels, on the same calendar day.