Dr. Ara Sanjian, director of the Armenian Research Center at the University of Michigan, Dearborn, will speak on “Armenia’s Road to and since the ‘Velvet Revolution'” at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 7, in the Alice Peters Auditorium (Peters Building Room 191). Sanjian will review the long-term and immediate causes that led to the success of the “Velvet Revolution” in Armenia last year.

He will describe the rise of Nikol Pashinyan from a young and controversial journalist to a politician with immense power, and analyze the group of young political elite assembled around Pashinyan which now controls the executive and legislative branches of the government. The lecture is free and open to the public. Parking is $4 in Lot P6.