Archives

Diego Benning Wang explores how Soviet rule transformed Yerevan into a modern Armenian capital by weaving ancient history, national symbols and socialist urban planning into a durable civic identity.

Diego Benning Wang examines whether Armenia’s bid to loosen Russia’s grip on its railways could simply open the door to a new dependence on China.

Diego Benning Wang examines how the Wagner-linked films “Tourist” and “Granit” recast Russian mercenary violence and exploitation in Africa as heroic intervention, while reproducing colonial [...]

Diego Benning Wang charts Azerbaijani club Sabah FK’s remarkable rise from obscurity to the Champions League.

Diego Benning Wang argues that the North Caucasus is difficult to define because its ethnic, linguistic, historical, geographic, and administrative boundaries overlap without ever fully converging.

Diego Benning Wang reviews "Bride and Groom" by Alisa Ganieva - a book about marriage, corruption, radicalism, and constrained freedom in urban Dagestan.

Diego Benning Wang examines how WWII commemoration in North and South Ossetia has normalized Stalin’s image and integrated contested claims of his Ossetian identity into regional memory politics.

Diego Benning Wang shows how Georgian-Ossetian ties shaped a national football identity that politics later fractured.

Diego Benning Wang examines the fragile survival of Abkhazia’s last Jewish community and the fading legacy of a once diverse Black Sea society.

Diego Benning Wang revisits “Lev Yashin: The Black Spider” as more than a tribute to a football legend: a powerful story of genius, scapegoating and rehabilitation that restores Yashin’s dignity, [...]