Nairi Cinema, Movie theater on Mashtots Street, Yerevan, Armenia

Nairi Cinema is the oldest movie theatre in Yerevan, housed since 1954 in a Stalinist neoclassical building at the corner of Mashtots Avenue and Isahakyan Street. Architect Gevorg Tamanian, son of Alexander Tamanian, designed the structure, built 1952–1954 as a residential block with the cinema in its corner section. It has two halls; the large one seats 195 and reopened on 2 April 2026.

The cinema was founded in the 1920s and moved to its current location on Mashtots Street in the 1950s from Amiryan Street. This relocation reflected Yerevan's urban development during that growth period.

The name Nairi refers to an ancient Armenian people and land, and the cinema has carried it since 1920. In 1926 it screened Zaré, the first Soviet-Armenian feature film. The building also housed workers of the Yerevan electric lamp plant, and a memorial plaque marks engineer Andronik Iosifyan, who lived here from 1954 to 1993.

The theater is easily accessible by public transport and Mashtots Street is a central location in the heart of the city. It helps to check the film schedule before arriving to plan your preferred screening time.

The building was commissioned in the late 1940s by Yakov Sargsyan, director of the Yerevan electric lamp factory, as housing for his workers; the cinema was fitted into its corner section, where a shop was also considered. From 1954 to 1993 the electrical engineer Andronik Iosifyan, a founder of Soviet rocket and space engineering, lived in the block, and a memorial plaque marks his flat.