The wife of Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Anna Hakobyan, responded to former mayor Hayk Marutyan’s call to boycott the increased transport fares, stating that it echoes 12-year-old slogans. She shared her thoughts on her Facebook page.

Hakobyan emphasized that the core message of her "Education is fashionable" campaign is the necessity of progress and not being stagnant.

"The first two images show publications from Armenian media in July 2013. The next two reflect publications from January 2025.

‘Smiling, we pay 100 drams and leave,’ was the call in July 2013.

‘We have also decided on the form of boycott: we pay 100 drams and move on,’ is the statement 12 years later, today.

The #educationisfashionable campaign aims to teach us to avoid stagnation over decades.

For politicians or aspiring ones to move forward and not repeat decade-old rhetoric. For media outlets not to stagnate and to work with modern skills, ensuring readers can distinguish the timeline of events without needing to check publication dates. For authorities not to respond to challenges in the same way over time, or worse, to respond identically to all challenges.

Finally, to ensure our social conditions do not remain stagnant, so decades do not pass without progress, and the 100-dram fare doesn’t remain an unchanging constant:

We must collectively learn to move forward, to learn, to keep pace with time, to prosper and help others prosper, to adapt, to pay with cards, to fill out declarations, to help one another, to avoid panic, to live well, and to pay for living well," Hakobyan wrote.

Starting February 1, a new public transport fare system will come into effect. The municipality announced four payment options: transport card, QR code, mobile application, and bank card.

Former Yerevan mayor Hayk Marutyan, who advocates boycotting the fare increase starting February 1, claimed there is no legal provision imposing a fine of 50,000 drams for not paying the raised fare.