On 24 April 1965, on the 50th anniversary of the Armenian genocide a large demonstration took place in Yerevan. Kaputikyan was among the speakers who commemorated in their speeches the Armenian intellectuals who were deported and killed in 1915. Along with the poet Paruyr Sevak, she was one of the main figures during the demonstration. Subsequently, she and Sevak were invited to Moscow, where the Soviet government sanctioned the construction of an Armenian genocide memorial in Yerevan, which was completed in 1967. She later criticized the Soviet leadership for their policies regarding the April 1965 genocide commemorations in Soviet Armenia. She contrasted the "unrestrained commemorations" in the Armenian diaspora with the commemorations in Yerevan, which according to her, "lacked the necessary depth and breadth". In 1966 she cited the independence of the Soviet Armenian government as a cause of the demonstration.