CITY IN MOURNING: GYUMRI GRIEVES FOR AVETISYAN FAMILY

SOCIETY | 14.01.15 | 15:07

GOHAR ABRAHAMYAN
ArmeniaNow intern

“They were a good, hard-working family,” neighbors and relatives say
of the Avetisyan family, victims of murder Monday in their home at
188 Myasnikyan Street in Gyumri.

Early in the morning six members of the seven-member family, including
a small little child were brutally murdered. A six-month old boy is
recovering from stab wounds inflicted in the attack carried out by
19-year-old Valeri Permyakov, a Russian soldier stationed at nearby
base in Gyumri, who confessed to the crimes.

According to Permyakov’s confession, the teenage soldier “left the
base for a walk, entered the house of the Avetisyan for a glass of
water” and murdered the family.

Seryozha Avetisyan, 53, his wife Hasmik, 55, daughter Aida, 35,
son Armen, 33, daughter-in-law Araksya, 24, and three-year-old
granddaughter Hasmik, were found killed, and a six-month-old infant
with severe stab wounds, were found hours after the incident, when
a relative-neighbor came to the house for morning coffee.

This shocking news was spread in the whole country and for hours
Gyumri became the center of attention as a manhunt was underway for
the killer.

Now, no one has answers for why such a brutal attack was taken on
this family.

Neighbors say that the Avetisyans lived in that address for a long
time and they say that the family did not always lock the gate and
that night it was open again.

Neighbors and relatives confirm that the family had no enemies
and they never had any problems with anyone, ‘a common family with
nothing special.’

The father of the family, Seryozha Avetisyan earned the living of
the family by migrant labor in Russia. He would take his son, Armen
Avetisyan with him as well. Neighbors say that the father and the son
had recently returned to Gyumri to celebrate New Year with the family.

The mother and the daughter-in-law were housewives. The daughter of
Seryozha, Aida, worked in a flower-shop.

The salesman at a store nearby the Avetisyans’ house said that they
were a family of common means, their son was not very communicative,
but had clever friends. According to the neighbors, soldiers never
visited their house.

“They were people earning their own bread, never bothered anyone,
they were not wealthy for us to think they were murdered for money,
they did not even fight with the neighbors,” a cousin of Seryozha
Avetisyan, Sirekan Nersisyan told NEWS.am.

The sealed house has become a point of vigil as people throughout
Gyumri come to place candles. Candle-lighting ceremonies have been
held in different cities of the country in commemoration and honor.

Funerals will be held from 14 to 17 of January, in Gyumri St. Nshan
Church, and the burial – on January 15, at 1pm starting from the
same church.

Meanwhile, the Department of Information and Public Relations of the
Ministry of Health said that the condition of the only remaining
member of the family, six-month-old Seryozha Avetisyan remains in
grave but stable condition.

The infant was transferred from Gyumri Austrian Child Clinic to
Yerevan St. Holy Mother Medical Center on Tuesday morning.