I Inherited the Money: Bagrat Badalyan on Owning a $600,000 Home in the USA

Recently, the electronic publication "Hetq" reported that Bagrat Badalyan, a high-ranking official who became prominent after the political changes of 2018 and is now one of the deputy heads of the Prime Minister's Office, has purchased a home in Marysville, Washington, USA with his wife, Margarita Aganisyana, a music school teacher. The transaction price was $584,950.

"Hetq" uncovered some details regarding this property. The deal took place on April 28, 2021, and the registration was completed on May 6 (these dates were declared by Badalyan and his wife in their declarations). Notably, Badalyan presented the house in his declaration under the line for "property not yet registered with the state," while his wife classified it as "a residential house built on a plot of land."

Bagrat Badalyan served as Armenia's Deputy Minister of Transport, Communication and Information Technology from 2018 to 2019, then as Deputy Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure from 2019 to 2020. He was an advisor to Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan from February to November 2020, then head of that same deputy prime minister’s office until 2021, followed by a stint as an advisor to the Chairman of the State Revenue Committee in August-November 2021. Since October 2021, he has been one of the deputy heads of the Prime Minister's Office.

Factor.am reported that they sent an inquiry to the Prime Minister's Office to clarify what sources of income enabled Bagrat Badalyan to acquire such significant financial resources and how he managed to purchase the expensive house in the USA.

In response, Badalyan stated, "I have never hidden [the source] and have openly declared the money, which I inherited from my father in 2020. I want to emphasize that my father has never held any public office and has been engaged exclusively in entrepreneurial activities. I acquired the property using these funds, which can be easily seen by a simple comparison of my declarations from the years 2020 and 2021."

"Hetq" has also reported that in April 2020, when Bagrat Badalyan, then an advisor to Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan, purchased 88.13% of the shares of "Janakhtzproject Institute" LLC, the company began to achieve significant success in winning government procurement contracts in the road construction sector.

"If in 2018, only 3 contracts were signed with the LLC (total price around 12 million drams), and from 2019 until April 2020, just 1 contract (431,000 drams), after Badalyan became the owner in April 2020, the "Janakhtzproject Institute" won about 40 government procurement competitions, and the total value of the contracts exceeded 1 billion drams," the publication indicated.

In response to the site’s inquiry, Badalyan noted that the shares of "Janakhtzproject Institute" LLC were transferred to trust management in accordance with the law. Further details available on the original website.