The Fate of the Jesus Statue Remains Unknown: Hetq

It has been seven months since Gagik Tsarukyan announced the intention to build a statue of Jesus on Mount Hatis, yet the project has not progressed to the practical phase.

According to information received by Hetq, Tsarukyan has indefinitely suspended the statue's construction project. In an effort to obtain clarification, we submitted written inquiries to Anahit Tsarukyan, the director of the Gagik Tsarukyan charitable foundation. We first asked why the statue's construction program had been halted, and whether an alternative location for the statue's construction was being considered. Anahit Tsarukyan has left our questions unanswered.

We also sought to verify the information regarding the cessation of the statue construction project with state and local authorities.

Hunan Rubenyan, the head of the Akunk enlarged community, stated that the Gagik Tsarukyan foundation has only applied for permission to design a water pipeline on Mount Hatis, which was received in July 2022.

According to Deputy Minister of the Environment Tigran Gabrielian, the Gagik Tsarukyan charitable foundation has not submitted any applications regarding construction on Mount Hatis to the ministry or its subordinate structures, therefore the ministry has not issued any conclusions, agreements, or permits.

After the inauguration ceremony for the statue's foundation on the summit of Hatis, Gagik Tsarukyan has attempted to bypass the issue of construction on Mount Hatis in both of his interviews. In the first interview (November 2022), consisting of two questions, Tsarukyan responds to activists who criticize him without asserting that the statue of Jesus would indeed be erected on Mount Hatis. In the second interview (December 2022), which was significantly more extensive, there was no mention of the construction of the statue. The businessman only makes an ambiguous statement concerning the idea of creating something.

Despite the halt of the construction project on Hatis, Hetq has uncovered new owners of the mountain. In the summer of 2022, property plots on Hatis were acquired by an individual connected to Akunk community's leader Hunan Rubenyan and the director of a branch of the company ''Gazprom Armenia'', ''Transgaz'' LLC.

On August 10, 2022, three separate plots of land on Mount Hatis were sold to Vahe Artashes Ohanian by the Akunk community council and then by its head. Vahe Ohanian is the son of Artashes Ohanian, the former temporary director of the municipal enterprise “Communal Economy” of Abovyan. Vahe Ohanian has regularly appeared as the director of the ''Alexander Azizyan Edik'' individual enterprise, which operates the ''Byurakn'' restaurant in Akunk village.

The founder of the ''Alexander Azizyan Edik'' enterprise, Alexander Azizyan, is the brother of Anna Azizyan, Hunan Rubenyan's wife. Given this connection, it can be inferred that Vahe Ohanian is merely acting as a formal buyer, while the actual buyer is indeed the community leader, Hunan Rubenyan. Incidentally, upon reviewing the Akunk community's website, we discovered that Vahe Ohanian has purchased numerous plots of land that belong to the Akunk community over the years.

Additionally, Hunan Rubenyan's son, Zhora Rubenyan, received four land plots as a gift in 2021 from Alexander Edik Azizyan (the owner of the enterprise).

Hunan Rubenyan has directed the Akunk community since 1996. Until 2017, Rubenyan was the village mayor of Akunk, after which he became the head of the Akunk enlarged community. The former member of the Prosperous Armenia Party, Hunan Rubenyan, led the electoral list of the Akunk community council in 2022 as a member of the Civil Contract Party. Participating in the elections under the slogan ''There is a Future'', the Civil Contract Party received the majority of voters' support in Akunk community, and Hunan Rubenyan assumed the position of community head once again.

Vahe Ohanian, connected with Hunan Rubenyan, purchased agricultural plots of 1.2 and 1.6 hectares on the right side of the road leading from Akunk's Kotayk settlement to Kaputan, for 570,000 and 760,000 drams, respectively. He later merged these two plots into a single plot encompassing an area of 2.8 hectares.

Moreover, Vahe Ohanian obtained a 3.5-hectare agricultural plot on Mount Hatis, which is adjacent to the plots of the Gagik Tsarukyan charitable foundation (not on the summit). For this plot, he paid 1,383,000 drams to the Akunk community budget.

We presented Hunan Rubenyan with the facts we gathered regarding his connection with Vahe Ohanian and the resulting hypothesis that the real owner of the plots is indeed the community leader. According to Hunan Rubenyan, Vahe Ohanian exercised his constitutional right upon acquiring the land. ''The phrase 'real owner' mentioned in the inquiry is unclear, and it is also unclear what grounds the mentioned hypotheses are based on,'' the head of Akunk stated in a written response.

Another plot sold at auction in August 2022 is located in the administrative territory of the Kotayk settlement of Akunk community, covering an area of 1.3 hectares. This agricultural plot was bought for 620,000 drams by Khoren Zakari Zakaryan. Khoren Zakaryan is the father of Argishti Zakaryan, director of the underground operations branch of ''Transgaz'' LLC, which belongs to ''Gazprom Armenia''.

The plot purchased by Khoren Zakaryan is located on the right side of the road leading from Kotayk village to Kaputan, immediately adjacent to Vahe Ohanian's land. Next to that plot is the newly leveled road leading to the summit of Hatis.