Jimbo the baboon used to live in a tiny cage in what passes as a zoo in Armavir.

The primate would have celebrated his birthday on April 11had he not died as the result of a visitor’s cruel prank. The guy feed Jimbo some sex-enhancing drug and he expired the next day.

This unknown idiot was pissed off that Jimbo, a sexually active male according to zoo director Armen Tadevosyan, took a fancy to his wife.

The couple visited the zoo on Jimbo’s birthday last year. In a fit of jealousy, the husband threw the tablets into the cage. We don’t know exactly what the stuff was; maybe it was Viagra.

Strikes me as funny, though, that somebody would visit the zoo with his wife with a pocketful of sex enhancing drugs. The world’s full of crazies.

They buried Jimbo, a main attraction at the zoo, next to his cage. It was a solemn occasion indeed. This year, they’ll erect a statute in Jimbo’s honor.

The zoo itself, if you ask me, isn’t fit to properly house animals; especially the big cats.

Hetq has covered the sorry state of the Armavir Zoo in the past. There’s no money to build adequate habitats for the animals. Even larger cages are out of the question.

The Tadevosyan family, the parents and their boy and girl, take care of the animals – 60 different species in all.

They don’t receive any state assistance. It’s a privately run attraction.

Animals are fed table scraps and leftovers from the Marshal Baghramyan military base nearby.

Director Tadevosyan told me he had recently heard that some concerned citizens had petitioned the Ministry of Environmental Protection, requesting assistance for the zoo. Given that the place is privately-owned, the ministry refused.

I guess the ministry has better things to do than looking out for the welfare of these animals.

Armen Tadevosyan told me that he “frees” a few animals ever year into the wild. This year, he’ll release eight turtles.

“They’ll probably wind up as turtle soup, which is a pity. There are so few of them left in the wild already,” says the zoo’s director.

He charges 150 AMD as an entry fee. It used to be just 30. In reality, people pay whatever they can.

Tadevosyan told me a story as to why he raised the admittance fee.

One day, an old man drove up in an expensive SUV. He had his grandson with him. The cheapskate didn’t want to pay.

“The guy had the nerve to say, ‘You don’t expect my 11 year-old grandson to pay, do you?’ I told him to enter without paying if he was so down on his luck. The guy turned red with anger. The next day I raised the price to 150 AMD,” explained a grinning Tadevosyan.