Vardan Ayvazyan bought a new apartment in Tbilisi.

Vardan Ayvazyan, former Armenian Minister of Nature Protection (2001-2007), and former deputy of the National Assembly, continues to acquire new properties in neighboring Georgia, despite the confiscation of property of illegal origin taking place in Armenia.

This year, Vardan Ayvazyan will buy a new apartment and parking space in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. The apartment and the parking place are in the central street of Tbilisi, in a newly constructed building.

On April 3, 2024, the Georgian National Register of the Public Registry registered Vardan Ayvazyan's ownership right to the apartment purchased in the N2 building of the second lane of Nino Ramishvili. It is quite spacious: 131.5 square meters.

Nino Ramishvili is one of the central streets of Tbilisi. It starts from Ilia Chavchavadze Avenue. The apartment Ayvazyan bought is in the immediate vicinity of the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

Apart from the apartment, Vardan Ayvazyan also gets one of the parking spaces on the second floor with an area of ​​twenty-one square meters in the same building.

One of the apartments on the eighth floor of the same building on Nino Ramishvili Street is currently for sale. We called the number mentioned in the announcement to find out what the apartments in that building cost. The owner is selling at $3,500 per square meter. He said how good their building is in the neighborhood and what a favorable location it has. It is in Vake and overlooks Mziuri Park.

N2 building of the second lane of Nino Ramishvili

Vazha Pshavela 70G

On April 3, Vardan Ayvazyan also registered the ownership right to 70G Vazha Pshavela address. Here, he bought an apartment with an area of ​​111.9 square meters.

Vazha Pshavela 70G is also in the immediate vicinity of one of the famous shopping centers, City Mall.

Although Vardan Ayvazyan has just registered the ownership right to this apartment, he acquired it in 2008. Apparently, after the completion of the construction, there were adjustments to the addresses in this area, and now 1 Kavtaradze St., where Ayvazyan bought an apartment during the construction, is the City Mall (in some sources, the City Mall is Vazha Pshavela 70). However, the developer kept the old address for that same building on its website.

The construction of the multi-apartment building started in 2007. According to the purchase and sale agreement, Vardan Ayvazyan paid 125,600 GEL in 2008 for the not-yet-built apartment, which was US$84,000 at the time of purchase.

Ayvazyan related persons and property in Georgia

Vardan Ayvazyan founded two companies in Georgia: Ltcher and Unicum LLCs. The first company is known for the fact that it leased the community lake of the same name in the deputy's native village of Tabatzghour (Javakhk) and forbade the villagers from fishing in it. In 2012, Ayvazyan transferred his share of Ltcher LLC to his cousin, Armen Ayvazyan, who was also the director of the company. In 2017, according to the documents of the State Register of Companies of Georgia, Vardan Ayvazyan's cousin Armen Ayvazyan transferred 50% of the shares of Ltcher LLC to Georgian Zaza Saralidze. Later, Armen Ayvazyan transferred his 50% share to Georgia resident Suren Jaghatspanyan, keeping only the position of the company's director. However, in 2022, the new shareholders decided to change the director and appoint a Georgian.

The fact that Armen Ayvazyan is directly related to Vardan Ayvazyan is also proven by Armen's presence in the companies belonging to the Ayvazyan family in Armenia’s State Register of Legal Entities. For example, Armen Ayvazyan was a director in Aiges LLC, which belonged to Vardan Ayvazyan's son, Suren Ayvazyan. The operation of Aiges LLC is suspended.

One of the residents of Tabatzghour village, whose name we do not mention, assured us in a conversation that Vardan Ayvazyan has given up the "lake case" and now the villagers are fishing without hindrance. "The crawfish are gone, and our fish have multiplied again," he said happily. And Ayvazyan's partner Zaza Saralidze built a hotel in the village and is engaged in the hotel business.

Ayvazyan founded the second company, Unicum LLC, in September 2011. He was the sole shareholder. According to the Georgian Corporate Registry, in 2012, after the parliamentary elections in Georgia, he transferred his share to his son, Suren Ayvazyan.

The Ayvazyans' Unicum company owned the land at 2/6 Ljubljana. It was in the middle of the streets of Ljubljana-Chačava-Belashvili. According to the sale contract obtained from the National Agency of the Public Register of Georgia, the Ayvazyans bought a 7,880 square meter area here in 2012, paying 532,000 Lari (equivalent to $188,000 today).

The Ayvazyans bought the land from the Ministry of Economy of Georgia and committed to invest 1.5 million Lari (currently equivalent to US$ 531,000) by 2013. Here, the Ayvazyans started the construction of a large fish market in 2012. In 2015, when we visited the area of ​​the fish market, it was half-built. The Ayvazyans did not make the promised investments and did not finish the construction of the fish market.

According to the contract obtained from the Public Registry of Georgia, on August 15, 2018, the Ayvazyans' Unicum company sold the area to Denmark House LLC for US$100,000.

Now a complex consisting of three multi-story buildings has been built there. It is clear from Google Earth photos of those years that the half-built fish market of the Ayvazyans was demolished in March-May 2020, and the construction of a new complex began in 2022.

Denmark House LLC, in turn, sold the area to the developer Bloks, which conducted the construction of the complex with apartment buildings.

Suren Ayvazyan, a shareholder of Unicum company, is registered at the same address in Charentsavan as Vardan Ayvazyan, but he did not submit a declaration as a related person in those years. Vardan Ayvazyan himself did not declare his share and property in Georgia.

We tried to get a comment from Vardan Ayvazyan and find out details about the fate of the fish market and his undeclared property. We present our conversation in its entirety below.

- Mr. Ayvazyan, why didn't you build the fish market?

- They took it after you wrote it. Congratulations. You were so excited.

- Why did they take it? Wasn't everything legal?

- Don’t continue. You said so much. What else do you want?

- You seem to have sold it, Mr. Ayvazyan.

- I did not sell it. Go and look. There are legal things. You are interested.

- What is the problem?

- Go and investigate it.

- Did they take that land from you?

- You were interested, go look You didn't even ask then.

- Is everything normal with the rest of your Georgian property?

- Which property?

- For example, you bought a new apartment this year.

- Well, you are still interested, continue your research. What do you want?

- And why didn't you declare your Georgian property?

- Look closely at the source of the financing.

- From which side?

- Where do you get funding?

- You don't want to talk about your Georgian property. Why didn't you declare your Georgian property?

- Should I declare that?

- Shouldn't you have declared it? You were a deputy.

- I haven’t had such property. You are better informed by your informants. You can write whatever you want. You are financed people. What can I say? You devoured half the country. The other half remains to eat.

 Armenian law enforcement ignored Vardan Ayvazyan's undeclared Georgian property

Armenian Corruption Prevention Commission General Secretary Davit Mkoyan, in response to our inquiry, said that no proceedings were initiated against Vardan Ayvazyan, a former deputy of the RA National Assembly, during the Commission's activity, based on the declarant's careless submission of incorrect or incomplete data in the declaration.

"At the same time, I inform you that after studying the information available in the Commission, no information was found regarding the initiation of proceedings against him by the Ethics Commission of High-Ranking Officials (predecessor of the Corruption Prevention Commission)," Davit Mkoyan elaborated.

Vardan Ayvazyan's Georgian property also escaped the eyes of law enforcement officers. Although he faces a confiscation of property of illegal origin case, Armenian law enforcement officers were not interested in Ayvazyan's property in Georgia.

Recall that the Armenian Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) announced that the Department for Confiscation of Illegal Assets submitted a request to the court to confiscate assets belonging to former deputy of the National Assembly and former Minister of Nature Protection Vardan Ayvazyan and persons linked to him.

• Three pieces of real estate
• Two vehicles
• Shares/stock in eight legal entities
• An amount equivalent to the average market value of two vehicles
• 2,632,342 AMD, which is not substantiated by the legal income of the person, has an illegal origin, was transferred to a bona fide acquirer or cannot be identified and confiscated
• 18,593,643 AMD as the balance of income received from the use of property of illegal origin
• the right to request about 101 million AMD of the given loan

“At this stage, the Prosecutor General’s Office has not received sufficient information regarding the property located in Georgia and belonging to Vardan Ayvazyan or his related persons and of illegal origin. Therefore, no claim regarding such property has been filed," the PGO said in response to our inquiry as to whether the property belonging to Vardan Ayvazyan abroad is included in the request presented to the court, in particular, the share and real estate in Georgia.

On the other hand, Hetq repeatedly referred to Vardan Ayvazyan's investments in real estate and companies founded in Tbilisi which, however, the deputy did not declare.

This article was supported by Nino Bakradze (Ifact.ge) and Tskriala Shermadini (Studio Monitori)

Main photo design by Tirayr Muradyan