A few weeks ago, during a regular court hearing in the March 1 case, the wife of former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan, accused in the March 1 case, stated that the prosecutor “has no moral right to raise Seyran Ohanyan’s case in any court.” While watching this briefing, we noticed that Khachatryan is wearing a jacket from the 2018 collection of the Italian Moncler brand, the price of which is $2,275.

Seyran Ohanyan is no longer a state official, but for many years his income, according to the declarations, was the salary and pension of a civil servant, and his wife’s income was only her salary.

Using the open-source investigation toolkit, we decided to study what Ruzanna Khachatryan and her family were wearing.

Why is this important?

From 1999 to 2016, Seyran Ohanyan served as NKR, then RA Minister of Defense. During his tenure as Minister, Ohanyan declared only two types of income: salary and pension. Ruzanna Khachatryan, who founded the Armenian Association of Military Physicians during her husband’s tenure, also only declared a salary.

Examining the declarations available on the website of the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption, it becomes clear that in 2011-2015, the annual joint income declared by Ohanyan and his wife averaged about 9.4 million drams (about $19,000) or 785,000 drams (about $1,600) per month.

Of course, Seyran Ohanyan no longer holds a state position, but after the second Artsakh war, he returned to active politics, took part in opposition rallies, and a few days ago announced that he would run in snap elections if they took place.

Based on the photos that Ruzanna Khachatryan posted on her Facebook page, we found out that during Seyran Ohanyan’s tenure, his wife and children often wore luxury brand items, some of which can cost several thousand dollars. Ruzanna Khachatryan also posted pictures in designer clothing after her husband’s dismissal. The article mentions the date that each picture was published.

Mocler 

On January 19, during a briefing with journalists, Ruzanna Khachatryan was wearing an Italian luxury Moncler brand jacket. This brand is famous for its winter jackets. Comparing the pictures, we can conclude that Khachatryan is wearing a Moncler Grenoble Limides jacket.

In another video, the logo on the sleeve of Khachatryan’s jacket can be seen, which is also in the photos of the Moncler jacket.

In the Modesens online store, which gathers items sold in different brand stores in one place, the price of this jacket is $2,275.

Louis Vuitton

Khachatryan often wears accessories of the famous French Louis Vuitton brand. For example, in one of her photos from 2019, you can see the bag of this classic Neverfull model, which costs $1,460 on the official website.

An accessory of another classic model of the same brand, the scarf with the brand logo, appears in Ruzanna Khachatryan’s pictures from February 2016. It can be found on the brand’s website for $730.

Dior

At the beginning of 2020, during the holidays, Ruzanna Khachatryan posted a photo wearing a shirt and skirt from the French brand Dior’s 2019-20 autumn collection.

The shirt is no longer available on the Dior website:  We found it in the Modesens store for $2,950.

Such a model from the same collection on the official website of the brand costs $3,100.

Khachatryan is also carrying a Dior bag. It costs $3,250 on the brand’s website. This photo was posted in the summer of 2019.

Gucci

Luxury brands are not only worn by Ruzanna Khachatryan, but also by her children. For example, in this photo from 2015, you can see the belt of the classic model of Gucci, which costs $175 on the website.

This is not the only belt from Gucci: In 2017, Khachatryan published a photo of herself and her son, where the child is wearing a black leather belt with the brand logo.

Ruzanna Khachatryan herself is carrying a Gucci Horsebit bag, the price of which we could not find out. The price of women’s bags on the official website of the brand starts from $695 and reaches up to $34,000.

Hermes

In another photo you can see the Hermes brand belt worn by Khachatryan’s son. Belts in this series cost $790 on the brand’s website. The first time you can see a belt with the Hermes logo in the photos posted by Khachatryan is in 2015.

Kenzo

In the photo posted in the spring of 2020, the daughter of Seyran Ohanyan and Ruzanna Khachatryan is wearing a French Kenzo dress. The price of this dress in the famous Farfetch online store is $267.

It is important to note that the prices of all the items we found are listed without discounts. It cannot be ruled out that the Ohanyan family bought things at a discount. Media.am was also based on the assumption that these items are original, not copies.

Other clothes and accessories

In some cases we did not manage to identify the item, but we managed to find out the manufacturer. For example, in this photo published in January 2016, Seyran Ohanyan is holding a watch of the Swiss brand Chopard. The price of Chopard watches varies from a few thousand to several tens of thousands of dollars. The cheapest Chopard watch in the Armenian Chronograph store costs 2,967,000 AMD (at the time of publishing the article).

In addition to this watch, by studying the photos published during Seyran Ohanyan’s tenure in 2015-2016, we found many other branded items.

For example, the bag of this Capucines model by Louis Vuitton. At the time of publication of this article on the official website of the brand, the cheapest bag of this model costs $4,200.

And in this photo you can see a Gucci Horsebit style bag.

Enlarging this photo published two weeks after the April 2016 war, one can notice the Chanel brand logo.

This photo shows the classic Fendi scarf from the meeting between Ruzanna Khachatryan and the American-Armenian doctor-traumatologist that took place during the same period.

And another Chanel bag.

The logos of Chanel and Fendi can also be seen in this photo.

Another camera angle also shows the T-shirt brand, Armani.

This bag is also from the brand Dolce & Gabbana.

The Ohanyan family may have more fashion house items and expensive brands. These items identified by Media.am are only a part of Ruzanna Khachatryan’s Facebook page, which has been operating since 2015.

Arshaluys Barseghyan

Karine Ghazaryan