On May 16, RA Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan posted a photo on his Facebook page with Syunik Governor Melikset Poghosyan, MPs Armen Khachatryan and Narek Ghahramanyan, noting that they had gone to Lake Sev. As it is known, the Azerbaijani military invaded the Lake Sev area for about 4 days and claimed that it belongs to Azerbaijan.

Journalist Nairi Hokhikyan commented shortly after the publication that Avinyan and his colleagues were not in the area of  Lake Sev, but in a similar small lake adjacent to that area, near Goris, and the lake behind them was not even Lake Small, but the small lake next to it called Lake Sag.

In a separate post, Nairi Hokhikyan also referred to the photos published by Avinyan and mentioned on the map where they were “actually” taken.

According to Nairi Hokhikyan, the location of Avinyan’s photo

The fact that the Deputy Prime Minister and his colleagues were photographed not in Lake Sev, but near the small lake near Lake Sag in Goris, was also confirmed by the Mediaport Telegram channel. According to the latter, the news began to spread in the media and social networks.

NA Deputy Naira Zohrabyan did not remain indifferent and made a Facebook post․

“No, no problem, you can write that you are in Lake Baikal, or in Lake Loch Ness, you found a Loch Ness monster, but you were ‘simply’ deceived, it is not Lake Sev and that’s that. This small lake is on the way to Goris, next to Lake Sag. But it’s okay, the important thing is the combat photo session. From this national liberation selfie, a first-degree military alarm was sounded in Azerbaijan, and Ilham Heydarovich wore his Libero waterproof diapers. Keep it up.”

The post has now been removed but has already appeared on media pages.

The photos were taken at Lake Sev

In fact, Tigran Avinyan and the others were really in the area of Black Lake. We are convinced of that by watching the Public TV report, where a much larger area of the area is visible and it is possible to determine the location.

In the photo below you can see the image of Lake Sev on Google Earth and compare it with the photo published by Avinyan and the footage of the Public TV report.

And in this photo, we can see the mountain to the east of Lake Sev, which is again identical to the place published by Public TV.

Lake Sag, as mentioned by Nairi Hokhikyan, is located 300 meters from Lake Sev, to the east. The latter was wrong in locating the place.

In a conversation with Auroranews, Goris Deputy Mayor Menua Avetisyan clarified how the Armenian side was able to appear in that area without hindrance. “It is at the back of Lake Sev, they managed to be there during the negotiations. As for the general area, there are different climatic conditions in different parts of Lake Sev, there is also snow. Tigran Avinyan was in Lake Sev with the representatives of the Goris community, they were the ones who accompanied him.”

Ophelia Simonyan