Avinian and Yerevan’s municipal council sharply raised parking fees in the city center a year ago. In particular, the fixed annual price of on-street parking there jumped from 12,000 drams to 160,000 drams ($400).
“They should make it 500,000 drams so that every scumbag cannot park his village Opel here,” Armen Avinian told the Oragir.news website on Thursday.
The mayor, who is still reeling from a scandal caused by the purchase of a $19,500 air ticket for his recent trip to the United States, rushed to apologize for his father’s “rude and ugly” comments.
“I'm sure those answers were given under the influence of nerves, [traffic] congestion and maybe also annoyance by the journalist,” Avinian said in a video message.
Most of the city residents randomly interviewed by RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Friday remained furious with the remarks made by Avinian Sr.
“Who do he and his father think they are?” said one man.
“Who gave him the right to offend Opel drivers?” said another citizen, referring to the owners of old second-hand German cars that have been imported to Armenia in large numbers since the early 2000s.
He also dismissed the mayor’s apology, saying: “Who needs a painted egg after Easter?”
Avinian’s political opponents seized upon the offensive comments, saying that they show what Armenia’s current rulers really think of ordinary people.
“This is not accidental,” said former Yerevan Mayor Hayk Marutian. “This is, unfortunately, the worldview, mindset, and attitude of individuals holding the most important positions in our country towards the people who have given them power. And no apology can fix this situation.”
Some of the angry citizens recalled in this regard the exorbitant cost of Avinian’s flights to and from Los Angeles which was revealed by Marutian last week. Faced with an uproar, the mayor said on Monday that he will use his personal money to compensate the municipal administration for the 7.7 million drams ($19,500) spent on his air tickets.
Avinian, who is a senior member of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s party, last week branded Armenian media outlets as a “garbage dump” before suing an online publication that effectively accused him and his family of illicit enrichment.
Civilnet.am scrutinized the family’s business assets in a journalistic investigation jointly conducted with the international Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). In a November article, the publication said that the 35-year-old mayor’s dazzling political career has been “accompanied by the growing prosperity of businesses linked to his family.”
The article singled out an agribusiness firm officially owned by Avinian’s father and brother. It received government contracts, grants and loan subsidies when he served as deputy prime minister from 2018-2021. Avinian denounced the “false article.”
