Factor TV: A Company Belonging to the Family of an Artik City Council Member from the Civil Contract Party Has Received Contracts Worth Hundreds of Millions from the Municipality
A company belonging to the family of Tigran Baghdasaryan, a member of the Civil Contract faction on the Artik City Council, has signed multimillion-dram contracts with the Artik Municipality in recent years. As Factor TV reports, citing data from the state procurement system of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Armenia, the company has carried out road construction work in the municipality, receiving contracts worth hundreds of millions of drams.
According to Factor TV, in March, the value of a contract signed with the Artik Municipality amounted to 75 million drams. Under the contract, the company undertook to pave intra-municipal roads with tuff stone in six settlements of Artik and carry out drainage work. Two months later, in May, the municipality signed another contract with CJSC Chanshin, worth 434 million drams, for the major renovation and asphalting of four streets in Artik. In May, under another contract worth around 60 million drams, the company also carried out pothole repairs and asphalting in Artik and rural settlements.
Contracts have also been signed with other state bodies. At the beginning of this year, a contract worth around 60 million drams was signed with the Shirak Regional Governor’s Office for the maintenance of regionally significant roads in Artik. The Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure also signed a 61-million-dram contract with CJSC Chanshin for drainage system work on the Margara–Vanadzor–Tashir–Republic of Armenia border highway.
Factor TV notes that the signing of multimillion-dram contracts between the company and the Artik Municipality coincided with the period when Tigran Baghdasaryan became a member of the city council. Baghdasaryan, who is the director of CJSC Chanshin, became a council member in 2021. Starting that same year, the company began signing multimillion-dram contracts with the municipality.
According to data from the state procurement system, two contracts worth a total of 70 million drams were signed in 2021; three contracts worth 139 million drams in 2022; and two contracts worth 91 million drams in 2023. In 2024, the total value of three contracts amounted to 126 million drams. In 2025, the company received 233 million drams for the asphalting and major renovation of Baghramyan Street in Artik. Last year, work worth around 50 million drams was also carried out in Artik and rural settlements to repair potholes and lay asphalt.
In a conversation with Factor TV, the company’s owner, Vahagn Baghdasaryan, Tigran Baghdasaryan’s father, stated that his companies had participated in tenders and been declared winners. He claimed that they had won only two tenders, although the data published in the state procurement system show a larger number of contracts.
“Before, when my son wasn’t in the Civil Contract faction, wasn’t I winning tenders? I’ve always won. I don’t belong to any political party,” Vahagn Baghdasaryan said.
Factor TV also examined contracts signed between CJSC Chanshin and the Artik Municipality before 2021. According to the state procurement system, two contracts worth a total of 8.4 million drams were signed in 2019, one contract worth 2.3 million drams in 2018, while the total value of contracts in 2017 amounted to 16 million drams. A comparison of these figures shows that the volume of contracts signed with the company increased significantly after 2021.
The data presented in the publication raise questions about the transparency of municipal procurement and the links between a city council member and a company signing contracts with the municipality. Tigran Baghdasaryan himself did not provide a separate comment for the publication.
It should be noted that Tigran Baghdasaryan is once again running on the Civil Contract Party’s list in the local self-government elections scheduled for October 25, seeking re-election as a member of the Artik City Council.