Seven Properties, Transactions Worth Tens of Millions, and a New Position: The Story of Hrachya Hakobyan

Hraparak writes that Hakobyan has been appointed adviser to Vardges Vardanyan, president of Noah. The club has stated that he will coordinate one area of work on Noah Park, without specifying exactly what he will do. The project concerns a sports complex being built on a 23.8-hectare site, with an investment program worth approximately 7.2 billion drams that was approved by the government in 2025. Noah purchased the land for 688 million drams, while also donating another 312 million drams to the Vagharshapat community.

Naturally, certain capabilities are required to obtain an advisory position on a project of this kind. In Hakobyan’s case, these are not apparent. It is difficult to find experience managing major construction projects or developing sports infrastructure in his biography. Instead, the best-known feature of his career is his connection to the prime minister’s family.

So why Hrach Hakobyan in particular? What will he bring to Noah, and why is the official explanation of his appointment limited to the vague formulation that he will coordinate one area of work?

These questions become even more interesting when we consider that implementing the project entails ongoing work with state and municipal authorities, coordination, and construction permits. Under these circumstances, involving a member of the prime minister’s family could serve as a form of insurance for the investor, ensuring access to those in power.

The most interesting aspect of this appointment is the timeline.

On September 18, 2025, the government led by Pashinyan approved Noah Park’s investment program, worth more than 7 billion drams, and adopted a decision to sell the 23.8-hectare plot of land to Noah.

Two and a half months later, on December 2, 2025, Hrachya Hakobyan announced that he would not run in the 2026 parliamentary elections. He explained that he wanted to take a short break from active politics. Moreover, when journalists asked what he would do, he replied that he had not yet thought about it. He had discussed the decision with Pashinyan, and, according to Hakobyan, the prime minister had reacted normally. Hakobyan had also assured them that there had been no discussions about his future work.

And in October 2026, he appeared in precisely that investment project as an adviser to Noah’s president.

Can we assume that the prospect of this job was already behind the decision to give up his parliamentary mandate, and that his status as an MP would simply have become an unnecessary obstacle? The sequence of events itself makes such a question unavoidable.

This is how corruption risks are concealed in modern Armenia behind legal contracts and official salaries. There is no longer any need to transfer money in an envelope if a position as an adviser can be given to someone close to those in power, and their connections can be used as an advantage for an investment project. The salary will appear as a clean figure in the documents, the contract will be legal, and the real mutual benefits will remain behind the scenes. In effect, we are witnessing the old, flawed mechanisms being repackaged in a new, more polished form.

Hrachya Hakobyan once assured the public that the “in-law, acquaintance, and relative” factor in his career had been “reduced almost to zero.”

Today, we can see the real value of those words.

Questions had previously arisen about Hakobyan’s income and asset declarations as well. In 2018, when he took office as an MP, he declared one plot of land, two apartments, two cars—a BMW X5 and an Isuzu Axiom—as well as an investment in Array. As of that date, he had declared no monetary assets or income. In other words, he entered parliament as a man who owned two properties and two cars, but had no declared cash or bank funds and no current income.

In the following years, the picture changed. According to a publication about his annual declaration for 2018, Hakobyan sold both cars and acquired a Hyundai Sonata worth 2.8 million drams. His income in 2018 amounted to approximately 8.5 million drams, of which 4.5 million was salary and the remainder was money received from selling the cars. In 2020, he declared a detached house in Dzoraghbyur purchased for 12.5 million drams, and in 2021, a summer house in the same location worth 6.2 million drams.

By the time his parliamentary powers ended, in August 2026, Hakobyan’s declaration already listed seven properties, six of them solely owned; a 2021 Volvo; 8.4 million drams in bank accounts; and 800,000 drams in cash. On April 10, 2025, he acquired bonds worth 20,222,380 drams from Armeconombank OJSC, which belongs to the family of Khachatur Sukiasyan. Meanwhile, the loan he had provided to Capital Build amounted to 44.12 million drams. His declared income during the reporting period exceeded 10.4 million drams.

Pay attention to the difference. When he took office, he owned two properties but declared no monetary assets or income. By the end of his parliamentary career, he was declaring seven properties, millions of drams in bank funds, bonds, and a loan worth tens of millions. All this raises a logical question: how did his financial capacity develop over the years, and do the declared incomes fully explain his reported assets and major transactions?

This is where the issue of “in-laws, acquaintances, and relatives” takes on a much more concrete meaning. Hakobyan once claimed that this factor had been reduced almost to zero in his career. But his political rise coincided with his sister’s husband coming to power, and after leaving his parliamentary seat, he appeared in the multibillion-dram Noah Park project.

The “in-laws, acquaintances, and relatives” factor may not appear as a separate line in an asset declaration, but that does not mean it fails to open doors that others have no opportunity to enter.