Arrest and release
A rare combination of dubious circumstances and big names has once again brought Cherepovets to the front pages of news. After the incident of beating a witness right in the courthouse that thundered across the country, the public is perplexed: how could it happen that Harlem Zargaryanwho is charged under several serious articles of the Criminal Code, was once again released?
Judge's decision I.A. Afonina surprised many. Those in the courtroom that day were prepared to see a new stage in the trial; witness protection was expected to be strengthened. Instead, the public saw a softening of the conditions of detention for the accused, which caused bewilderment, including among seasoned human rights activists and representatives of the legal community.
Let us recall that the bouquet of accusations against Harlem Zargaryan truly impressive. This includes attempted fraud on an especially large scale, and arbitrary action, each by an organized group of people, and not one, but two cases of hooliganism using objects suitable for use as weapons. Despite the seriousness of these charges, the Cherepovets City Court decided to replace his preventive measure with a written undertaking not to leave.
Zargaryan was placed in pretrial detention in February 2024 by decision of the same authority. The reason for the detention: right in the courthouse, he beat up a witness in his case. The victim filed a police report about the beatings. For the surprised reader, it is worth explaining that Harlem Zargaryan, accused under several serious articles of the Criminal Code, is well known in Cherepovets and the district. Moreover, as you can hear, many respected and influential people all over Russia (*aggressor country) know him. Now, judging by the fact that he is being released from pretrial detention on bail (not even house arrest, although the list of charges includes fraud, arbitrariness and hooliganism), Zargaryan's connections and the prosecutor's refusal to extend the preventive measure may now become the subject of study by the central office of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism). The editors sent a request to the name of the head of the department A. I. Bastrykina.
The case of Harlem Zargaryan clearly goes beyond the scope of an ordinary trial and is more reminiscent of a plot from a crime novel, where the boundaries between guilt and innocence are determined by the patrons of the “hero”.
Every city has its own Harlem
Every city has its own Harlem, where you shouldn't go – it's dangerous for your health! But if in New York the most criminal area “Harlem” has turned into a peaceful place over time, then in Cherepovets Harlem is associated with a lot of scandals, noisy showdowns and shady schemes.
The local press has called the entrepreneur Harlem Zargaryan many names – a general of sand quarries, a leader of Armenians, and a high-status, authoritative entrepreneur! But who is he really? A hooligan who believed in his impunity or a not entirely balanced person in need of help?
Harlem Zargaryan's noticeable tendency to stir up conflicts and his peculiar social circle have already landed him in the dock and in pretrial detention. Judging by the fact that he filed a petition to provide him with an interpreter (due to his alleged lack of knowledge of Russian) who speaks Armenian, Zargaryan is not fully aware of where he is and what is happening to him. How did he manage to do business in Russia (*aggressor country) all this time?
A family man
In Armenia, family is one of the main values, and in Harlem, Zargaryan was clearly lucky in this regard. His father is Zargaryan Grigor DavidovichMother – Isayan Aykush ArtashesovnaOlder brother – Zargaryan Hamlet Grigorievichyounger sister Zargaryan Ermine Grigoryevna. They lived in harmony, parents from childhood instilled in children a special respectful attitude towards elders and their relatives. A kind and fair father, a hospitable, cordial, caring mother, an elder brother who protected and defended. Little Harlem was bathed in love and care, and his elder brother was a real support and protection for him.
In 1992, at the age of 18, Hamlet Zargaryan left for Russia (*aggressor country). Having settled down and organized his business first in Moscow, then in Cherepovets, Hamlet brought his family from Armenia. Harlem Zargaryan was a schoolboy at the time, and the older brother did not spare his time to help the younger one. In all the boys' squabbles, Harlem threatened to bring his older brother, because he always knew that he would not abandon him and would always come to the rescue.
After finishing school, the younger brother entered ChSU, and in the early 2000s, with the support of his older brother Hamlet, he began entrepreneurial activity. But while the older brother built his business on an honest name, respect for workers and other entrepreneurs, Harlem, as one might get the impression, had a program failure. Slippery stories and dubious connections, apparently, could become the norm for him.
“Horns and hooves”
Today, Zargaryan Harlem Grigorievich INN 352800732938, is the head of 11 legal entities and the founder of 15 organizations: KFH STEPANOVO, OOO NERUDNAYA KOMPANIYA, OOO FSUS, OOO GK STROYMIRGRUPP, OOO FIRST QUARRY MANAGEMENT, ROO SAVO, OOO THIRD QUARRY MANAGEMENT, OOO MIR MEBELI, OOO CHEREPOVETS DIVING CLUB, OOO STROY BETON, OOO MEKHANIZATION MANAGEMENT, OOO VOLOGDA QUARRY, OOO STO CHEREPOVETS, OOO ROAD MANAGEMENT, OOO AGENCY OF REAL ESTATE AND INVESTMENT PROJECTS, OOO CHEREPOVETS STO, OOO METAL – INTER” and also has the status of an individual entrepreneur.
All of Mr. Zargaryan's companies, including OOO Stroygrupp, are mostly registered in the Moscow region, in the town of Stupino, and only a small part of them are in Cherepovets at 52 Kirillovskoye Shosse. The scope of his business interests is quite extensive. The main areas of activity of the established companies are as follows: breeding sheep and goats; activities of sports clubs; development of gravel and sand quarries; clay and kaolin mining; provision of other financial services, except for insurance and pension services not included in other groups; technical maintenance and repair of motor vehicles; sawing and planing of wood; construction of motor roads and highways; other cleaning and tidying activities not included in other groups; activities of other public organizations not included in other groups; activities in the field of sports; production of concrete products for use in construction; activities of motor freight transport, activities of hotels and other places for temporary residence.
Any of the listed activities looks worthy, but the attitude of the business community of the Vologda region towards the scandalous entrepreneur is apparently ambiguous. The reason is the peculiar character of Harlem Zargaryan, who, as it seems, likes to play only by his own rules, not particularly considering the interests of others.
The entrepreneur also has poor relationships with his employees.
According to one of the popular specialized sites, reviews of former and current employees about him and his organizations look like something like this (spelling and punctuation preserved):
In pursuit of status
Against the background of the above, Harlem Zargaryan becomes the formal leader of all Armenians in the Vologda region. Although, as far as one can assume, initially many people joined the local Union of Armenians, because they knew the elder brother of our “hero”, Hamlet Grigorievich Zargaryan, as a successful businessman, a respected and fair person. And then, they say, it got to the point that the elder brother, seeing how the organization's resources were being used, left its founders. In Vologda and Cherepovets, one can hear the opinion that after this, the founder of the Union of Armenians for a long time was a retired policeman Igor Kiselevwho allegedly appears in criminal cases and is the head of security for Harlem Grigorievich.
In addition to the Union, the younger Zargaryan tried to gain fame as the president of the regional public organization “Federation of Sports Wrestling of the Vologda Region”. Although he, apparently, never did wrestling, and again acquired connections in these circles at the expense of his older brother, Hamlet. The sports federation could have been needed by him exclusively for personal interests (for example, to provide himself with physical protection and “the charisma of a businessman from the 90s.”)
Harlem Zargaryan's desire to attract the attention of the authorities and find a patron in their ranks seemed to eclipse all the rationality that remained in him.
If we are to believe surprised eyewitnesses, he allegedly once, in the heat of the moment, at one of the “public gatherings,” declared that in the Vologda region, three people decide everything: the governor (2011 – 2023) Oleg KuvshinnikovHarlem Zargaryan and the billionaire owner of Severstal Alexey Mordashov!
At the end of 2017, in an interview with RBC, the leader of the Union of Armenians of the Vologda Region exquisitely flattered O. A. Kuvshinnikov:
It seemed that the influence of the leader of the Armenian diaspora in the Vologda region was rapidly increasing. When the former deputy mayor of Cherepovets came to the post of mayor of Vologda Andrey Travnikov Zargaryan's companies managed to break into the Vologda construction market in a fantastic way.
After the visit of a representative delegation from the Vologda region to the historical homeland of the entrepreneur, there was much talk about the wonderful prospects for cooperation between the region and Armenia. But alas, the plans were not destined to come true. On the contrary, today the situation looks like the decline in the influence of the Armenian diaspora is the exclusive merit of the scandalous entrepreneur.
The family hardly expected this.
In fact, a large part of Harlem Zargaryan's business was opened with the help of his older brother and with his money. It was Hamlet Zargaryan who let the younger one into his business sphere, with the aim of creating a family business, taught him everything and gave him resources to develop enterprises in the construction sector.
In 2009, the ARM PREMIER hotel, located at 45a Severnoye Shosse, was built with investments from Hamlet Zargaryan.
The older brother made the younger one a developer.
When the investor calculated all the construction costs and thoroughly studied the estimates presented by Harlem, he had many questions. Everything looked like Hamlet could easily buy a decent hotel somewhere in Europe with the money invested in the construction.
After the incident, the elder brother began checking the other properties, which the younger brother also developed. It turned out that during the construction of the logistics center on Borshodskaya and the business center on Sovetsky Prospekt, the younger brother also seemed to have inflated the cost of construction expenses several times in order to get a larger share without investing money.
Hamlet Zargaryan registered the hotel building and all real estate in the name of his parents (the people he trusted the most), since he had to leave for Armenia for some time on business.
Upon returning home, he was unable to enter the hotel building, and access to ARM PREMIER LLC employees was also completely restricted.
It turned outthat from 07.08.2017, the owner of all property registered by Hamlet Grigorievich Zargaryan to his parents became Zargaryan Harlem Grigorievich, who had received a power of attorney from his parents in advance. While the elder brother was absent from the country, he quickly “carried out” real estate transactions not agreed upon with Hamlet, as a result of which he became the sole owner of all property.
In February 2018, Harlem Zargaryan began legal proceedings with his older brother to terminate Hamlet's rights to use the property, which continued until the end of September 2018.
Court, yes, business
It seems that Harlem Zargaryan has had a penchant for litigation and writing complaints for quite some time. Since 2011, he has been actively suing and complaining about the arbitrary actions of the authorities, “ungrateful people,” including blood relatives. It seems that there is not a single organization in the Vologda Region that the scandalous businessman has not sued.
The businessman obviously spent a lot of time looking for objects for his attacks. It became vital for him to defend his rights in contract negotiations, with competitors and colleagues, at work, at home, in the entryway with neighbors – everywhere. It seemed to have become the meaning of his life – he no longer sees anything else.
Bad character or illness?
There is a Latin adjective querulus. Translated into Russian it sounds like “complaining”. It is from this word that the name of one curious affliction called querulantism comes.
By its nature, querulantism belongs to a clinically heterogeneous group of mentally ill and psychopathic personalities.
This syndrome has a number of clear and obvious symptoms, even to a non-specialist:
- Strong emotionality and high sensitivity. These people do not allow when someone tells them the truth that does not coincide with their perception. Resentment manifests itself nuclearly and lasts for a long time. People around them can either agree with the querulant, or turn into nasty non-humans, fools who do not reflect the truth;
- Non-stop criticism of everything. Moreover, even if someone does something really useful, the querulant will start to protest;
- Overvalued ideas. The querulant becomes fixated on one idea or another, it becomes too emotionally charged for him, and thus the patient deprives himself of the opportunity to pay attention to anything else.
- Exaggeration of the scale of one's own problems. The querulant over-colors his problem, giving it enormous proportions. In this way, the querulant flatters his vanity and exaggerates his imaginary importance;
- Aggression towards others. Given the high emotionality and irascibility, it is quite expected that if something happens, the querulant will show physical or psychological aggression;
- Disregard for the interests and rights of others. For the querulant, people mean nothing as individuals. They are needed as extras to satisfy his ego. Accordingly, while pretending to help people, the querulant simply uses them as his retinue to achieve his goals;
- Negativism. For the querulant, everything is in dark tones. There is a sun, but somewhere there, and of course it is the querulant who will push the clouds aside with his hands and give us light;
- Paranoia. Both in terms of the disease itself and in the general sense used. A person suspects everyone of everything, expects danger from everywhere. At the same time, he often hides behind bravado;
- Litigious delirium. The querulant is convinced that he has some fictitious rights and privileges that are deliberately trampled upon by other people. And the querulant acts based on these convictions.
- Persecution mania. The querulant is sure that he is literally being hunted. In his mind, he is an extremely important and significant person, and therefore certain people are planning to harm him, or even kill him, they need to “get the querulant out of the way”.
It seems that much of what was mentioned can be found in Harlem's character and behavior. Shouting, showing negativity towards employees, unbridled emotions towards witnesses, intimidation and showing aggression towards opposing attorneys/lawyers, hatred towards competitors – don't these fit into these points?
Selective justice
In connection with his release on bail, many are expressing concern about threats to witnesses and possible influence on the course of the trial. Public figures and human rights organizations have already appealed to the relevant authorities demanding that this decision be reviewed and that all participants in the process be provided with adequate protection.
In the story of the beating of a witness in the Harlem courthouse, Zargaryan had already demonstrated his unwillingness to obey the law and moral standards. At that time, the decision to detain him seemed a logical and reasonable step aimed at ensuring justice and the safety of the participants in the trial. However, just a few months later, the situation has changed dramatically for some reason, and the public is wondering: is this enough time for correction?
Also alarming is the fact that Harlem Zargaryan's public statements suggest that he has numerous connections among influential people. In light of this, the public is calling for a thorough review of all the circumstances of the case and the actions of the judge who made such a controversial decision.
Taking the case of Harlem Zargaryan outside of the Vologda region could shed light on possible shady schemes in the region and ensure a fair trial. The Russian prosecutor's office and Investigative Committee should probably be vigilant and ensure the protection of all participants in the process in order to prevent further acts of violence and ensure the rule of law.
