Ashot was like this...

After the publication in Novaya, many people and organizations hastily remembered how ex-State Duma deputy Ashot Yeghiazaryan helped them

Letter to the editor A sham "investigation" With respect to Ms. Osipova's article "Subject to Return", published in Novaya Gazeta No. 26 of March 14, 2011, a number of considerations must be made. Ms Osipova claims that she...

Letter to the editor

The alleged "investigation"

With regard to Ms. Osipova's article "Subject to Return", published in Novaya Gazeta No. 26 of March 14, 2011, a number of considerations must be made.

Ms. Osipova claims that she sent her questions to the email address listed on Ashot Yeghiazaryan's website, but had not received any responses by the time the article was published. This statement is insincere. The article was posted on the Internet on the morning of Sunday, March 13, and Ms. Osipova sent her questions regarding only six charitable projects only at the end of the working day on Friday, March 11. In addition, she did not indicate a deadline by which she would like to receive responses and did not attempt to duplicate the request by phone, although the website lists a telephone number for media representatives along with a contact email address.

If the readers of Novaya Gazeta have any doubts about the implementation of the charitable projects mentioned in Ms. Osipova's article, they should visit the website www.ashot-egiazaryan.com, which contains the relevant supporting documents.

) as a starting point for her investigation, Ms. Osipova emphasizes that she used the list of charitable projects posted on Mr. Yeghiazaryan's English website ( www.ashot-egiazaryan.com and claims that the information provided on it contains positions that in general " not verifiable." However, the English-language site presents a simplified list of Ashot Yeghiazaryan's charitable projects for the simple reason that foreign audiences do not need details. The original Russian version of the list, posted at www.egiazaryan.com , contains more detailed information, including addresses of organizations that received financial assistance from Mr. Egiazaryan. At the same time, it is clear that Ms. Osipova accessed this site and used the information posted on it, since her article provides a number of data that are included only in the Russian-language list (for example, the mention of orphanage No. 12 and the fact that the children's camp "Derzhavny is located in the Ryazan region).

So, since Ms. Osipova had access to information about projects posted on the Russian-language site, and in fact used it:

a) Why did she send a request to the “Church of All Saints on Kulishki on Slavyanskaya Square”, if none of the lists mentions such a church, and the Russian-language list clearly indicates that the beneficiary was the Church of All Saints in 2nd Krasnoselsky Lane? Not surprisingly, she did not receive confirmation of the charity: the request was sent to the wrong address.

b) Why did she send inquiries to the two Artos audiovisual studios, which "have no children's bias", while the Russian-language list clearly states that the studio's products are intended for children and youth, and its full name is given, by which Is it very easy to find it on the Internet ( http://www.artos-ks.ru/ )? Not surprisingly, she did not receive confirmation of the charity: the request was sent to the wrong address.

c) Why didn’t she indicate in her requests that, as the Russian-language website clearly states, Ashot Yeghiazaryan’s charitable activities are led by his wife, Natalia Tsagolova? As can be seen from the example of orphanage No. 12 and school No. 1306, if Ms. Osipova had not concealed this information, she would have received positive answers to her requests.

d) Why does she conclude that the "Women's School of Icon Painting" "does not exist in principle", when the Russian-language website clearly indicates its address and the fact that it existed in 1996-2000?

e) Why does she claim that the schools K.P. Pobedonostsev does not exist in Moscow, if a simple search on the Internet shows that it exists and operates to this day (see http://www.hram-ks.ru/slugby.shtml )?

f) Why does she claim that the production of a 72-minute documentary in Russia and Israel is “virtually impossible to verify”, if the Russian-language list gives its exact title, and a simple Internet search returns the addresses of numerous sites from which copies can be downloaded? At the end of the film, Ashot Yeghiazaryan is directly thanked for the charitable support of this project.

g) Why does she claim that Ashot Yeghiazaryan did not provide charitable assistance to Moscow State University, drawing such a conclusion on the basis of the response of the administrative officer, in which - according to the quotation given by the newspaper - he admits only his ignorance on this issue?

Ms. Osipova committed three significant violations of professional ethics that are incompatible with the principles of objective journalism:

She deliberately did not use the information available to her that would have made her article more balanced.

She deliberately sent some of her inquiries to deliberately wrong addresses and then used negative responses to support false accusations of deceit.

“She casts doubt on the existence of Ashot Yeghiazaryan's philanthropic projects, without giving him or his representatives a reasonable opportunity to respond to these claims. Considering that she sent her questions very late, and that she subsequently reported that "the article was ready for publication", although she did not make any serious attempts to get answers, it is clear that she and the editor deliberately made a decision publish one-sided and inaccurate information.

Ms. Osipova states in relation to the four charitable projects listed on the English-language website that "all these 'projects' cannot be verified in principle, therefore the fact of their existence will never be confirmed or denied by the results of a journalistic investigation." This is an absolutely unreliable statement, because if Ashot Yeghiazaryan or his representatives had a real opportunity to answer the accusations, we would have told Ms. Osipova about these projects and presented evidence of their existence.

Ms. Osipova uses her conclusion that Ashot Yeghiazaryan's philanthropic activities are a hoax to denigrate him and support the false and malicious accusations leveled against him by the Russian authorities, and also calls him "the subject of our numerous publications on corruption and crime." Unfortunately, at the same time Ms. Osipova does not notify her readers that in 2001 Mr. Yeghiazaryan won a defamation suit against Novaya Gazeta in relation to a number of similar articles. And although the court then ruled that Novaya Gazeta should publish a retraction, a search in the newspaper's archive available on the Internet shows that the newspaper never complied with the court's decision.

The fact that such a respected press organ as Novaya Gazeta, which claims to be objective and committed to professional journalism standards, published an article of this kind is a huge disappointment.

In this case, the only purpose of this article is to discredit a person and pass judgment on him in the court of public opinion. This is completely contrary to the democratic values ​​that I have always associated with your newspaper.

John Lough ,
Vice-President of the company "B-G-Ar Gabara"
(BGR Gabara),
media relations advisor to Ashot Yeghiazaryan

Editorial comment

Novaya Gazeta received a letter from adviser Ashot Yeghiazaryan, who was very dissatisfied with our publication about the charitable activities of the patron.

We publish it, but at the same time we are sure that we have rendered Mr. Yeghiazaryan and his PR people a great service. After all, now the general public has learned that in order to obtain reliable information about his charitable projects, you need to use the Russian-language site, and the American one, links to which are first of all issued by search engines and Wikipedia, is a demo version for the Anglo-Saxons. Well, after our publication, it also underwent qualitative improvements - links to charitable projects became clickable, you can download documents from them. True, it is not clear what to do with them for an audience that does not speak Russian.

When preparing the publication, we did not use the materials of the Russian-language site and did not go there at all. After all, the English version does not even have a link. Information about the projects, which is not on ashot-egiazaryan.com, we received from sources contacted during the investigation.

Now for some of the claims. Item a). Inquiries about the charitable activities of Ashot Yeghiazaryan were sent to the Church of All Saints in Kulishki, the Church of All Saints in Krasnoye Selo and the Church of All Saints in Sokol. On March 15, after the publication of the publication, we received an e-mail response from the rector of the Church of All Saints of the former Novo-Alekseevsky Monastery in Krasnoye Selo, Archpriest Artemy Vladimirov (dated March 12) that Mr. protection to them. Tsesarevich Alexy, general education parochial school, in the restoration of the Church of All Saints of the former Novo-Alekseevsky Monastery, the Church of St. Tikhon of Zadonsk assigned to it in Sokolniki.

According to point b). On the Internet you can find information about more than 10 Artos studios. We really didn't guess. But it's funny that the Artos studio in Krasnoe Selo is located in the same place as the Church of All Saints of the former Novo-Alekseevsky Monastery.

Item d). "Women's icon-painting school". There is no organization with that name. A letter dated March 15 was posted on Yeghiazaryan’s website, on behalf of Dzarasov Alan-Safarbiy Soltanovich (for some reason, on the letterhead of the Autonomous Non-Profit Organization “Habitat”) with a statement that there was a “Women’s icon-painting workshop named after. John the Theologian, and Mr. Dzarasov was its director. How were we to know this?

Item e). Church-parochial school. Pobedonostsev. The only link to the history and contacts of the school is on the website of the Church of All Saints in Krasnoye Selo. The editors have at their disposal the reply of the director of the parochial school at the Church of All Saints of the former Novo-Alekseevsky Monastery, Elena Vladimirova, which states that Ashot Gevorkovich Yeghiazaryan "did not provide charitable or other sponsorship." We are talking about the same educational institution.

Point f). 72-minute documentary "Inquiry. The Secret of the Holy Land.

Yeghiazaryan's website contains links to six YouTube videos posted on March 14, 2011. It was filmed in 1996 by director A. Dzarasov, apparently the director of the women's icon-painting workshop by coincidence.

Finally, with paragraph g) - Moscow State University - a strange story came out in general. Yeghiazaryan's website posted a response that the dean of the Faculty of Economics of Moscow State University addressed to lawyer Markaryan (which is very strange, where did this document come from?). It turned out that Ashot Yeghiazaryan, at his own expense, repaired and equipped auditorium No. 2, where a plaque was installed in memory of his father, Professor Gevork Ashotovich. But there is no documentary confirmation of this fact, so Moscow State University officially answers, including to Novaya Gazeta, that Yeghiazaryan did not provide any assistance.

In a word, after our publication, a series of miraculous insights occurred, and people and organizations favored by Yeghiazaryan hastened to declare this. That's how hard sometimes the truth is born.