Three sisters

Mikhail Khachaturian is posthumously found guilty of the torture of daughters. This is a rare case when the state - albeit after years - recognizes the fact of domestic violence

The sisters of the Khachaturian - Krestin, Angelina and Maria - are the seventh year under the judicial “prohibition of certain actions” without the opportunity to even communicate with each other. They go through the accused in the case of the murder of their father. The protection of girls all the time insists that it was self -defense: Mikhail Khachaturian for many years tortured daughters and subjected them to sexualized violence.

In Russia, pickets and rallies, public readings from a criminal case were held in defense of the sisters, even a soloist of the world -famous System of a Down Sergey Tankean, who called for a condescension to the girls, even stood up for them. And in 2025, the court finally admitted: Mikhail Khachaturian is guilty of causing bodily harm to daughters, sexualized violence and spreading pornography. The New Gazeta Europe tells how the personal tragedy of the three sisters briefly became a turning point in a conversation about home violence in Russia, and then the war began, and a public discussion about human rights came to naught. Today, the Khachaturian case stands apart - as a rare case in which the system nevertheless recognized violence, albeit after years.

For the majority, the story of the Khachaturian family began on July 27, 2018, when 57-year-old Mikhail Khachaturian with multiple stab wounds was found on the stairwell of a residential building in Moscow. The man had three daughters: christening, Angelina and Maria. At the time of the tragedy, they are 19, 18 and 17 years old. The middle of them called the police, the recording of the conversation of the dispatcher with the girl then ended up in the media.

- How old are you? - Angelina's dispatcher asks.

“Eighteen,” the crying, Angelina answers.

- Was dad drunk?

- No ... Well, under the influence of narcotic substances.

- Did he use narcotic substances?

- No, he has soothing pills, but he drank a lot of them.

- And who were you with there? - the police officer on duty continues.

- With two sisters.

- And who exactly killed his father with a knife?

“I,” Angelina replies, not stopping sobbing.

That evening, Mikhail Khachaturian punished three daughters for an insufficiently cleaned apartment. He called them in turn in his room and sprayed a pepper spray in his face. Then he fell asleep in his chair. The girls decided that they could no longer endure, and while Mikhail was asleep, they inflicted several blows to him with a knife in his neck. The man woke up, tried to run out of the stairwell, where the middle daughter of Angelina finished him off in his heart. The girls were detained. At first they were placed in the investigative insulator, and in September 2018, the Moscow Basmanny Court changed their preventive measure to ban certain actions. A forensic psychiatric examination recognized two older sisters to be sane and established that the youngest, minor Maria, at the time of the murder of her father was in a state of affect.

The girls did not deny their guilt. During the investigative measures, they said that the father mocked them and subjected them to physical and sexualized violence. The investigation was charged to the sisters of the murder of a group of persons by prior conspiracy. The defense insisted that the girls performed their actions spontaneously, within the framework of the necessary self -defense, defending themselves from violence from her father. In addition, the forensic examination confirmed that shortly before his death, Mikhail sprayed the pepper can in the face of her daughters.

“After the next sadistic episode with the can, they decided to put an end to mockery, but they did not have a thoughtful plan. Moreover, the examination found that the youngest of the sisters, Maria, at the time of the attack on her father was in an insane state and did not realize the report in what was happening. The situation with Angelina, if you delve into the details of their family nightmares, is also quite unambiguous, ” said Krestina’s lawyer Alexei Lipzer Novaya Gazeta in 2018.

Mikhail began to use violence against daughters in 2014. The “reasons” were always absurd for this: he scolded them by the hair found on the floor, for the fact that the girls did not go out to meet him, or simply because they ate sweets. For example, the media published a video from Mikhail's phone. The footage shows how Khachaturian shouts at the girls because they ate too much sweets. The girls themselves stand with tearful faces and are afraid to turn to their father. At some point, Michael is the younger daughter with force.

The “quite unambiguous” situation with Angelina, which Lipzer spoke about, was that her father subjected her and the oldest daughter sexualized violence. The man forced the girls to have oral sex with him and stimulate his genital organ, calling it a “useful massage”.

Krestin, Angelina and Maria are not the only children of Michael. The man kicked his son Sergei from home when he was 16 years old. The guy said that his father also beat him and even shot him from a traumatic pistol. In 2015, Khachaturian kicked out his wife and his wife, Moldavanka Aurelia. Mikhail also raised his hand to his wife, once he completely threw her out of the car on the go. The fact that the husband is tyrant, Aurelia knew, but, according to her statement, she did not suspect that he was beating and raping her daughters. The girls hid it from their mother. However, his sisters and nephews knew about the actions of the man. In the criminal case there is an Angelina correspondence with the nephew of Mikhail Arsen. After the next beating, one of the sisters, Maria, photographed Angelina's bloodied head and sent her aunt. Aunt sent a picture to another relative, and she already showed him to Arsen.

- What did he do? What does this hell are doing? There you have blood from the head of e *****, ”writes Arsen Angelina, clarifying how Mikhail hit her so much.

“Well, so we live,” answers Angelina. - Keys.

- And what is he often so h ***** suffering? He asks.

- Every day. It was not a day that he behaved calmly, ”answers the sister.

“I am in the mouth of e ***,” says Khachaturian's nephew.

“Thank you for the experiences, but there is nothing to do,” she replies.

At the same time, Arsen and other relatives of Michael took his side. In numerous interviews, they claimed that Khachaturian was a “holy man”, whom their own daughters are trying to “stipulate”. As evidence of his “holiness”, they use the argument that a man often went to Jerusalem to worship or that every week he went to church with his daughters. For example, on one of the summer days, the Khachaturian took his daughters to the Armenian church on the Olympic Prospekt.

“For some reason I took a dog with him, but upon arrival, locked it in a car. Labrador died in the heat, while Khachaturian prayed for several hours in the church. After the service, he beat everyone, and then bought a new dog ",

- said the friend of the sisters of "Novaya Gazeta".

In the criminal case there are audio recordings that Mikhail sent to his daughters. On one of them, he threatens Angelina with rape.

“Angelina, you will suck continuously. If you leave, I will find you, w **** finished, ”Khachaturian yelled at his daughter.

This audio recording sounded on the air of Moscow 24, immediately after it the journalists showed an interview with a friend of Mikhail Bruce Khlebnikov-this is a well-known “Boy-Wish” in the 90s, who moved cars from the place, tied them to his hair. According to Bruce, Khachaturian is a “man of God”, who “simply did not want my daughter to lead a depraved lifestyle”:

- He was a holy man. When you go home to him, it is really like a church [you get]. He did not want to allow porn to happen in his house.

The sisters not only encountered violence by their own father, but also with the absolute inaction of the school and the police. In 2018, Khachaturian stopped letting his daughters for lessons, but neither the teacher nor the director turned to custody. The same inaction was from law enforcement agencies. The man scared his daughters with his connections in the FSB and the police. According to the mother of the girls, this was confirmed by the fact that the police refused to accept her statements to her husband:

“In the mid-2000s, I wrote a statement to him, left it to the employees, and the next day he brought it home and broke it in front of my face”,

- said Aurelia to reporters. After the murder, representatives of law enforcement agencies denied the receipt of complaints, but the source of Novaya Gazeta in the Federal Power Office also confirmed the information about the “warm relations” with the security forces.

After the work of the sisters became widely known, a new wave of discussion of the problem of domestic violence and insufficient reaction from law enforcement agencies began in Russia, the femoralists conducted rallies and pickets.

In 2019, theater.doc organized readings in support of the Khachaturian sisters. The text was compiled from media materials covering the work of girls, and personal stories of people who survived violence. Readings have become a significant event aimed at attracting attention to the problem of domestic violence and cruelty, as well as to support the sisters who find themselves in the center of public resonance.

“Three sisters are not a theater and not art, it is a action of the solidarity of a group of persons by prior conspiracy. Theater.doc collects this text from the media materials about the case of the Khachaturian sisters and personal stories about violence. We all at least once in our life came across one thing, we are only a small part of the life of these sisters. Silence gives rise to violence, violence destroys a person, his space and the right to choose. Theater.doc speaks a new language - the language of the fight against violence, ”the announcement of the action said in which activists, human rights activists and actresses participated.

The vocalist of the System of a Down Sergey Tankian even spoke out in support of the girls:

“This is an example of how the years of unpunished violence against women and children can lead to brutal revenge. Courts should show condescension to these girls ",

- said the musician.

At the same time, the sisters were recognized as victims in the case of violence by their father in the spring of 2021-almost three years after the tragic incident. And only on April 21, 2025, the three judges of the Butyrsky court of Moscow posthumously found Mikhail Khachaturian guilty of sexualized violence over three daughters and intentionally causing serious harm to their health.

At the same time, the very work of the sisters has not yet been completed, the “ban on certain actions” is still in force. They cannot communicate with the media, go to rallies, use the Internet and communicate with each other. Now the sisters are already 25, 24 and 23 years old, they work, rent housing. Angelina and Maria came to the meeting on April 21.

- This is a matter of justice. For seven years they prove that what happened to them. And this solution has a very serious moral weight, including for their internal psychological state.

This is part of the satispulation. The court came out and said: “Yes, girls, this is what this [really] has happened against you,” [it was important for them] legal recognition, for them it is psychological satsis. And not only for the Khachaturian sisters, but also for [victims] in other cases, ” said Angelina's lawyer Marie Davtyan.