The grandmother died, and Krestina had an accident: the mother of the Khachaturian sisters told for the first time how the girls live now.

Four years ago this story caused a lot of noise. And it's still not finished. The verdict has not been announced, the end has not been set... How do Maria, Angelina and Krestina Khachaturyan, the sisters who killed their father, live?

Remember the high-profile story of the Khachaturian sisters? It all happened in the midst of the holidays, in the summer of 2018. Since then, much of the family’s life has become known to the general public, and the Khachaturian sisters themselves have become a symbol of victims of domestic violence and family tyranny. They are still under investigation under the most serious article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Murder by a group of persons by prior conspiracy” and could potentially be imprisoned for 20 years. How do they live in 2022?

Without a family, without plans, but at least free

Panel high-rise building right next to the Moscow Ring Road, small courtyard, third floor. Aurelia Dunduk, the mother of all four children of Mikhail Khachaturyan, lives here. I know this address - I was here 4 years ago, at the very beginning of history, when Maria, Angelina and Krestina (it is no coincidence that I write the name with an E, this is how Khachaturian’s daughter was written. - Ed. ) were still languishing in home captivity.

Now no one is allowed to cross the threshold, because the youngest of the daughters, Maria, lives with her mother. She, like her sisters, is accused in the case, and communication with journalists is strictly prohibited by the investigative authorities.

- How do we live? Well, we live,” Aurelia sighs. - One day, actually. Every day is like Groundhog Day. We are all waiting, waiting. It’s just not clear why. The verdict has not yet been announced, what will happen is unknown. Of course, I’m glad that everything turned out this way and the girls are not in a pre-trial detention center, but at home. I can see them and communicate. It could have been much worse...

It really could have been worse. The Khachaturian sisters were immediately arrested on the day of the incident. They confessed to everything, investigators from the Ostankino Investigative Committee opened a case, and two days later the Ostankino court made a decision - arrest for the duration of the investigation. According to all the laws of the criminal procedural genre, they should have been released no earlier than 20 years later. This is exactly what women face under this article. Men are given life sentences. And arrest during the investigation is almost a 100% guarantee of a guilty verdict. But a miracle happened.

First, the neighbors spoke up, whom Mikhail Khachaturian had also tormented for many years. They said that they saw and heard screams, beatings, and fights from the windows of the family’s apartment. They talked about how Mikhail ran around the yard with a pistol, how the girls were his actual slaves. Their father forbade them to go to school and practically did not let them leave the house.

In the pre-trial detention center, the sisters themselves spoke up: “It’s better here than at home.”

The huge public outcry did its job - the sisters were transferred to the main investigative department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation. A psychological and psychiatric examination found that all three Khachaturian sisters are in terrible post-traumatic stress from their father’s many years of actions. And the younger Maria was not at all aware of what she was doing. She was declared insane at the time of the murder.

 “Two months after the arrest, the investigation itself goes to court with a petition to change the preventive measure to a so-called ban on certain actions,” recalls Krestina Khachaturyan’s lawyer, Alexey Liptser. “As a result, the Basmanny court allowed all three to go home, but established a number of prohibitions for the sisters: not to leave the house at night, not to live or communicate with each other and other witnesses in the case, not to use the Internet.

Since then, one restriction has been lifted: girls can now leave the house at any time of the day. But everything else is valid. After all, the investigation is still ongoing (more on its progress below). They all live at different addresses. The youngest is with her mother, and the rest are with relatives.

— So the girls haven’t communicated with each other for 4.5 years, since that very ill-fated day? - I ask Aurelia.

- Yes exactly. They could see each other in the corridors of the Investigative Committee. Or in court. And there is absolutely no contact. At the same time, Maria, Angelina and Krestina were always inseparable, never parting for a day. Moreover, my son Seryozha is also not allowed to communicate with them.

— How do you celebrate the New Year, March 8, birthdays? Taking turns with your daughters?

- We’re not celebrating at all. We have no time for that. And last spring, my mother also died from coronavirus. The girls couldn't even come to the funeral. Probably, it was possible to write a petition to the investigator and ask for permission, but this would all take a long time. Seryozhka and I buried my mother together. And my brother too. The girls then went to the grave each on their own.

- I'm very sorry for you. I remember your mother well, she was so protective of the girls. I went to trials and to talk shows.

- Oh, this is such grief, of course. My mother lived in Moldova, and when the borders were closed again, I called her and persuaded her to come to us. It was on the bus, on the way, that she became infected. And everything in life without her became somehow wrong. Hard…

-Are you raising children alone? Or do the girls work? Are you studying?

- They are working. How can I cope alone? In the end, neither of them went to study, although Angelina and Maria passed the Unified State Exam while already under investigation, and their scores were good. And Krestina was enrolled in a medical college at the time of everything that happened. I gave up. But what kind of study can there be when it is not clear what to expect? Will they be imprisoned or not?

— How are they without the Internet?

- Yes, we’re used to it already. But they began to read more books.

— Did you think that everything would drag on for so long?

- Of course not. I'm not happy, but I'm glad. Still, you know, sometimes I think like this, that they’re still at home for another day, I can call, I can come and see. What the court will ultimately decide is still a big question. Although they won’t admit it to me, they probably think so too. Therefore, no plans, no dreams. You won’t even get ahead at work, although they wanted to promote Angelina. But you can’t use the Internet, but you need it everywhere. That's how we live.

The girls are now 21, 22 and 23 years old. Only Krestina has a boyfriend.     

- Good boy. But they recently had an accident with him. Some drunks drove into their car. And, by the way, they had nothing. No criminal case, nothing. They let me go. Although the guy was injured, and the daughter was in the hospital with broken bones.

Only lawyers helped financially

Aurelia says that over the years she and her daughters’ lawyers have become almost like relatives. Let me remind you that the entire team defends the Khachaturian sisters for free.

- Oh, they are so good here. They always help: help, and anything else, if necessary. Lesha Liptser then arranged for Krestina to live in an apartment; they rented it for her with their own money. Yaroslav Pakulin, Maria’s lawyer, is also always in touch, always: “Contact, contact.” And Marie Davtyan and Alexey Parshin. How we would be without them, I don’t know at all. Over the years, three of our defenders have had children. Pakulin and Liptser became dads, the child was born to Marie. Soon [their children] will go to school, and we are all waiting and waiting for the verdict.

The volumes containing the case materials of the Khachaturian sisters no longer fit into the truck. So many interrogations, examinations, testimony, more examinations, more interrogations. And there is even a criminal case within a criminal case.

The chronology of the criminal proceedings is explained by Alexey Liptser. 

— The preliminary investigation lasted from the summer of 2018 to December 2019. And in the summer of 2019, the investigation separated the materials against the father into a separate criminal case; he was posthumously suspected of committing a number of crimes - “torture”, “violent acts of a sexual nature against minors” (that is, his own daughters. - Ed. ) and other. But then the initiation of a case was refused due to the death of the suspect. This is standard procedure. Only immediate relatives can insist on a posthumous investigation. For Mikhail Khachaturyan, these are sisters. But they didn’t do it then...

As a result, only at the end of 2019 the case was transferred to the Prosecutor General’s Office. But the prosecutors refused to approve the indictment under Article 105 Part 2. They considered that the girls acted in a state of necessary self-defense, and sent all the materials back to the Investigative Committee for revision.

Several more months passed, Prosecutor General Chaika was replaced by Krasnov, the Investigative Committee conducted an additional investigation and again sent the materials to the prosecutor’s office for approval, without changing the article - “Murder by a group of persons...”. On the second attempt, everything was accepted and transferred to the Moscow City Court. It was already the first half of 2020.

Около года длилась волокита с выбором присяжных заседателей. То они не пришли, то снова что-то сорвалось, то опять не пришли. Потом потерпевшие заболели ковидом. И так до весны 2021 года. Затем сестры убитого, а они считаются в этой ситуации потерпевшими, все-таки решили добиться возбуждения уголовного дела против Михаила Хачатуряна с целью его реабилитации. И им это удалось. Не реабилитации, а возбуждения дела. В итоге суд над их племянницами так и не состоялся, все тома из Мосгорсуда вернули обратно в СК. И вот уже больше года идет расследование дела против Михаила Хачатуряна.

— В итоге следствие доказало его вину?

- Actually yes. Charges have been brought against him under several articles: “Torture”, “Violent acts of a sexual nature”, “Forcing acts of a sexual nature on minors”. And what’s more, there may be a number more - the prosecutor’s office did not approve the charges, but returned the materials back, indicating the need for additional qualification of Khachaturyan’s actions.

- So what, will there be a trial?

- Yes. We hope he is found guilty. At least, we believe that the investigation conducted by the Investigative Committee has proven this.

“Then the charges against the girls will be dropped?”

- Is not a fact. This will all be just one more thing