Performance to be staged on motives of Khachaturian sisters’ case

Panorama, Armenia

A theatrical group in St. Petersburg is set to stage a performance on the story of three teenage sisters accused of murdering their father, Director of the performance Yelena Pavlovna has told Fontakna.ru news portal.  The performance is titled “Three sisters” and aims to address Russia's domestic abuse problem.

In her words, many people across the country are subjected to domestic violence and the matter should be addressed in a public discourse. Pavlovna added the planned performance should not be considered as a theatrical play but a act or protest action.

To note, investigators charged the three Khachaturian sisters with killing their 57-year-old businessman father shortly after his body with multiple stab wounds to the neck and chest was found in an apartment in Moscow on July 27, 2018. When questioned, the young women pled guilty and explained that they had reasons for hostility towards their father, because he abused them mentally and physically for a lengthy period of time.

On August 2, Moscow’s Ostankino court arrested the three sisters on murder charges. A post-mortem psychological and psychiatric evaluation revealed that Mikhail Khachaturyan had suffered from a personality disorder. Experts also established that his oldest daughter had developed a mental disorder as a result of being sexually harassed and abused by her father.

According to state commission findings reported by Russian media the prominent local businessman and churchgoer had insulted, humiliated, threatened and “subjected his daughters to physical and sexual violence,”