Baruyr Hayrikyan, known for his anti-Russia leanings, announced on television that government statistics have around 1,000 Armenians a year being murdered in Russia. A day after his declaration, news arrived that two Armenians were gunned down outside their house in St. Petersburg, cut down by machine-gun fire. “Every day 3-4 body bags show up at Zvartnots,” a neighbor said. “This is rarely admitted here. My mother said she was visiting a cousin in Moscow who lives in a high-rise apartment building, when one day she heard noise outside in the hallway. Afraid to go outside, she later learned that a Moscow-born Armenian had been beaten and kicked to death by a group of Russian thugs right outside his apartment, in full view of the man’s young son. And this,” our neighbor continued, “after her nephew was found in a river somewhere near St. Petersburg a year or so ago. And believe me, he wasn’t going swimming.”