The Aegean Island of Mykonos has long served as a premier vacation spot for the world's rich and famous.

Grace Kelly, Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren, Jackie Kennedy, Aristotle Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando are just a few of the world’s celebrities that have vacationed in Mykonos, known for its sandy beaches and pulsating night life.

In September, Armenian National Assembly Speaker Alen Simonyan and his wife also vacationed there. They were accompanied by ruling Civil Contract MPs Eduard Aghajanyan and Hrachya Hakobyan (PM Nikol Pashinyan’s brother-in-law). Along for the ride was Vigen Badalyan, founder of the Vivaro bookmaker company.

Suffice it to say these Armenian MPs are far removed from the likes of Brando and Onassis. The paparazzi won’t be clamoring to snap their photos. Nevertheless, their partying antics were caught on camera and turned up on the internet.

When Simonyan and his “crew” returned to Armenia, opposition MP Aregnaz Manukyan asked him if Vivaro’s Badalyan had paid for their vacation.

“I do not comment on my private life and lies appearing in the yellow press," Simonyan responded. 

Simonyan, a Pashinyan confidant, also shrugged off criticism that he and his MP colleagues decided not to attend celebrations in Artsakh marking the country’s 30th independence anniversary and vacationed on a Greek island instead.

It appears that Simonyan doesn’t realize that as a top elected official, whose salary is paid by Armenian taxpayers, he is a legitimate target of public scrutiny.

Simonyan has not only skirted the payment issue, he’s also been less than forthcoming on when he, his wife and the others were in Mykonos.

Simonyan led a delegation attending two international gatherings in Vienna that took place on September 6-9. MPs Eduard Aghajanyan and Hrachya Hakobyan were not in the delegation, but they were in Mykonos with Simonyan

Simonyan told Hetq that he had not been on vacation before leaving for Vienna, but on September 6, he posted a photo from Greece with his wife, Mariam Margaryan, on his Instagram page, writing, "Three years later, three days off together."

Simonyan and his friends were in Mykonos the day before the 6th of the month. When Hetq asked when he was on the island, Simonyan answered, "I do not comment on privacy matters." This is how he answered five of Hetq’s twelve questions.

The below video, showing Simonyan and Pashinyan’s nephew, was taken on September 4. The video has been edited, but the date is visible. The video shows the Principote club on Panormos Bay in Mykonos.

Principote bills itself as a “club beyond the ordinary”, despite the tripadvisor.com ratings for por quality and high prices.

Simonyan did not say whether he liked the club or if he could pay for a stay there on his salary. (The NA Speaker's monthly salary is 1.2 million AMD, about $2,500) 

In the video, Simonyan, his wife Mariam, and Hakobyan are seen dancing. Vivaro’s Vigen Badalyan, wearing a sailor’s cap, is also in the video.  

On September 5, photos were also posted on the Internet showing Simonyan (probably with his wife), Aghajanyan, Hakobyan and Vigen Badalyan standing at the entrance to the Void nightclub in the island's largest city, Mykonos.

The club has a bar, dance floor, and a VIP lounge with separate DJ and bar. Admission to the club is $20-25 per person, tickets for most concerts go for $30-35 and up depending on the DJ or performer.

Void has a strict dress code and cocktails go for $10-15 a pop with bottles of various alcohols fetching $300-500. There’s also “bottle service”, where guests can reserve a table by spending a minimum amount of money on food/drinks.

The Instagram photos, posted by Simonyan and his wife, show where they went on Mykonos. One spot was Santa Marina, a 5-star Marriott resort which offers hotel rooms and villas on the shores of Ornos Bay. Simonyan’s wife posted a photo taken from the balcony of a hotel room at Santa Marina and from the Buddha-Bar, which bills itself as a “first class dining spot offering exceptional fusion cuisine with a Mediterranean and Greek twist.”

Simonyan hasn’t said what airline he flew to Mykonos, from there to Vienna, and back to Yerevan. He’s also tightlipped about whether they flew economy or business class.

"I went to Greece and from there to Austria on my own. I returned to Yerevan from Vienna in accordance with Government Decision N-2335 of 2005.”

The decision he refers to deals with reimbursing the expenses of officials on business trips. According to Simonyan, only his return from Vienna was paid from the state budget.

Simonyan had nothing to say when Hetq asked whether his wife and the two MPs flew back to Yerevan from Mykonos on September 5 via the VistaJet shown below.

"I do not comment on information about my private life or that of others," Simonyan told Hetq.

On September 5, a Malta VistaJet Bombardier Challenger 850 (Maltese registration: 9H-ILV, maximum number of passengers - 14) arrived at Yerevan's Zvartnots Airport from Mykonos Airport. It flew from Baden-Baden, Germany, to Mykonos that morning, and then to Yerevan. We can only guess who was on the plane, but we can say that the VistaJet carried passengers from Mykonos to Yerevan.

That the plane was Maltese is of interest given that Vahe and Vigen Badalyan, the founders of Vivaro, not only founded various companies in Malta, but also became citizens of Malta in 2016 in return for their investments. Hetq wrote about this last year.

“For our family of twelve, we have invested about €2 million in the Maltese economy to obtain citizenship," the brothers told Hetq.

The founder and head of VistaJet is former Swiss billionaire Thomas Flohr.

VistaJet is flexible when it comes to charging its customers and follows an individual approach.

The question to be asked is whether the Badalyan brothers covered the vacation costs of Simonyan and his friends as “payback” for Simonyan’s 2019 bill to restrict gambling establishments in Armenia to the tourist destinations of Tzakhkadzor, Jermuk, Sevan and Meghri. The bill passed in October 2019. 

Simonyan argued at the time that there are 63,000 individuals in Armenia who place bets on a regular basis and that 3,000 of them can be considered addicted. 

Simonyan brushed aside rumors that he was in cahoots with Vivaro and that the bill was designed to remove the company’s competitors from the market. The bill’s detractors claimed that the lack of brick-and-mortar gambling halls would force people to get their fix via online bookmakers like Vivaro.

In a September interview with Armenia’s Zhoghovurd daily, Nikol Pashinyan's brother-in-law MP Hrachya Hakobyan refused to comment on his vacation in Mykonos, claiming a right to privacy. Hetq also wrote to Hakobyan and Eduard Aghajanyan, but the MPs failed to respond, thus violating Armenia's Freedom of Information Law.