The city is small, almost all the citizens know each other, and each person accepts the incident as a personal tragedy. People can’t sleep. They are horrified and in sorrow.

In an interview with Sputnik Արմենիա, head of the Armenian community of Kemerovo Argishti Simonyan talked about the situation in the city and the attitude of the members of the Armenian community towards the tragedy.

“This is a great misery. Children died. You know how Armenians react to such things. The city is small, almost everyone knows each other, and each person accepts the incident as a personal tragedy. We are all concerned and practically can’t sleep at night. We are all shocked. What happened? We don’t know what to say,” the leader of the community said.

Simonyan has four children. They would also visit the mall often. Two hours before the fire, his friend’s children were at the mall.

Simonyan also reported that Arsen Khachatryan, one of the local Armenians, was at the mall with his family during the fire. He managed to bring his family out of the mall and help many others leave the building that was burning down.

Let us remind that the fire broke out at Zimnyaya Vishnya Mall on March 25. Based on the latest information, there are 64 victims, most of which are children. The authorities and the law-enforcement authorities of Kemerovo Oblast are verifying the data about 78 deceased people.