Serhiy Gagikovych Nigoyan or Nihoyan was an Armenian-UkrainianEuromaidan activist who was fatally shot during the 2014 Hrushevskoho Street riots where he was acting as security. He was the first protester killed by shooting during the protest.
Biography
Serhiy Nigoyan was born on August 2, 1993 to ethnic Armenians in :uk:Березнуватівка|Bereznuvativka village in Ukraine. Serhiy Nigoyan's parents are from the villageNavur, in Armenia's northeastern province of Tavush, not far from the Azerbaijani border. They moved to Ukraine in the early 1990s, during the Nagorno-Karabakh War when their village was often attacked. Some relatives of Serhiy's father Gagik still live in Navur. Serhiy was an only child. He was born in Ukraine and never visited his ancestral land, yet loved his country. According to his father, on a wall next to Serhiy's bed hangs the flag of Armenia. Serhiy was attending the Armenian Church and knew the history of his people. His father also stated that Serhiy studied at the Kamianske, then Dniprodzerzhynsk, College of Physical Education, but after two years of study he ceased attending classes and in summer along with his father was visiting Crimea for seasonal work. Nigoyan was an amateur fighter in kyokushinkaikankarate and in the 2012 city championship in Kamianske, he placed third. Filming the project "There are people" to the 200th Anniversary of Shevchenko, producer Serhiy Proskrunia managed to record video footage of Nigoyan reading a fragment of Shevchenko's poem "Caucasus".
Death and burial
He died early in the morning ofJanuary 22, 2014 at around 06.30 after being mortally wounded. Soon after, at around 08.10, Berkut violently charged protesters on Hrushevskoho street, near the Lobanovsky Dynamo Stadium. On January 23, 2014 the Televised News Service showed a footage with interview of Nigoyan filmed on January 19 by the TSN's cameraman. On a question why he came to Euromaidan, Nigoyan stated that he did so in protest against beating of students by Berkut militsiya. While proud to be an Armenian, Nigoyan wanted to express his support for people among which he was born and with which he lived. On January 26, 2014 Nigoyan was buried in his native village Bereznuvativka. His funeral was attended by local villagers, representative of the Armenian diaspora, priests from Armenian and Ukrainian Churches. His requiem was served by the head of Ukrainian Eparchy of the Armenian Apostolic Church Archbishop Grigoris Buniatyan.
Reaction
On January 22, 2014 in his Twitter Svyatoslav Vakarchuk mentioned that "another Armenian, Parajanov created the film that became symbol for all Ukrainians, today Armenian Nigoyan sacrificed his life that became a symbol of Ukraine". Valentyn Sylvestrov, a renowned Ukrainian composer, dedicated a memorial diptych to Serhiy Nigoyan. The new pieces use lyrics by Taras Shevchenko which Nigoyan had quoted, and the traditional liturgical text "With the saints give rest".
Legacy
On February 20, 2014 a group of Armenian opposition activists in Spitak attempted to rename a square in the town from the Viktor Yanukovych Square to the Serhiy Nigoyan Square. On March 27, 2014 the Berezhanycity council adopted a decision to rename the city street named after the Soviet writer Yaroslav Halan as Nigoyan street. On 28 January 2015 the Dnipro city council renamed Kalinin avenue to Prospekt Serhiy Nigoyan. The decision was abolished by the Dnipro Administrative Court of Appeal in June 2017 on procedural grounds, however the name was reinstated by a separate resolution on February 21st, 2018.
