Serhiy Nigoyan was born on August 2, 1993, to ethnic Armenians in the village of
Bereznuvativka (south of
Dnipro, then still under the
Soviet name Dnipropetrovsk) in
Ukraine. Serhiy Nigoyan's parents are from the village
Navur, in Armenia's northeastern province of
Tavush, not far from the Azerbaijani border. They moved to Ukraine in the early 1990s, during the
First 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. and in summer along with his father was visiting
Crimea for seasonal work. Filming the project "There are people" ()
Death and burial He died early in the morning of January 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 (TSN) 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.
Valentyn Sylvestrov (b. 1937), 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==