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To get rid of the troublemakers, commanding officers gave them favorable reviews and assigned them to the newly-formed battalion. I was serving in Vologda at the time and volunteered for the battalion to join my friend, who was number one on the list to be sent away. Kolya, from Bryansk, was our commanding officer's biggest headache. He was awfully rowdy, a regular in the stockade, yet brilliant and well-read. He annoyed the entire command with his very well-written complaint letters to various agencies. He wrote them all the time, triggering multiple inspections to check on the complaints. Our commanding officer was furious, of course.
I remember that during the morning flag assembly, enraged by another inspection, he screamed at the top of his lungs, "We can't find someone to write even a couple of lines for our unit's newspaper, yet this dick composed a whole letter and sent it to none other than the minister of defense himself!" I think our commanding officer was the happiest man in the world to hear that a critical railroad was to be built in Mongolia.
Thus, the new battalion boarded a train and spent the next 10 days getting to its destination. Imagine a crowd of the rowdiest heavy-drinking rebels – some new recruits, some about to be discharged – on a train together for 10 days. No one knew what they were capable of. The adjustment, this time on the road, began right away. We saw our platoon commander only twice – once at the place we boarded and once at the destination, but this time with a big shiner. I don't know how he got it, but I could tell that he had been drinking non-stop. As it turned out, the officers were selected using the same criteria: they were the ones to be gotten rid of. Even though the commanding officer and the political officer were capable professionals, it took a lot of effort to control this bedlam.
We reached our deployment location at night. There was nothing but a bare steppe, but we had to settle there. We put up tents. We had to do everything ourselves: organize our work, get equipment, and build shelters. There were no settlements for many miles around. You could drive for three hours and not see anything except for a couple of yurts and a herd of cattle.
In these harsh and very unusual living and working conditions, soldiers built very different relationships from those on regular stationary military bases. Sticks and carrots didn't work. The stockade was far away in Ulan Bator. There was nowhere to go after dismissal – only wild nature all around us. Our leisure time was built around the high bar, weights, parallel bars, and boxing gloves. There was a pool table set up for the officers in the field, but it remained there only until a sandstorm lifted it 50 meters high and slammed it onto the ground, smashing it to pieces.
Matters were not settled by the army service regulations. Although we were privates, three of us – Gena from Riga, Kolya from Bryansk, and I – ended up at the top of the hierarchy. We were on good terms with the officers, and our detachment was completing tasks ahead of schedule. But enforcing service regulations – the way they did in Moscow or Germany, where soldiers lived in good barracks, had showers, followed precise daily schedules, and were well fed – was impossible.
We didn't have barracks at all – we lived in tents. As the railroad construction progressed, our base moved three times to be closer to the work site. Each time, we had to settle in from scratch. The nature was breathtaking: very unique landscapes, unusual to my eye. Gently sloping mountains that stretched across the steppe underscored the vastness of pristine wilderness. The climate was markedly harsh: -35° centigrade in the winter and 40° during the summer. In May, it was -3° at night and 27° during the day. Yet, we stayed in tents, 30 soldiers in each tent. For heat, we used woodburning stoves with long chimneys. It was cold on the bottom of the bunk bed and scorching hot on the top, where all the earlier recruits slept. With no refrigerators in the steppe, meat would go bad before it could reach us during the summer. So that we wouldn't be eating canned meat all summer, our commanding officer let us put together a fishing brigade, which I joined thanks to my hunting skills. We caught burbots at night in the Orkhon and Selenga rivers for the entire military base and slept during the day. Sometimes we shot antelopes by chasing them down in GAZ-66 trucks, although it wasn't encouraged. This is how the summer went by.
Serving in the army was а priceless character-building life experience for me.
After being discharged, my relationships with my army friends didn't last for too long. We went our separate ways, and long-distance communications back then – without mobile telephone service and social media – required much effort.
CHAPTER 4
SUCCESSION OF CHANGES
Limitchik[4 - Russian colloquialism – a person who holds a temporary Moscow residence permit issued in connection with work.]
I was discharged from the army at the end of December, right before New Year's Eve, and made it home for the holidays. By then, all of my friends, classmates, acquaintances, and neighbors of the same age had already returned to Stepanakert, having concluded their military service. The phone rang almost every day. "Oh, you're already here? We have to meet!" I wanted to see everybody, and I met up with someone every day. During one of these get-togethers, I got drunk for the first time. Luckily, I realized it when I was already home.
A month and a half flew by in the blink of an eye.
As I began getting back into civilian life, I pondered what to do next. First, I tried settling down in Moscow. I flew to the capital and moved in with my sister in Reutov. I went to the Moscow Power Engineering Institute. I realized that nothing had changed there, and there was no way I could get re-admitted. So I gave up and began looking for a job. Those like me, who were dismissively called "limitchiks," were drawn in by the prospect of a Moscow residence status. We were actively encouraged to join construction projects, Moscow's Metrostroy transport authority, or work in the factories – jobs that weren't too popular with Muscovites. The capital grew rapidly, and working hands were desperately needed. Newspapers were full of laborer job ads.
Before long, I got a job as a laborer at the Reinforced Concrete Plant (RCP) #11, not too far away from the Hammer and Sickle metro station. I had no idea what RCP was – I chose it by chance. I wanted to get a construction job, and my sister researched all the ads and found a company that, by Moscow standards, was not too far away from home. Besides, they provided decent housing in a newly constructed high-rise apartment complex, which became the determining factor.
This is how I became a concrete worker. When people ask me about this period, I joke that it was a great experience interacting with Moscow's working class and living in a worker dormitory. It required considerable self-control to resist getting drunk on Sundays, like everyone else. Otherwise, my neighbors were good people.
We were manufacturing concrete columns used in the construction of multi-story residential buildings. It was a labor-intensive process: first, we installed the rebar frame in the mold of the future column, put it on a concrete vibrator, and poured in the concrete. Then, the crane operator placed the contraption in the drying chamber, where it stayed overnight. The following morning, the molds were removed. Finally, the ready column was cured for a couple of days and transported to the construction site.
It was strenuous physical labor, but I was fit, and I managed well. Besides, it paid well – 200 rubles net was considered a decent salary. Moreover, I never had a habit of putting money away, so I made a good living as a single guy.
Our dorm in Novogireyevo was only one commuter train stop away from Reutov, where my sister and her husband lived, so my interaction with Kim continued. I didn't participate in sports that year – my work provided more than enough exercise. In a worker dorm in the 70s, there was nowhere to work out anyway.
So, another year passed in a blur, without any significant developments. I mostly worked and educated myself, reading a lot. But I had always read a lot, even as a child, except for my time in the army.
The library in Mongolia was small, and I read everything remotely interesting there. Besides, life in the army was not particularly conducive to reading, just like jail. Later, during the Karabakh conflict, one of our activists – Murad Petrosian, who had spent a decade in jail – cited Lenin all the time. Once, I asked him, "Look, with your life story, why are you citing classicists of Marxism?" He said that he learned Lenin by heart simply because there was nothing else to read at the jail's library.
I became more and more fascinated with philosophy. I read the original authors, and if I read fiction, it was by authors like Anatole France, who artfully wove philosophy into the narrative fabric. I discussed what I read with Kim in detail. I marvel at myself now – how did I read all that? How could I get through boring authors like Francis Bacon? But back then, I read them unremittingly, excitedly, and enthusiastically. I read works by every author I could find, everything that had been published.
I was quite taken with La Mettrie. Perhaps he isn't all that profound a thinker, but he does have an engaging writing style. And, of course, I read the classics: Rousseau, Montaigne, Hegel, Kant, and Nietzsche in samizdat. I liked Hegel's earliest work, Life of Jesus, which is easy to read. Everything else by him is a nightmare! Every sentence takes up nearly half a page and requires multiple readings to grasp its meaning, which is often quite simple. I made it through Hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion. Still, I got stuck in the very beginning of his Elements of the Philosophy of Right, perhaps, because of his writing style. German philosophers left an impression on me with their burdensome prose, as if they intentionally complicated the language to emphasize the scientific nature of their views. Perhaps my torments while reading Hegel are the reason behind my overly concise speaking style.
I'm kidding, of course.
Much of what I read was soon forgotten. I read philosophy for fun; I didn't read it to study it. But I am sure it wasn't a waste of time: it gave my brain a good workout, and left a lasting impact on my personality. I felt a strong need to develop intellectually, to learn something new. Perhaps I subconsciously satiated my thirst for knowledge with intensive self-education while I wasn't attending college.
I didn't manage to make many friends in Moscow. I wasn't friends with anyone at work, and in reality, I couldn't be friends with them. They were good guys, but almost all of them loved to drink. They ran to the nearest bar or liquor store to buy a bottle as soon as they got their paychecks. That lifestyle was foreign to my habits and my understanding of life. However, I became friends with a neighbor from the apartment complex next to mine. His name was David Voronov. He was intelligent and cultured – a lot older than me – and at that time, he was already divorced. He was passionate about dogs and equally passionate about postage stamps. David constantly bought, sold, and traded stamps – "speculated" as they said back then. It was considered semi-legal, and one could end up in jail for speculating. He tried recruiting me, and I even learned a little about stamps, but it didn't go beyond curiosity. I wasn't attracted to buying and selling.
I spent my free time with David and another guy, Valera. What was there to do for fun? Not much – trips to cafés or dance clubs on weekends. We would get out of town to pick mushrooms, swim in the lake, or simply stroll through the woods in the summer – sometimes with friends, sometimes with family, with Kim. Since none of us had cars, we relied on the commuter train. While doing this, I discovered unbelievably beautiful places near Moscow, especially in the direction of Gorky. Friends visited from Stepanakert occasionally. Once, an army friend from Riga came to see me, and I visited him too. These were the only events outside of the regular routine during the year.
After one year, I concluded that it was time for me to go home to Stepanakert. I didn't want to spend any more time in a job that I didn't like, live in a setting that didn't appeal to me, or keep filling my life with a monotonous and mind-numbing routine that didn't offer any prospects. They tried to keep me at the plant, recognizing that I was very proficient at my job. And in general, I always took everything that I did seriously – be it my studies, work, or workouts. The plant manager called me to his office and tried to make me stay. "We can transition you to a welder's position. It's an easier job, and there are opportunities for growth there," he said. I replied, refusing, "Nah, I am not leaving because it's hard. It's simply not my thing."
Jolt
Of course, my parents were happy that I returned, but I knew that I wasn't meeting their expectations. They couldn't imagine that their kids would end up without a college degree. Higher education was something essential and mandatory for my parents. My mom had a hard time accepting that my brother and I didn't study music when we were kids. But it was inconceivable to her that her son wouldn't be graduating from college.
Nonetheless, I told my parents bluntly that I wasn't ready to continue my studies, and they left me alone. Although it upset my father, he didn't say a word. He had learned long ago that it was impossible to force me to do things.
And for the time being… I was finally home. After chaotic and neurotic Moscow, where the commute took up a big part of my life, everything in Stepanakert was familiar, native, calm, and – most importantly – nearby. Family, good old childhood friends. I got a job as an electrician at the Silk Factory, Karabakh's most prominent business enterprise. I lived as any man my age would: I actively worked out, which I always enjoyed, continued to read a lot, and spent time with friends. We were a good team: my childhood friend Yura, with whom I shared a desk since grade school, my brother's classmate Albert – an intellectual with a brilliant mind – and I. We enjoyed each other's company, and we were happy hanging out together. We spent almost every weekend outdoors. I hunted a lot, but with a different group of friends or my brother. I had always enjoyed hunting, and I knew our mountains well since early childhood.
I think it was the most tranquil and happiest period of my life. Happiness is when you live in peace with yourself instead of searching within to find purpose or the meaning of life. Just like when you don't think about your internal organs until they start causing you pain, you don't analyze the reason for your spiritual balance when you have it.
Three years went by quietly.
Thoughts of going back to college visited me periodically. Still, they didn't take root as they didn't go well with my eventful and pleasant life. I was always busy. We would either go hunting for a couple of days with friends or do some other activity, and I couldn't force myself to switch gears to do other things. "I have to go to college… I must. I will, but not now, later. Definitely…"
And then, one day, sometime in the spring, I got a summons from the military commissariat. I was to report for duty the next day for some kind of training. It alarmed me. I called a friend at the commissariat asking about it. He told me that we were to be shipped to Kazakhstan to either harvest or plant something or do some other work of similar nature. In other words – reclamation of tselina (a Soviet state development and resettlement campaign to turn underdeveloped, scarcely populated, highly-fertile lands – mostly located in the steppes of the Volga region, Northern Kazakhstan, and Southern Siberia – into a major agriculture producing region). "For how long?" I asked him. "For three to four months," he answered. Wow! I had planned to go to the Black Sea for the summer, definitely not Kazakhstan. I had absolutely no desire to reclaim tselina. Tselina? Really? The steppes again? I had already honorably served in the Mongolian steppes!
All my textbooks were ready at home, as I had always intended to start studying for the college entrance exams, but I couldn't find the time to do so. I had procrastinated, thinking that I had enough time ahead of me. But now…
In short, I didn't go to the commissariat. I quit my job within a day, gathered my belongings, and put all the necessary textbooks in a suitcase. I called my brother (he served in Georgia at the time, near Tskhaltubo). "Hi," I told him. "That's it, I decided to go to college! I am coming to stay with you to study for the exams." "I will not be here for almost a month," my brother replied. "You can stay here, no problem." I was in Georgia the next day. My brother's apartment was in a secluded and very picturesque location. I didn't know anybody there, not a single person. All I had was a suitcase full of books and a month to prepare for the entrance exams.
Oh, how I studied for those exams! And with such intensity and passion! It was simply unbelievable. I didn't know that I could mobilize to such a degree. In a couple of days, I had immersed myself in it completely, taking breaks only to eat and sleep. And even my dreams were mathematical. The setting was perfect for this kind of concentration: no one around, only the military base, the jail, and the tea plantation where the prisoners harvested tea under a convoy. I caught fish in the nearby river, rode my brother's small motorcycle to the local grocery store, and cooked for myself. The month passed. I knew that I was ready to take the entrance exams to any technical institute. All I had to do was to go there and get it.
I chose Yerevan Polytechnic University. I went to Yerevan straight from Georgia without making a stop in Stepanakert. I submitted my application to the Department of Electrical Engineering. I had to take two math tests: one written and one oral. In reality, two more exams were required – physics and a supervised essay – but applicants with a high school GPA of 4.5 and above (out of 5) were allowed to skip them. To be admitted, applicants had to get a combined score of 9 points (out of 10) on the two math exams.
First, I took the written test. I felt very confident: I finished it effortlessly and quickly and got out of the room. But, surprisingly, I only got a 4 (out of 5). Imagine my frustration! I had rushed and made a careless mistake, which I failed to catch before turning the test papers in. This meant that I had to get a perfect score on the oral math test. I answered all the questions and said to the proctor, "I need to get a 5 on this." "Why?" he asked. "I have a high GPA, and I was planning to take only the math tests. The next exam is physics, and I didn't study for it," I explained. Of course, I had studied for it, but not as well. "Ask me anything – I need a 5!" I insisted. The examiner wrote five math problems and said, "You solve these – you got your 5." It took me only about 20 minutes to solve the problems, one after another, quickly. The examiner glanced at the sheet and said, "Well done, 5!"
And I got in.
It was all thanks to that military commissariat summons. To this day, I remember the last name of our commissar – Kurochkin. And I am grateful to that Kurochkin for giving me a jolt. It sometimes happens in life when an unpleasant event shakes you up and makes you take decisive action. The commissariat summons sobered me up. It hit me that I had to change my life.
A Student Again
I didn't know Yerevan too well. It was strange, but despite being Armenian, I had only visited Yerevan twice before. Perhaps this was because I had few relatives there. My grandmother's brother – a very charming and incredibly modest retired colonel – lived in Yerevan. While attending college, I decided to visit him once. The old man didn't feel well and believed that he wouldn't last long. When I entered his room, he was lying in bed, sorting through the little boxes of his war medals. I was surprised and asked him, "What are these?" I began looking through the medals: Order of the Red Banner of Military Valor, Order of Lenin, one for Victory in Khalkhin Gol[5 - Medal "For the Battle at Khalkhin Gol" – After the end of armed conflict in 1939 at the Khalkhin Gol river, the Mongolian government issued the badge "For the Participants at the Battle of Khalkhin Gol," according to the State Great Khural's law of September 16, 1940. This award was presented to both Mongolian and Soviet soldiers. At the end of 1966, the badge attained medal status.] – a very rare medal – medals from the Russian Empire period, including an honor cross "To the Participant of the Military Parade in Odessa," the only parade in which the Russian Emperor took part. I don't remember all of the medals; there were many. In a separate box, there was a handgun, a small beautiful Walther with an inscription, "To Major Karapetian from the People's Commissar of Defense Klim Voroshilov." I didn't know that my grandfather had participated in all the wars – from WWI to WWII. It turned out that I didn't know anything about him. In the 1920s, he was the first communications signalman in Armenia. And I found this out incidentally, simply because I came to visit him that day.
I did well in college; I took it a lot more seriously than the first time around. The dean's office made me the class leader, given my good grades and my service in the armed forces. I provided for myself financially. As а straight-A student, I was getting a higher stipend, and in addition, I had taken a part-time job at our department lab. Later, I also got a second part-time job as a security guard at the wood carving museum. I ended up there thanks to my friend who already worked at the museum and got me in as his shift reliever.
The museum turned out to be a very interesting place, a bohemian club of sorts where the artistic elite got together over a cup of coffee. I met a great deal of fascinating and charming individuals there. Sometimes, we organized dinner parties at night, right there at the museum, which the director, Henrik Solakhian, knew nothing about. A few times, we made kabobs on the mangal exhibited at the museum. Once, we forgot to clean it before putting it back on display, and the director caught us after he accidentally rubbed against it and his clothes got smeared with soot. Of course, he made a scene, but he didn't fire us. After that, we bought a regular mangal, and the director gladly joined us for our evening cookouts.
Working at the museum was perfect for a student. It provided an income and human interaction and the right conditions to study. I needed the income badly: in December of my freshman year, my father passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack. He never complained about his heart, was in good physical shape, and rarely got sick. I loved and deeply respected my father. His good name helped me in my life for a long time afterward – people's attitude towards him was projected onto his sons. This meant a lot in tiny Karabakh, where everybody knew each other. I am glad that he saw me go to college again…
Return to Karabakh
I finished my third year in Electrical Engineering at the Yerevan Polytechnic Institute with straight A's and, to everyone's surprise, transferred to the distance learning program. I passed my fourth year finals ahead of schedule and went to Karabakh. The department head, the dean, and some of my professors begged me not to do it. They couldn't understand why a bright student – with great potential to stay at the department and pursue his doctoral degree – would drop everything and leave for Karabakh. They wanted to hear a compelling argument. But there was no specific reason, even though there was a combination of factors behind that deliberate and rational decision. By that time, I had already completed the basic course in fundamental sciences, and the next two years were meant to acquire a narrow specialization in electrical machines. There were no jobs for that in Karabakh. It meant that I would either have to stay and work at the Electrical Engineering Department or at some factory in Armenia. I didn't like either option, as I didn't plan to move to Armenia for good. Besides, I realized that I learn quickly and have a lot of spare time on my hands. My personal pace was faster than the one laid out in the academic curriculum. I figured that I could accomplish a lot more in those two years in addition to the academic program.
I continued my college education remotely: I self-studied in Karabakh, then traveled to Yerevan for a month. I took all my exams for the year – most of them ahead of schedule – and then returned home again. I graduated with honors, but not without a single B – in Thermal Engineering. I remember the Yerevan Polytechnic Institute of the 1970s as a top university with a solid teaching staff. To this day, the head of our department, who couldn't convince me to stay, believes that I left to organize the Karabakh movement. I wasn't able to convince him otherwise…
Moving back to Stepanakert very quickly led to another important event in my life: marriage.
I had attended the same preschool with my future spouse. After that, we went to the same grade school, where we were in the same group for four years. Then we split up for a while but ended up at the same school again, this time in parallel groups. I had always liked her, but there was no tender teenage connection between us – Bella hardly noticed me. I was overly quiet and didn't get involved in school activities. She, on the contrary, was very active and an exemplary straight-A student. After graduation, I lost sight of her, but fate brought us back together when I came home for my college break with a firm decision to enroll in distance learning. We met in town accidentally. I was driving my car and noticed her going up the street. I was happy to see her, so I stopped and offered her a ride home. We hadn't seen each other for a long time, and I didn't know anything about her life or what she had done after graduating from school. We talked for a while and decided to stay in touch, exchanging phone numbers.
We got married in the fall of 1980. I proposed, we got engaged, and then came the memorable wedding. At its very start, Victor, my already tipsy brother-in-law, opened a bottle of rosé champagne and spilled it all over the bride, from head to toe. Bella was upset, and I got pretty angry. The only way to save the wedding and Victor was to party all night.
We lived at my place – first with my mother and Valera's family. Then Valera, who worked at the Soviet Karabakh newspaper, received an apartment and they moved out. Our older son, Sedrak, was born in 1981. Our daughter, Gayane, and our son, Levon, were born at two-year intervals.
Bella turned out to have an exceptionally strong character. She never complained and went through the toughest of times silently. Sincere and affectionate, my wife always made an effort to help others. She knew how to build relationships and ensure a peaceful atmosphere at home.
I have always had a happy family life. Why? I never asked myself that question. I believe that there is no point in scrutinizing relationships or analyzing them. If you're comfortable, if you don't look for reasons to come home late, if you're ready to dedicate your Sundays to the family and don't consider it a great sacrifice, then continue living your life as you are, without overthinking what's good and bad about it. Take it as it is; otherwise, you will imagine problems that don't really exist.
Komsomol[6 - All-Union Leninist Young Communist League]
It was 1980. I got a job as an engineering technologist at the electrotechnical plant (during Soviet times, we had this type of a plant that produced lighting equipment). But I didn't get to work there for too long – less than six months. One day, I got a phone call from the director's assistant, who said, "You have been requested at the Komsomol city committee. The first secretary wishes to see Kocharyan urgently." "Me? He wants to see me? Why? How does he even know about me?" I asked. It turned out that the Komsomol city committee was looking for new cadres, and the plant recommended me.
I had nothing to do with Komsomol, really. Of course, I was a member of Komsomol, but so was everyone! I was never civically engaged. Moreover, I never liked Komsomol's leaders, as I considered them careerists. I always had a strained relationship with the leaders of the Komsomol organizations. I even had a conflict with one of them at the Yerevan Polytechnic Institute. Once, he and his entourage entered my dorm room without knocking. It was some sort of an inspection. I was sitting on my bed reading and, apparently, gave him an unfriendly look as I didn't appreciate the intrusion. The Komsomol leader noticed it and barked in a commanding tone: "You need to get up when your superiors enter the room!" I ignited instantly, "Listen, chief, didn't they teach you to knock first? It's not going to end well if I get up!" One of his men whispered something in his ear. He threatened to summon me in front of the committee to discuss my unbecoming behavior and left. Of course, he didn't do it; the guys told me that the discussion was deemed unnecessary. The Komsomol bosses behaved overly politely around me after the incident.
Interestingly, despite my bluntness and negativity toward the Komsomol bosses, they didn't express any resentment toward me. On the contrary, they always tried to get me involved in civic activity, saying, "You are a straight-A student. Students respect you and listen to you. You could be a good Komsomol leader!" True, I always excelled at my studies. I enjoyed math, analytical mechanics, and physics. I solved all the problems in the textbook with ease. Other students asked me for help, and I always helped them. Besides, I had a good company of friends at the dorm. We combined hard studying with active free time. We poked fun at each other and made our lives enjoyable. I could sense that my classmates respected me for my knowledge, actions, and character. But civic activity? Why do they always try to get me involved? I didn't want it at all! I never liked public visibility. Even as a child, I was shy, never took part in any school plays, and avoided loud gatherings. I would rather spend time hiking in the mountains or walking around in the woods with a rifle, alone or with very close friends.
In summary, I had never been attracted to Komsomol work, and yet, suddenly, I was being invited to the city committee. I had to go.
I went to the office of Komsomol's First Secretary Victor Kocharyan, and he offered me a job. He told me that they were looking for cadres, I was recommended, they saw a fit, and there was an urgent vacancy for a Komsomol secretary at one of the local enterprises. I declined categorically. "No way," I said. "I am an engineer by training, I've never done any Komsomol work, I have no idea what it is, and I don't want it – it's not for me!" He replied, "Well, think about it. It's a good career opportunity. Don't rush to say no. Think about it and tell me in a couple of days…"
Of course, I thought about the proposition. I understood that it was not only a new path for me, but also a good opportunity for career growth. My work was calm and boring; it wasn't straining or exciting. What does a technologist usually do? He spends several hours on the production floor, ensuring technological compliance. I tried to diversify my work, to think about production changes and improvements. I wanted to do a bit more than what was required of me.
Within a month of our conversation, Victor Kocharyan, with whom I shared a last name and who had offered me a job at the Komsomol city committee, secured a position at the KGB and eventually became the head of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic's Special Services. Later in life, we became family – he married my sister-in-law. But none of this had happened yet, as we had only just met for the first time. I didn't know him and couldn't imagine that destiny had brought us together for a long time.
Since I didn't show up, I received another phone call from the Komsomol city committee a few days later, asking, "So, what have you decided?" I grunted something along the lines that I hadn't decided anything, that I didn't know. But I thought to myself, "Darn, what if this is something that I really need?" I didn't believe in all that ideology by that time, but… I didn't have any skills for working with people. This was an excellent opportunity to acquire them and learn something new – something that I had never tried before and had avoided all my life. Suddenly, I saw a challenge for myself. It attracted me and wound me up.
The next day, I called the city committee and said, "You know, let's try it," and ended up in a Komsomol job. All my friends were shocked. They knew me very well, and they couldn't imagine that I would agree to it. I remember that it bothered me. I had always resented Komsomol bosses, and yet, had I suddenly decided to become one myself? But it was a conscientious decision, free of any ideological considerations. That decision turned out to be a pivotal point in my life.
I was appointed as the head of the most stagnant and confusingly structured Komsomol organization in town. It was at an enterprise with a cryptic name – Consumer Services Complex (CSC). No one wanted the job, and the position had gone vacant for two years. It was considered a failure. All of my predecessors were censured and fired soon after their appointment. It was indeed a difficult job. The CSC consisted of many different ateliers, cafeterias, and laundromats scattered around town. A team spirit naturally comes about at any factory or plant, where workers come to work together at the same location. My Komsomol members worked at different locations, did not know each other, and never saw each other. It appeared that no Komsomol work had been done for a long time at the CSC.
I didn't expect this at all. I thought, "Damn it, what do I do with all of this? What does 'Komsomol work' even mean, and how do I do it?" I started from scratch: I simply got to know people. This was a great opportunity to build communications skills. I would go to a workplace, greet everyone, and introduce myself, "I'm the new head of the Komsomol organization, Robert Kocharyan. Where is so-and-so? Not at his workplace? Where can I find him?" As it turned out, it wasn't very hard. I simply had to smile more and be prepared to talk to everyone, not just those I liked. I quickly managed to put together a pretty dynamic team of Komsomol members.
As my first task, I decided to have everyone meet each other. So, I told my guys, "Why don't we get everyone together for a relaxing evening? They have never seen each other!" We soon found a meeting place – all the banquet halls in town belonged to our complex. Moreover, our people serviced and maintained all these venues, so we didn't have difficulty organizing the meeting, either. So, we all got together and spent an evening with each other – everyone loved it. And that's how it all started.
I soon discovered certain skills that I never knew I had. First as a child, then in school, later in the army, and finally in college, I intuitively sensed that people listened to me, that I could influence them, captivate, and unify them around me. But now, it became my main goal, and it came to me naturally, without any effort. After a while, the organization actually began to work! And it happened without any ideology, as I never made any pompous speeches.
My efforts brought good results, and in eight months or so, I was offered a promotion and became an instructor in the Organizational Department (Orgotdel) of the Komsomol City Party Committee (Gorkom). This was a different type of work, primarily administrative. I spent most of my time on the phone, talking to countless local committees. As a result, I got to know many new people and our town very well.
But changes kept coming: in about a year, I was promoted to second secretary of the Komsomol city committee (a chain of promotions took place: the second secretary became first secretary, and the previous secretary was promoted to the regional committee). I had significantly greater responsibilities in the new position. I was responsible for youth sports in the city, tourism, and military-patriotic education. Sports competitions, youth summer camps, Zarnitsa and Orlyonok children's war games – the list of events was impressive, and my schedule was full. In reality, Komsomol work is not about sitting around in an office and issuing endless resolutions at all.
I was busy working with real people from early in the morning until late at night. By then, I was starting to like it. Komsomol turned out to be a great training ground. It provided a truly dynamic work environment, genuinely developed leadership skills, valued initiative, and constantly made me search for new ideas. Of course, I needed energy to be able to implement my new ideas, but I always had an abundance of energy.
I also had more formal responsibilities: I regularly chaired plenary sessions and meetings of the Komsomol Bureau. As part of the necessary routine, we approached them responsibly but without enthusiasm. It was the 80s; no one in the USSR believed in a bright communist future, and the lines for butter, meat, and toilet paper were no inspiration for heroic deeds. At Soyuzpechat's state-owned newspaper stands, Communist Party publications like the Communist and the Agitator were sold with the popular Soviet Screen magazine as a mandatory side-purchase. At the Komsomol city committee, all party functionaries, with rare exceptions, viewed ideology in very practical terms – like you would treat the user manual for a washing machine. Nowhere in our town did people tell more Brezhnev jokes than in our office building. And the best impersonation of Leonid Brezhnev was done by the head of the Organizational Department of the City Communist Party Committee.
The communist ideology that served as the foundation and binding agent for the entire country was decomposing everywhere, while the aging leadership of the party was unable to offer anything new and appealing.
At the time, the position of the first secretary of our city's Communist Party Committee was occupied by Zaven Movsesian – a good and kind man who climbed the career ladder from factory worker to party leader. We all respected him very much. Once, after a plenary session, he invited me to his office. He said, "I see you work very well, with enthusiasm – you have a lot of energy. But you don't cite resolutions of the Central Committee, nor do you quote Brezhnev." I got a little tense – indeed, I avoided the phrase "as Leonid Ilyich said" and confessed, "I can't bring myself to say it." Movsesian sighed, stared at me, and very softly, in a father-like manner, said, "Do you think I like it? But you have to say it at least once… We are supposed to do it." This man worked honestly, trying to be as useful as he could be in his position.
I spent two years in the position of second secretary of the Komsomol, then joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and was promoted to the position of instructor of the party's city committee. From there, I was sent to the silk factory as secretary of its Communist Party Committee. The silk factory was the largest production facility in the region – as they said at the time, the "flagship of our industry." This position reminded me of my first Komsomol job – everyone who was sent there in recent years was "rewarded" with party censures at the end.
At the factory, I was met with a massive workforce – good but complex. They were highly qualified professionals who knew the value of their work. Some of my weavers were recipients of the Hero of Socialist Labor title and many other government orders and medals. One of them was a member of the Regional Committee of the Communist Party, and another was a deputy of the Supreme Council of the USSR. Our engineering staff was so strong that our specialists were invited to other facilities in Azerbaijan when local engineers had difficulty installing new machinery or tuning high-tech equipment. And here I came along – the new young party organizer, sent from the city committee. At first, people were cautious: "What is he going to do? Will he act like a big boss? Will he become one of us?"
I had a good advantage, though – I worked at the factory for two years as an electrician. I knew many of the employees, understood the specificity of their work and knew the technological cycle. You can't earn the loyalty of your employees without a thorough understanding of the production process, no matter which management position you hold. On the other hand, it is absolutely unacceptable to get too chummy with workers. I think this became the biggest problem for my predecessor.
A solid engineering education combined with production experience helped me become part of the team and establish a good collaborative relationship with the workers and engineering personnel.
In short, I liked my job.
I gained new knowledge and skills that would become very helpful in the future. I learned how to understand the collective psychology of people, especially of people from an unfamiliar social setting. I learned how to interact with them properly. In contrast to the Consumer Services Complex, where I started my Komsomol career, there was a strong sense of comradeship at the silk factory. Every morning, everyone entered through the same door; they all knew each other and cared strongly about reaching their collective production goals.
I don't believe in class theory, but experience has shown me that workers' solidarity does exist, despite all internal contradictions. I think it's what, in contemporary terminology, psychologists refer to as "corporate solidarity" – the sense of belonging to a collective body that gives each member additional strength. This strength revealed itself very soon in Karabakh when the Karabakh movement took shape and instantly gained robust momentum.
PART II
KARABAKH
CHAPTER 5
BEGINNING OF THE LIBERATION MOVEMENT
Collecting Signatures for Reunification with Armenia
In the spring of 1987, everything began with peaceful and legal actions: collecting signatures for an appeal to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CC CPSU), to Mikhail Gorbachev to transfer control over the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (Region) from Azerbaijan to Armenia. A similar process of collecting signatures and submitting an appeal to the Central Committee occurred during Khrushchev's time, during the thaw of 1966–1967, and was brutally suppressed by the authorities. But this time, the situation was radically different: it wasn't us who suddenly began to demand change – it was the changes that broke into our lives. They came rapidly, bearing slogans like "democracy," "perestroika," and "glasnost." All of a sudden, we could talk about everything that was wrong. For the first time in many decades, we hoped that we – ordinary people – could influence these processes.
It was a fascinating period, one full of hope. The 1
Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR was in session, and people all over the country were glued to their TVs and radios following the live simulcast. Captivating, well-educated legislators spoke openly from the Congress podium about things that people preferred to whisper about in the privacy of their kitchens a year ago. They instantly became stars, got invited to television talk shows, and their interviews appeared in the press. Suddenly, television, newspapers, and magazines became extremely popular, attracting millions of viewers and readers. In the mornings, lines formed in front of Soyuzpechat newspaper kiosks, and most popular publications had sold out by noon.
It was like someone had suddenly opened all the windows in a stuffy room, causing everyone to get lightheaded from the excess of political oxygen. This unusual freedom brought about a belief that we could choose, make decisions, and chart our own future – our Artsakh's future. Yes, we truly believed that the changes were for the better, and that our lives and our state structures would improve.
Parallel to this, an erosion of power was also taking place. Discreet at first, it slowly gained momentum. In a highly centralized, ideology-driven, and ethnically diverse country, the government itself was breaking familiar stereotypes and barriers. However, it didn't realize that it was also eroding the very principles of the USSR's form of government. As a result, the country was becoming ungovernable right in front of our eyes. The planned economy was in freefall, while intensifying centrifugal forces made the process irreversible.
I am often asked, "Didn't the fall of the Soviet Union start with the Karabakh movement?" and I answer, "No, of course not." The conflicts simply surfaced where they had always existed and in places where tensions were the highest. Throughout Karabakh's history, the weakening of central power inevitably led to intensifying ethnic disputes. Any political turmoil at the center that disturbed the regular course of events and created a perception of chaos resulted in the desire of the people of Karabakh to reunite with Armenia. It happened in 1917–1920: after the revolution and the fall of the Russian monarchy, Karabakh became the arena for clashes between the Armenians and the Azerbaijanis. In Tsarist Russia, the administrative territorial division was structured around guberniyas (provinces or governorates), without taking into account the ethnic make-up of its territories. Karabakh was part of the Elisabethpol guberniya, while most of today's Armenia was part of the Erivan guberniya. The fall of the Russian Empire was followed by the creation of newly independent states in the South Caucasus. Each of them declared its borders, which, in some territories, overlapped: Baku believed that the borders should be laid according to the administrative division lines of the fallen Russian Empire, while Yerevan laid its borders along the boundaries where ethnic Armenians resided. Armenians defended their approach, since it gave them an opportunity to fulfill their centuries-old aspirations for a unified Armenian state. However, when the Red Army entered Baku and Yerevan, the Karabakh dispute was resolved in Baku's favor. Nagorno-Karabakh found itself part of Azerbaijan, even though its overwhelming majority was Armenian.
We, the people of Karabakh, always felt that our interests were being ignored and violated. Having an autonomous status within Azerbaijan didn't shield us against Baku's administrative domination. During the Soviet years, Baku's primary efforts in Karabakh were directed at settling Azerbaijanis there to change the area's ethnic composition. It seriously alarmed us because we had already seen an almost complete de-Armenianization of Nakhichevan. Soviet authorities looked at any relations between the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (Region), NKAO, and Armenia with suspicion and tried to curtail them as much as possible. The enforcement of Soviet atheism was being applied quite selectively. The last church in Karabakh was closed in the 1920s, and all Armenian churches, which Azerbaijani historians referred to as 'Albanian', stood without crosses. In contrast, a mosque functioned in neighboring Aghdam during the entire Soviet period. We even had to constantly fight for our right to speak our own language. Faced with manifestations of inequality everywhere, we felt like masters in Karabakh, but strangers in Azerbaijan.
Once, I characterized our relations with Azerbaijanis as 'ethnic incompatibility' and was harshly criticized for it for a long time. Perhaps it was a poor choice of words, indeed, but it was obvious that our peoples have entirely different ethnicity and religious and cultural traditions; put simply, we live differently. We have different preferences and ideas regarding government models in our countries, and we have different geopolitical priorities. Therefore, I believed that we could become good neighbors, but we definitely should not be subordinate to each other.
The desire to reunite with Armenia existed during the entire Soviet period of our history. Inconspicuous from the outside, this desire lay dormant in Armenian society, ready to awaken at any moment given the right circumstances. The initiative to collect signatures began in Yerevan and very quickly took over Karabakh. The process was unleashed by Armenian intellectual elites, primarily descendants of Karabakh who lived outside the region for different reasons. Everyone spoke of Zori Balayan[7 - Balayan, Zori Haykovich (b. 1935) – a Soviet and Armenian writer and publicist, politician, and public figure. Active participant in the struggle for the independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. People's Deputy of the USSR (1989–1991). Hero of Artsakh.], Bagrat Ulubabian[8 - Ulubabian, Bagrat Arshakovich (1925–2001) – a Soviet and Armenian historian, Ph.D. in History, renowned for his works on the history of Nagorno-Karabakh. Active participant in the Karabakh movement], and Igor Muradian[9 - Muradian, Igor Maratovich (b. 1957) – an Armenian political and public figure, active participant in the Nagorno-Karabakh independence movement. One of the co-founders of the Karabakh Committee.], but the movement didn't have a formal structure. It was spontaneous, like a wildfire: once ignited in a dry forest, it spreads rapidly and uncontrollably, swallowing everything in its path. At the time, I was still working as secretary of the Silk Factory Party Committee. Life flowed slowly – everything was calm, understandable, stable, and predictable. There was a good team spirit at the factory, like one big, tight-knit family.
And then, one day, two workers approached me and said, "Everywhere, people are collecting signatures to appeal to the Central Committee for the reunification of Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia. We also want to do it at our factory – we are the largest business enterprise in the region. Do you object?" Of course, I didn't object. I knew what was happening in town, even though I didn't give it any significance yet. "Let's do it," I said. "If they are doing it everywhere else, perhaps this time it will happen." I discovered that almost everyone at our factory signed the petition in a couple of days. Within a week, all Stepanakert enterprises signed it, and by the end of the month, everyone in our city! Very quickly, in about three months or so, nearly the entire Armenian adult population of Karabakh had signed the petition – with the exception of very senior Communist Party officials, who didn't dare do it given their positions but nevertheless still treated the process with sympathy, empathized with the people, and supported them.
