Stepanakert

1966

Valeri Kocharyan

Writer, journalist, officer, combatant in the first Artsakh War, philanthropist, businessman, inventor.

He was born on 26 January, 1952 in the city of Stepanakert of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast of the Azerbaijan SSR.

Education and the family

In 1970-1974 he studied and served in Leningrad at the Higher military-political school (currently the Academy) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR.

There he met his future wife – Aleksandra Kovrizhkina,and they got married in 1974.

Service in Georgia

After college, due to service Valeri was assigned to carry the service in the high regime colony of Georgia. The service was carried out in difficult conditions of the colony for 4 years. Meanwhile their two children the son Valeri, and the daughter Irina were born and Valeri began to make his first attempts at writing.

This period of life is reflected in the story "We were born to make a fairy tale come true" (1993).

Return to the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast NKAO

Due to the death of his father (1977), Valeri was allowed to move to NKAO in order to be closer to his mother.

Since 1978, he served for a year and a half in the correctional camp guard of the Shahbulag near the city of Aghdam.

Between the army and journalism

Valeri Kocharyan began to think about the writer's career and retirement from military service because his stories had already been published for several times in newspapers and magazines, were read on the radio, and he even became the winner of a local literary competition. In 1979, he was invited to work in the publishing house of the newspaper "Soviet Karabakh".

The experience gained here honed his writing skills. He was specially good in feuilletons. His writing style became recognizable and shortly after, he became the winner of the Golden Pen Award. His work was appreciated not only in journalistic circles.

As a result, in 1981 he received the rank of captain and joined the Department of Internal Affairs of Stepanakert.

The Karabakh conflict and

◆ V. Kocharyan’s role in it

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Soon such processes like “perestroika” and “glasnost” began, and the topic of independence of Karabakh became relevant again.

By then, Valeri held the position of the Head of the Third Department of the Public Order Protection. As he spoke Russian fluently and was able to get on well with people, he was always assigned to receive high-ranking delegations from Moscow and other republican centers.

Due to his service, he was aware of information that was necessary for the participants of the underground Karabakh movement. Endangering not only his position, but also freedom, he shared this information to help the movement. When it became clear that a discharge had come to him, in 1990 Valeri tore up his party card and resigned from the state authorities with the rank of colonel.

When the authorities began chasing the organizers of the movement, a reward was set for their capture. By that time, Valeri had built a two-storey bunker garage, the walls of which were 1 meter thick, it had two entrances and secret exits from different sides. The leaders of the Karabakh “Miatsum” movement kept out of sight from persecution in this bunker for two months.

In 1991 it became clear that the hot phase of the conflict was inevitable, so Valeri established a secret connection with the OMON agents and began buying weapons and ammunition from them, supplying it to the underground activists.

The war and the bunker that saved lives

In early 1992, the First Karabakh War began. There was an acute shortage of weapons and ammunition. Valeri Kocharyan set up a mini-laboratory for the production of grenades, mines and bullets in his bunker. This helped to save many lives in the early period of the war and kept our resistance units encouraged.

Komandos (Arkadi Ter-Tadevosyan Major General of the NKR Army) especially appreciated Valeri’s contribution and repeatedly spoke about it in his interviews. Testing of the new weapons was also conducted by Valeri himself.

Ճակատագրական փորձարկում

The fateful testing

On 22 March, 1992, a demonstrative testing of a new batch of ammunition was to take place. The test was conducted on the shore of Lake Hasanabad. The leaders of the Artsakh movement: Robert Kocharyan, Vazgen Sargsyan, Arkadi Ghukasyan, journalist Tsvetana Paskaleva and others were present. During the demonstration of another grenade something went wrong.

Valeri realized this in seconds, jumped back and covered the grenade with his body, saving the lives of the people present there. Valeri survived, but was terribly injured. He underwent 14 operations and two clinical deaths.

He spent two years in the hospitals of Yerevan. The outcome was terrible: now he was a 1st group disabled person.

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Struggle for life. Creative period

Despite the severity of his health condition, thanks to the support of his family and friends, by virtue of his strong will and fortitude, he did not give up.

During the time spent in the hospital, Valeri wrote the story "We were born to make a fairy tale come true," and in 1993, with Balayan's support, a collection of short stories "A Claim for World Domination" was published. Soon, Valeri Kocharyan became a member of the Writers' Union of Armenia.

Despite the doctors’ scepticism, with great efforts buy yet Valeri began to walk, drive a car, shoot with two and a half fingers on his left hand, learned to take aim with his left eye, and type on a typewriter with his left hand.

The after-war life and new projects

The war ended in 1994. Valeri fulfilled himself in entrepreneurship. Starting small, he established very successful businesses in various fields in Stepanakert and Yerevan.

Starting small, he established very successful businesses in various fields in Stepanakert and Yerevan.

From his first income, he opened a charitable foundation in Stepanakert to help the veterans and the disabled of the war.

Creating medals

Sketches of the first orders and medals for Artsakh and Armenia were created with Valeri's direct active participation and their production was fully organized by him at the St. Petersburg Mint.

In 1996, he was awarded the medal "For Bravery".

Ճակատագրական փորձարկում

New ideas and inventions

In 1997, during a business trip to Bulgaria, Valeri saw a trike. The old passion for this sport flared up in him. He bought two hang gliders and learned to fly again.

His idea was to develop unmanned mini-flying units that would fly into the enemy territory with explosives, conduct anticipatory reconnaissance with cameras. These were peculiar prototypes of modern drones, which no one had heard of at that time. He proposed to create small military detachments of hang gliding pilots.

Also, thanks to his ingenuity and technical mindset, at the end of 1998 he created a new type of gun silencer that was undergoing testing. And in 1999, Valeri intended to patent the model and put into production the first Armenian silencer for small arms, but things did not come around as they were expected.

With his daughter, Irina

1999թ.

Ճակատագրական փորձարկում

The last flight

On January 4, 1999, filming of a documentary about Valeri Kocharyan was going on at the airfield near Arzni. For unknown reasons, during the demonstration of aerobatics, the trike suddenly turned over in the air and crashed down.

Valeri Kocharyan died. He was 46 years old.

Valeri Kocharyan was posthumously awarded the ''Yerakhtagityun'' medal ("Gratitude") by the NKR Government.

Awards

Works

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In 2009, the book "Between the Heaven and the Earth" was published, consisting of two parts. The first part contains memories of Valeri's relatives, friends, public and political figures and the second part contains novels and short stories by the author Valeri Kocharyan himself.

Films, articles, interviews about V. Kocharyan