Friends of the beloved commander name their boys "Peto", in his memory

“I never fought. I was in Karabakh a few times and occasionally accompanied the guys, not only Peto. The first time I went to Karabakh was in ’89, to the Hadrut region. I don’t have a military resume, per say. You can say that I never engaged in any military actions,” stated Gagik Ghevondyan, brother of Petros (Peto) Ghevondyan.

One of Peto’s friends, present at the conversation, noted that Artsakh war hero Peto would probably have described things the same way – “You can probably say I didn’t participate in the war.” In reality, Gagik also fought in the war and also took photographs on the front. Gagik’s son, Vardan, was 14 when he went to Shushi during the bombardment by the Azeris.

“After hitting the plane, when Peto returned home (it’s natural that one day he’d return, right?), after we embraced and sat down in the house, he expected questions about him downing the plane. So he asked, ‘Do you want me to tell the story?’ We answered, of course. So Peto told us the story of how Pavlik fired on the Turks’ equipment. He told us all this,” said Gagik Ghevondyan.

Peto never spoke of his exploits. Moreover, he asked his family never to tell anyone where he was going. Gagik said that none of his brother’s close friends ever boasted about being a fighter and no one ever saw them carry a weapon here during the war even though they had guns.

Anahit, Peto’s sister, who is an officer at the Recruitment Division at the military headquarters, noted that her mother never even saw the boys in uniform.

Anahit doesn’t have a military education. She started out working in the personnel department and got accustomed to the idea of working in the army with some difficulty. Peto told her, “Of course you must go.”

Many boys from Proshyan volunteered

Petros Ghevondyan was born in the village of Proshyan in 1964. Gagik added that many from the village volunteered for the war. “And who won the Karabakh war? The young guys, almost adolescents. The teenagers would flee the villages and head off to the war in Karabakh. I prayed that nothing would happen to them. When are guys were training, I’m talking about the older guys, 20-25, Peto, Karot and the others, the younger village kids would get envious by watching them and they too started to train. Take Artak for example. He was young and wanted to go. You couldn’t stop him. The poor kid was killed in the war,” Gagik recounted.

From 1989 onwards, Petros Ghevondyan actively participated in the defense of Armenia’s border villages and all across the territory of Artsakh in the liberation war. In January, 1993, he downed an enemy supersonic MIG-25 fighter. He handed over the prize money awarded by the Artsakh army to the families of friends killed in combat. In 1994, Peto and a small group of confidants headed to Karvatchar, to the Omar Pass, to come to the aid of a defense unit there.

He drafted and executed a plan to liberate the pass. From 1992 onwards, Peto served as the deputy commander of a special combat unit.

Reflecting on the Shushi special unit, Gagik noted that, “In terms of its size, the amount of territory liberated and its losses, our unit had no equal on the field.”

“The command staff of Jirayr Sefilyan, Petros Ghevondyan and Romik Margaryan did all in their power to minimize battlefield losses. Each death of one of our guys was a terrible loss for us. That’s why the commanders themselves did much of the reconnoitering. That’s why we had more casualties in our command staff,” Gagik added

Gagik noted that providing names during interviews was a thankless task since there were so many who gave their lives in the war. Peto’s 82 year-old father, Arshaluys Ghevondyan, said that his son never wished to remain at home, even while injured.

Peto’s father never told son “not to go”

“I never told him not to go. Of course, despite the reprimands of a parent, if the boy wants to go, he will. And Peto did go,” said Mr. Ghevondyan. Anahit added, “There’s no mother alive who willingly sends her son off to battle. My mother resisted as well but she knit two pairs of mittens in two nights. One pair for Gago and the other for Peto.”

One of Peto’s war buddies, Artur Muradyan, pointed out that Peto would carry out the most dangerous reconnoitering work himself and later lead his troops on.

“He’d be in the lead, followed by the rest of us. Out there, the distinction between soldier and officer didn’t exist. We got the job done as a bunch of human beings thrown into battle,” Artur said.

Artur went off as a volunteer when he was just 17. He fought in the Shushi special unit from 1993 till the ceasefire. He now resides in Proshyan and works as an electrical repairman. He has two school aged children.

Gagik Ghevondyan remarked that back then, the freedom fighters never imagined that things in Armenia would turn out as they have. They expected Armenia to be well on the road to development. Rather, they view Armenia today as a country ripe for flight.

Karabakh vets say current situation in Armenia needs “fixing”

“Who leaves their home today? Those in search of something. If they find that something here, they’d bring it back home. But it’s not to be found here. This is why people move a bit further away. After a while they even forget why they went so far. They stay and stay, bury their problems and grow old. Sadly, we are losing in terms of quality and quantity throughout the world. They come here, climb Aragatz and proclaim, ‘Oh my, we ate khash (cow’s feet).  It was delicious.’ But if you were to tell these folk to build a kebab or khash restaurant on a mountain top in Yosemite National Park, they’d respond, “Are you crazy or something?’ Here it’s acceptable and I can’t figure it out. Building a coffee house right next to the ruins of Amberd is a “good” thing. But such things are a national disgrace. The khash joint on Mt. Aragatz is a scandal not an honor. I’m not grumbling or shedding any tears but this is the sad reality. We won the war but the outcome is still somewhat cloudy,” Gagik said.

After the war, Gagik relocated to Artsakh and stayed there till 1998. Today, he’s temporarily moved to the United States. At the same time, he’s still optimistic about the future, otherwise, as he notes, “I’d pack up my bags and leave.”

“It’s not like I was very happy and now I’m disappointed or that I had dreams that were never fulfilled. My discouragement doesn’t taking the form of weeping. This is the reality we face today. There are ways to change things. I’m not one to sit and mope. We must work at it,” he says.

Peto posthumously decorated “Artsakh Hero”

Peto was killed in action on February 14, 1994 in Karvatchar. There was a wounded soldier alone on the battlefield. The army ambulance refused to advance because the road had been mined. Peto got behind the wheel and picked up the wounded man. He died from a mine blast.

“It had been snowing and conditions were awful. The guys found his leg later on. We had to decide whether to bring the leg back to Armenia and bury it with him in the grave or not. I made a decision – He left his leg in Karabakh, let it stay there. We brought the leg back to Shushi and it was later buried with ceremonial honors at the military unit in Srkhavend. It’s still there under a stone cross and his bust,” said Gagik.

The schools in Proshyan and Yeghegnut were renamed in Peto’s honor. In 2007, a classroom at the Yerevan State University’s Radio-Physics Faculty, where Peto studied, was opened bearing his name. In 1994, Hamlet Gevorgyan’s book “Peto” was published.

A new generation of Peto’s

In 2001, Petros Ghevondyan was posthumously awarded the title of “Artsakh Hero”. Gagik says that the decoration belongs to the entire unit in which his brother and the other guys fought.

Peto’s sister remembers the day when the NKR President handed her the decoration. “Vardan was with me. I really wanted the president to hand it to a man but they didn’t give it to Vardan. The president said – No, I must hand it to his sister,” recounts Anahit.

10 months ago Gagik became a proud grandfather. They named the boy Petros. Many of Peto’s war buddies have also named their sons in his honor.

Anahit said, “When the new baby was born I called up Hovsep, one of our friends to tell him the good news. Believe it or not he replied, ‘Guess what? We’ve also had a new addition to the family. Our Peto was also born today.’”

Hovsep’s boy is now grown. But he was born on the same day as Gagik’s grandson. Jiro’s boy is named Peto and so is Artashin’s boy and there are many others. As far as I know, all these Peto’s take after the original; proud and strong.

Photos by Hakob Poghosyan

March 22, 2010