Gevorg Vartanyan photography
Wife - Gohar Levonovna Vartanyan (born in 1926).
Richard Sorge, Nikolay Kuznetsov - Heroes Soviet Union – legendary scouts XX century. Their activities had a significant impact on the course of major strategic operations during the Great Patriotic War and World War II, moreover, on their overall results. In Soviet foreign intelligence, which has a stable world recognition as one of the best intelligence services in the world, they are a measure of skill, a kind of bar for the highest professional level, courage and heroism.
Among scouts, illegal immigrants stand apart. Even after decades, they are not allowed to speak publicly about their work and life. The biographies of these people sometimes in whole or most of them remain sealed. This is the specificity of the profession.
Gevorg Andreevich Vartanyan occupies a special place among the illegal scouts. He received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s, third after R. Sorge and N. Kuznetsov, when he had more than 40 years of work in intelligence behind him. This highest title was awarded to him for exceptional results in the service of the Fatherland, which cannot be disclosed in this article, with the exception of only a few touches from the distant 1940s-1950s, when he was still a boy, then a young man and a very young man, making more and more significant steps as a hereditary illegal intelligence agent.
Father G.A. Vartanyan worked as director of an oil mill at the Stepnaya station near Rostov. He was associated with Soviet foreign intelligence, and in 1930, when Gevork was 6 years old, as an Iranian citizen, together with his family, he left for Iran on an intelligence mission. The family had four children: two daughters and two sons. At that time, Gevork, of course, did not yet know what his parents were doing. Father was imprisoned several times on suspicion of being connected with Soviet foreign intelligence. His mother visited him, carried parcels. And since in a Muslim country a woman is not supposed to walk on the street alone, she took her son with her. During the imprisonment of his father, the Soviet residency in Iran helped the family. The son began to notice how the mother receives something and gives it to his father in secret. By the age of twelve, he already clearly understood that his father was a scout.
Gevork studied at an Iranian school, and Farsi became his second mother tongue. Despite the fact that he had to grow up far from his homeland, he grew up a patriot. My father raised the whole family in the spirit of patriotism, love for the motherland, the Soviet Union, Russia. Somehow he got out both newspapers and books, the children read Pushkin and Lermontov.
At the age of 16, Gevorg also linked his fate with Soviet foreign intelligence. The first task received from the resident in Tehran - to put together a group of like-minded people - he completed quickly. The group included 7 people - Armenians, Assyrians, one Lezgin. These were boys of 17-18 years old, all of them came from the Soviet Union. In 1937-1938, for one reason or another, their families were deported to Iran, but despite this, they all remained patriots of their country.
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The newly created group was tasked with conducting external surveillance of the fascist agents in Tehran. At that time, the fascist station was headed by the famous intelligence officer Franz Mayer. Before the war, he worked in Moscow, was at the front in Poland, spoke fluent Iranian and Russian, knew how to masterfully transform and change clothes. But the guys kept him under surveillance. They lacked professionalism, but senior comrades suggested how best to conduct observation, taught. Naturally, an experienced intelligence officer could not help but notice such surveillance, but he hardly took it seriously.
For a year and a half, the group monitored the fascist station in Tehran and during this time installed about 400 agents among the Iranians working for Germany. These were the highest officials of the Shah's palace, ministers, and large manufacturers. They prepared a staging ground for the German invasion of the Soviet Union from the south of Iran. In the event of the fall of Stalingrad, such an invasion would have taken place. But in August 1941, Soviet and British troops entered Iran, a little later - American troops. All revealed fascist residency was arrested and for the most part recruited to work for the Soviet Union and England. The few who firmly adhered to the fascist position were deported to the USSR. Later, after the defeat of the Germans at Stalingrad, they also agreed to cooperate with the Soviet Union and returned to Iran in this capacity.
When soviet troops entered Iran, Franz Mayer hid. The group searched for it for a year and a half and eventually found it. It turned out that he got a job as a gravedigger in an Armenian cemetery. Surveillance over him was restored, but in 1943, when G.A. Vartanyan finally received a message from the Center that he could be taken; he was suddenly captured by British intelligence.
In 1941, during a very complex operation, two members of G.A. Vartanyan "lit up". They had to be transferred to the Soviet Union to avoid arrest and punishment. Gevork Vartanyan, as having had contact with them, was then detained by the police. He pretended to agree to help in the search, drove through the city with the police, showing the places where the two were, the people with whom they allegedly communicated. Everyone to whom he pointed was arrested and held in prison for about six months. These were people who were not directly related to the case, but who interfered with the work of Soviet intelligence.
Gevorg Vartanyan himself spent three months in prison then, but he managed to get information about what was happening outside. Having learned that two of the "highlighted" members of his group had already been transferred to the Soviet Union, he no longer worried and continued to hold fast to his legend. This was the only failure in my entire life.
In 1942, the British opened a reconnaissance school in Iran, where they trained scouts for dropping into the territory of the USSR. On the instructions of the Center G.A. Vartanyan managed to enroll in this school. He successfully passed all interviews and checks. The British had no doubts. Gevork knew Russian well. His father had become by that time a major businessman, had a noticeable position in society. His nationality also played a role, since the scouts were sent mainly to the Caucasian and Central Asian republics.
Classes at the school were conducted in secret - two people in a group. Until now, Gevork Andreevich is grateful to this English school, because it was there that he mastered the basics and intelligence skills - he learned two-way radio communication, recruitment and much more. The training lasted 6 months. All this time, other students of the school were under the supervision of his group, their identities were established, all data and photographs were collected. Those who graduated from the training were sent to India, where they were trained in parachute jumping, and then parachuted into the territory of the USSR. Almost everyone there was expected to fail and recruit. Gevork had a hand in this.
The British soon became suspicious of too much misinformation. An inspection was carried out in the school, which Gevork Vartanyan passed without a hitch, without a hitch. However, when his course came to an end, the leadership of the Soviet foreign intelligence decided to end the school - there was too great a risk that it would be transferred to the south of the country, to the places where the British troops were stationed, where control over it would be lost. The Soviet resident announced to the English that Soviet intelligence knew about the existence of such a school, after which it was immediately closed.
During the period from 1940 to 1951, while G.A. Vartanyan worked in Iran, dozens of recruits were carried out. Everything is on an ideological basis. The famous intelligence officer, Soviet resident in Iran I.I. Agayants called Gevork Vartanyan's group "light cavalry", because they used only bicycles for movement. In 1943, they got the first captured German motorcycle. It was real wealth - no one left the surveillance on the motorcycle.
One of the group members G.A. Vartanyan was Gohar's younger sister. When she turned 16, she became the first and only girl to work in the group. Very brave and resourceful, she did not lag behind her comrades. On her leads, there were many recruits, and traitors were also identified. A feeling arose between Gevorg and Gohar, which soon grew into love. They got married in 1946. All their lives, many years of difficult and dangerous work, Gevork and Gohar have passed together. Gevork Andreevich considers it a great happiness for himself that there was always a faithful friend next to him, who never let down, made his life more calm. The spouses still like to repeat that if they had to live life anew, they would not want a different fate for themselves. In 2006 they celebrate the 60th anniversary of their marriage.
Group G.A. Vartanyan was directly involved in ensuring security at the 1943 Tehran Conference. All members of the group were mobilized to prevent a terrorist attack, information about which was received from the Soviet Union from Nikolai Kuznetsov. The group was the first to establish that on the outskirts of Tehran, 70 kilometers from the city, a German landing of six radio operators had been thrown out. They were immediately taken under surveillance. From a villa specially prepared for this by local agents, a group of radio operators established radio contact with Berlin in order to prepare a springboard for the terrorists, who were to be led by the famous Otto Skorzeny, who had once rescued Mussolini from captivity. Agents G.A. Vartanyan, together with the British, took bearings and decoded all their messages. Soon the whole group was captured and forced to work with Berlin "under the hood." At the same time, in order to prevent the landing of the second group, during the interception of which it was impossible to avoid losses on both sides, they were given the opportunity to convey that they had been discovered. Upon learning of the failure, Berlin abandoned its plans.
G.A. Vartanyan and his agents worked without thinking about awards and titles. After preventing a terrorist attack in Tehran in 1943, the group received a telegram of gratitude from the head of the department in Moscow. This was the only insignia for the entire war. Only in 1994, when the SVR was headed by E.M. Primakov, G.A. Vartanyan received five military awards at once as a soldier of the Great Patriotic War and World War II. The first military rank - the captain was assigned to him at the age of 44, in 1968. After 7 years, he became a colonel.
Until 1951 G.A. Vartanyan and his wife worked in Iran. Until 1954, his father continued to work there. The work was interesting and difficult, it was necessary to identify and duplicate agents who worked on both sides, and to catch traitors. We also collaborated with military intelligence.
When the situation in Iran became calmer, the Vartanyan spouses asked the Center to allow them to return to their homeland, to the Soviet Union, in order to receive higher education... In 1951, they arrived in Yerevan and entered the Institute foreign languages... After graduating from the institute in 1955, they immediately received an offer to work further and agreed.
This was followed by three decades of illegal intelligence work. All these years Gevorg and Gohar Vartanyan worked together as one group, not allowing a single failure. In 1975 Gevork Vartanyan was awarded the rank of colonel.
1984 is a special year in the lives of Gevork Andreevich and Gohar Leonovna Vartanyan. They were marked with high awards of the Motherland.
At this time, the Vartanian spouses were in one of the Western countries. Goar, who usually received all messages, received a very short telegram that day. Short telegram - always alarming sign: either the scout is in danger, or some misfortune happened to his relatives at home. While Gevork Andreevich was decrypting the telegram, his wife watched him. Then she said that while reading, he turned pale.
"You have been awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union," he read, "and your wife was awarded the Order of the Red Banner." The feeling, according to Gevork Andreevich, was difficult to convey: joy, happiness ... In the evening, the couple celebrated it as a holiday with a family dinner in a restaurant.
Until 1986, the Vartanyan couple worked in the West, in the Far and Middle East. In 1986 they returned to their homeland, but remained "closed" and only in 2000 first appeared on television live with Vadim Kirpichenko and Tatiana Samuolis.
G.A. Vartanyan was awarded the Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union and the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner, Patriotic War II degree, medals “For the Defense of the Caucasus”, “For Victory over Germany”, the titles “Honorary Chekist”, “Honorary State Security Officer”.
Gevork Andreevich loves classical music: Mozart, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Russian classical literature. He is interested in football, is a fan of domestic sports clubs. Together with his wife, he played tennis and swimming. It still remains beautiful physical form, to which he considers himself to be obliged to the service, in which one cannot lose vigilance for a moment, but one must remember the laws of conspiracy and, most importantly, always remain energetic and young at heart.
Lives and works in Moscow.
Hero of the Soviet Union Gevorg Vartanyan enjoyed great respect and authority both in Russia and in Armenia. In February 2009, on the occasion of his 85th birthday, he was awarded the high state awards - Order of Honor. December 20, 2004, Worker's Day national security Armenia, the intelligence officer was awarded the badge "For service in intelligence" by the National Security Service of the republic for "number one".Illegal scouts Hero of the Soviet Union Gevor Andreevich Vartanyan, his wife, holder of the Order of the Red Banner and a number of other awards Gohar Levonovna, and his group, called the "light cavalry" in the residency, managed to prevent an attempt on Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt during the Tehran conference back in 1943.
Gevork was born on February 17, 1924 in Rostov-on-Don to Andrei Vasilyevich Vartanyan, an Iranian citizen, Armenian by nationality, director of an oil mill located in the village of Stepnoy. The family had two sons and two daughters. When the Vartanians left for Iran in 1930, Gevork was only six years old.
His father was associated with Soviet foreign intelligence and left the USSR on her instructions. He firmly established himself in Iran and became a successful businessman. After living for six years in Tabriz, the family moved to Tehran. The position of Vartanyan the father - a man with connections and a respectable position in society, the owner of a confectionery factory known throughout Iran for its sweets - was a reliable cover for him. Using this cover, Andrei Vasilyevich conducted active intelligence and agent work: recruiting, maintaining contact with illegal immigrants, acquiring "iron" documents for them. He almost never used the financial resources of the Center, he managed with the money that he himself earned. During the Great Patriotic War, when a mortal threat loomed over the Soviet Union, Andrei Vartanyan collected a significant amount of money, which was transferred to the Center for the construction of a tank. The words "everything for the front, everything for victory" were for him not only a call, but the meaning of life.
In 1953, Andrei Vartanyan returned from Tehran to Yerevan, after working for Soviet intelligence in neighboring Iran for 23 years. He was a real patriot of the USSR and raised his children in the same spirit. It was under the influence of his father that Gevork became a scout.
Many years later, Gevork Andreevich noted:
“I was attracted to intelligence not by the prospect of becoming popular and famous, but by the opportunity to apply my strength and abilities in one of the vital areas for the country. I really love my job, and let representatives of other professions forgive me, but I believe that Intelligence (with a capital letter) is not only romance, but above all one of the most effective ways to defend the Fatherland. This is a job for true patriots, people who are convinced and selfless. One cannot help falling in love with such work ”.
FIGHT FOR A STRATEGIC BOARDWEAR
Gevork Vartanyan linked his fate with Soviet intelligence at the age of 16, when in February 1940 he voluntarily established direct contact with its Tehran station. An experienced professional Ivan Agayants, who headed the Soviet foreign intelligence service in Iran during the Great Patriotic War, played an important role in his development as a secret war professional.
Later Gevork Andreevich told:
“I went out to meet with the Soviet resident. It was later that I learned that Ivan Ivanovich Agayants is a legendary Soviet intelligence officer. He was a strict man and at the same time kind, warm. I worked with him for a long time, until the end of the war, and he made me a scout. Was busy, but met with me, taught, coached ”.
Gevork had to start his career as a staff member soviet intelligence at a time when an extremely alarming situation developed in Iran. On the eve of World War II, this country was assigned a very important role in Hitler's plans. Iran is primarily about oil and strategic communications. Through it lay the way to Afghanistan and further to India, where Berlin intended to move the Wehrmacht troops after the victory over the USSR.
The closer the Second was world War, the stronger Reza Shah Pahlavi, the dictator of Iran, gravitated towards rapprochement with Nazi Germany in all areas, and especially in the military. By the beginning of the war, there were about 20 thousand German citizens in Iran: military instructors, intelligence officers and agents disguised as traders, businessmen, engineers. Through the residencies of their intelligence and their network of agents, including numerous agents of influence, the Nazis influenced the political circles of Iran, the command of the country's armed forces, the gendarmerie and the police. And although on September 4, 1939, the Iranian government declared its neutrality, in fact, it openly continued to follow the pro-German course.
Reza Shah Pahlavi, the Supreme Military Council of Iran created by him rejected this demand. Then the Hitlerite special services began preparing a coup d'etat with the aim of overthrowing the Iranian dictator, who did not dare to enter the war. For this, in early August 1941, the chief of military intelligence (Abwehr) of the Third Reich, Admiral Canaris, secretly came to Tehran. At the same time, the reconnaissance and sabotage activities of the German agents sharply intensified on Iranian territory.
It should be emphasized that with the outbreak of World War II, Iran began to play a key role not only in the Near and Middle East. The seizure of Norway and Spitsbergen by Nazi Germany made it extremely difficult to use the sea roads leading to the northern ports of the USSR. And Iran, which has access to the Persian Gulf and has a railroad that crosses its entire territory, could and has become a strategic route for supplying the Soviet Union with weapons, ammunition, food, medicine and other goods necessary for waging war. The command of the Wehrmacht, of course, took this into account and tried to interfere in every possible way.
Of course, Moscow could not remain indifferent to the development of events in Iran. She warned official Tehran three times about the threat of Iran's involvement in the war. Since these statements were ignored, and the situation continued to deteriorate, the Kremlin, on the basis of Article 6 of the Soviet-Iranian treaty of February 26, 1921 and in agreement with Great Britain and the United States, made a decision to send units of the Red Army to Iran, and notified the Iranian government by a note dated August 25 1941 of the year.
By September 1941, a grouping of the Armed Forces of the USSR, consisting of two armies, occupied the northern provinces of Iran. This step was taken in order to suppress the subversive activities of German agents and prevent an attack from the Iranian bridgehead on southern borders Soviet Union. At the same time, in accordance with an international agreement, the troops of the United Kingdom entered the southwestern provinces of Iran. Soviet and British units united in the Qazvin region, south of Tehran, and on September 17 entered the Iranian capital.
Although the joint military action of Moscow and London turned the tide in Iran, the positions of Hitler's special services in the country and their local accomplices remained. Fierce confrontation with the Abwehr Canaris and the political intelligence of Walter Schellenberg (SD) on Iranian territory continued until the end of the war. Moreover, Berlin also used Iran to conduct espionage and subversive work on the territory of the Soviet Union. The Tehran station of the NKVD reported to the Center in 1941: "The Germans from Iran are leading the intelligence work in the USSR, they" fly "from Iran to the USSR and back like locusts."
The main station of Soviet foreign intelligence operated in Tehran, which, as we have already noted, was headed by a young but rather experienced intelligence officer, Ivan Agayants. She was subordinate to peripheral stations and intelligence posts in various Iranian cities.
Before the Lubyanka residencies in Iran, the leadership of the NKVD set a priority task to "create an intelligence network in order to identify employees and agents of foreign intelligence, organizations hostile to the USSR, to prevent possible sabotage and other subversive work aimed at disrupting military-economic measures carried out by the USSR in Iran" ...
BEGINNING OF WORK
The first task that was assigned to Gevork Vartanyan, who received the operational pseudonym Amir, was the selection of several reliable guys, his peers, and the organization of a group to help senior colleagues from the residency in identifying German accomplices in Tehran and other cities.
It should be noted that most of the Iranian population was friendly towards the USSR, especially the progressively minded youth. Therefore, Amir quickly coped with the assignment. He managed to attract to cooperation seven friends and like-minded people who are ready to fight against fascism. They were about the same age - Armenians, Lezghins, Assyrians. All immigrants from the USSR. The parents of these children were either expelled from the Soviet Union after 1937, or they themselves were forced to leave. But all the members of Amir's group were united by a selfless love for the Motherland.
The guys did not have any operational training, and the residency staff had to teach them on the go: competently conduct external surveillance, perform other special tasks. During the formation and preparation of the group, one of the station staff jokingly called it "light cavalry." This name was firmly entrenched for her for a good ten years.
Today it is already possible to tell about some episodes of the selfless activities of the members of the Amir group, young people, almost adolescents who voluntarily, disinterestedly and with enthusiasm helped the Tehran station of the Soviet foreign intelligence in the fight against Hitler's special services and their wide network of agents.
The residency could not understand what the German intelligence officer, who was given the nickname Pharmacist, was doing. According to undercover information, he allegedly holds regular meetings with high-ranking Iranian military representatives, receives important information, but there was no evidence of this. He wanders around Tehran for hours, spends time either at the bazaar or in the tea house.
Amir's group started working on the Pharmacist - no leads. And information about his active meetings continued to flow. The guys decided to find out what a German does when he is at home, especially in the morning, even before leaving for the city. And suddenly, one day, from the attic of a neighboring building, they saw: two completely identical people were sitting at tea, like two drops of water similar to each other. It turned out that the Germans were using twins for cover. One twin brother drove outdoor around the city, and the second brother - the Pharmacist - calmly met with agents. Well, then everything was a matter of technique, and the "light cavalry" quickly established all the agents of the Pharmacist.
The following data testify to the effectiveness of Amir's group: in just two years of work, at least 400 people were identified with its help, one way or another connected with the German intelligence services.
Amir and his comrades had to identify not only Hitler's agents. At one of the meetings, Agayants assigned Amir the task of urgently checking a high-ranking Iranian military man. The resident was concerned about the following circumstances: the recruited general for a lot of money handed over to the operative, who kept in touch with him, documents marked "top secret." But he only brought a lot of papers. And not everything was confirmed. The "light cavalry" set up close surveillance for the commander: no suspicious contacts, including with the Germans. They began to observe his behavior at home. It turned out that the general, in the evenings, used a typewriter to prepare documents on clean, classified forms. The disinformation channel was closed.
ENGLISH EDUCATIONAL SCHOOL COURSE
In 1942, Amir had to carry out a special reconnaissance mission.
During World War II, Great Britain was an ally of the USSR in anti-Hitler coalition, and the residences of the two states in Tehran interacted with each other on a number of operational issues. However, this did not prevent the British from conducting subversive work against the Soviet Union. The NKVD station learned that the British had set up an intelligence school in Tehran. Young people with knowledge of the Russian language were recruited into it. Prepared them for intelligence missions on the territory of the Soviet republics Central Asia and Transcaucasia (naturally, the Armenians had to be thrown into Armenia, the Tajiks - to Tajikistan, etc.). The term of study is six months. Conspiracy is the strictest. The preparation was carried out in pairs.
On the instructions of the Center, Amir managed to infiltrate the intelligence school. Immediately, work began on the installation of its cadets, to which all the "light cavalry" were connected. After a while, the residency had detailed information about the school itself and about those who studied there. After being dropped on the territory of the USSR, the pets of the British "Knights of the Cloak and Dagger" were either neutralized, or recruited and then worked under the hood of the Soviet counterintelligence.
The British eventually suspected something was wrong: the school was idling. Some time later, the Soviet representative met with the official representative of British intelligence in Iran and expressed bewilderment at the "non-allied behavior." The latter denied everything. However, soon “ educational institution"Ceased to exist.
For six months, Amir went to an English intelligence school full course learning. The solid operational training received in it from the officers of His Majesty's secret service - recruiting work, secret operations, ciphering, maintaining two-way communication, identifying external surveillance - was very useful to the Soviet intelligence officer later.
GOAR IS A "TREASURE"
One of the active members of Amir's group from the first days of its creation was his close friend Hovhannes. It was in the house of Hovhannes that Gevork first saw his future wife, and then a 15-year-old girl, the sister of a comrade and colleague, a black-browed beauty, whose name Gohar is translated from Armenian as “treasure”, “precious stone”.
In 1942, Amir drew Goar into the ranks of the "light cavalry". And I was not mistaken. From her very first steps in intelligence work, it became clear to everyone that Gohar was a brave and staunch person beyond his years. And her natural instinct, sagacity, clear mind and the gift of a conspirator very soon turned the girl into a consultant for young fighters on security issues and precautions.
Gohar's strict disposition, and the discipline that reigned in the group, did not allow young scouts to notice her beauty, and even more so to speak about it aloud. For all, Gohar was the same loyal comrade in arms.
“I was not indifferent to her from the very beginning of our acquaintance,” Gevork Andreevich later admitted. “I was amazed by her heightened notion of honor, duty, her exactingness and concern for her comrades in arms.”
Once Amir was on the verge of failure. He was arrested by members of the Taminat - Iranian secret police and did not know how it would end for him.
Two guys from his group were strongly highlighted at an acute event (they liquidated an Iranian terrorist). They had to be hidden, and later even withdrawn to the Soviet Union. And Amir, as a friend of these guys, was thrown into prison. They beat him, and tried to find out where his friends could hide. This went on for about three months. But Amir was lucky: Gohar was in the ranks. She carried parcels for him to prison and kept him informed about the situation. As soon as Gohar announced that the comrades were taken to a safe place, Amir began to adhere to the previously developed legend, denied everything during interrogations and demanded release. Andrei Vartanyan, a well-known merchant-pastry chef in Tehran, also demanded to release the innocently arrested son. The rich and poor representatives of the Armenian colony murmured. Three months later, Amir was released.
Gohar's empathy for the fate of a comrade in arms, the dangers and risks endured in order to save him, grew into special feelings, which she carefully concealed until the very end of the war.
LEARNING IN THE PROCESS OF WORK
So, as mentioned above, Amir's group was engaged in identifying Hitler's accomplices in Tehran and other cities. The members of the group conducted visual reconnaissance, established and successfully carried out external surveillance, skillfully received information in the dark.
Mastering the basics of intelligence began for young people with at first glance elementary, but essentially effective techniques. Professionalism was practiced on them, the first combat operational experience was acquired. In wartime, this happened quickly. To be wrong meant to jeopardize the interests of the organization, and indeed one's own life. After all, the guys did not have any special training. In the course of carrying out operational activities, they learned to competently conduct external surveillance, to perform other special tasks. It was to Ivan Ivanovich Agayants that the members of Amir's group owed the fact that the hard and dangerous work in intelligence in those harsh years was painted for them in the tones of heroic romanticism and brought them deep satisfaction, since it was beneficial to the Fatherland.
The activity of Soviet intelligence in Iran, in fact, paralyzed the activities of underground pro-fascist organizations in the country, contributed to the delivery of a crushing blow to the German special services: they could not fully reveal their potential and solve many of the tasks assigned to them, including the preparation of the assassination attempt on the leaders of the "Big Three" countries during the Tehran Conference, which was held from November 28 to December 1, 1943. Young intelligence officers of the Amir group also made their significant contribution to the activities of Soviet foreign intelligence in Iran at that time.
OPERATION LONG JUMP
It is well known from history that in 1943, during the period of the Tehran Conference, Hitler's special services planned to destroy the leaders of the “Big Three”. The Germans called the operation to physically eliminate the heads of the USSR, USA and Great Britain "Long Leap". Why did the "Long Jump" fail?
The operation was entrusted to Hitler's favorite, Otto Skorzeny, hitherto well-known to the general public. The advance group of his unit, which consisted of six German saboteurs, including two radio operators, was dropped by parachute near the city of Qom, 70 kilometers from the Iranian capital. The group was to settle in Tehran, establish radio communications with Berlin and prepare the conditions for the landing of the main landing, led by Skorzeny himself. And he was supposed to arrange on November 30, the birthday of the British Prime Minister, an attempt on the life of Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill.
For more than two weeks, saboteurs with a large amount of weapons and equipment traveled to Tehran and settled in a secret villa prepared for them by German agents. The Light Cavalry was the first to obtain information about the landing and to locate the group. All six German commandos were arrested. When Hitler's special services became aware of the failure of the advanced group, Berlin decided to refuse to send the main executors of Operation Long Jump to Tehran.
In 1964, the former SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Otto Skorzeny, who lived in Madrid, said in an interview with a correspondent for the Paris newspaper Express, in particular, the following:
“Of all the funny stories that are told about me, the funniest are those written by historians. They claim that I was supposed to kidnap Roosevelt with my team during the Yalta conference. This is nonsense: Hitler never ordered me to do this. Now I will tell you the truth about this story: in fact, Hitler ordered me to kidnap Roosevelt during the previous conference - the one that took place in Tehran. But bam! Due to various reasons this case could not be handled with sufficient success ... "
How could the young guys find a group of fascist radio operators-saboteurs in huge Tehran?
“They ran through the streets day and night, for 14-16 hours,” Gohar later recalled. - I went home only when it got completely dark. Whether it's cold, hot or scary - they were looking for it anyway. And they found it. "
LONG-TERM COMMISSIONS
“My choice depended only on me,” stressed Gohar Levonovna. - No one imposed on me, did not approve the "husband's candidacy." I got married by great love... True, we got married three times. Twice - abroad (it was necessary in accordance with the "legend"). And they even got married in a church. And once - at home, already according to Soviet laws. "
The light cavalry group continued to operate successfully until April 1949. And in 1951, the young couple asked the Center to provide them with the opportunity to get higher education. The choice fell on the Faculty of Foreign Languages \u200b\u200bof Yerevan University.
This was followed by many years of life under the guise of fictitious names and surnames, work in extreme conditions and difficult conditions in various countries of the world. The stages of intelligence activity, about which the time has not yet come, and it is unlikely that it will come in the next 50-100 years. Operations brilliantly carried out by this man could enter into tutorials intelligence services of many countries as an example of what success an intelligence agent can achieve. His next trip abroad lasted over 30 years. And always next to Gevork Andreevich was Gohar - a woman of his fate, a combat friend who had traveled with him a long way in intelligence.
The scouts returned from their last business trip in the fall of 1986. A few months later, Gohar Levonovna retired, and Gevork Andreevich continued to serve until 1992.
When asked what the secret of his active longevity is, Gevork Vartanyan once stressed: “The main thing is not to relax, do what you love and feel that people need you”.
On our own behalf, we add: despite the fact that Colonel Vartanyan is retired, he continues to work actively in the SVR - he meets with young employees of various foreign intelligence units, to whom he transfers his rich operational experience, travels to other cities of Russia, and speaks to students of institutes and universities. And there is something to tell him young people about.
INSTEAD OF AFTERWORD
They were informed about the awarding of the title of Hero of the Soviet Union to Gevork Andreyevich and about the award of the Order of the Red Banner to Gohar Levonovna in 1984. Gevork Vartanyan became the first illegal Soviet intelligence officer to be awarded this high rank for his work in peacetime. But the spouses were then still far from Moscow, therefore the documents on their awarding were written out in a different surname. Only after the couple returned from a business trip, everything fell into place and the scouts received well-deserved awards.
Eternal memory and glory!
On January 10, 2012, an illegal Soviet intelligence agent Gevork Andreevich Vartanyan passed away. Over the decades of continuous work abroad, he did not suffer a single failure, did not lose contact with any informant, did not lose a single recruited agent. Vartanyan's work was so impeccable that the name of the 76-year-old agent was only declassified in December 2000, and most of the details remained hidden. For example, what exactly eight languages \u200b\u200bhe spoke, what countries visited are included in his track record, numbering several dozen thereof.
Nevertheless, some interesting details of the life and exploits of Gevork Andreevich are known, and it is about them that "RG" today recalls.
1. Nicknames
The path of the scout Vartanyan began in Tehran. Not even reaching the age of majority, Gevork created a real reconnaissance group from his peers of the most diverse national composition. Then, after a meeting with the Soviet resident, he received a pseudonym, which had stuck with him for many years - "Amir". He was also the leader of the "Light Cavalry" - this is what his group was jokingly nicknamed for his habit of moving around Tehran on bicycles.
2. Educators
As a professional intelligence agent, Gevorg Vartanyan was formed under the influence of two senior comrades in the shop. The first of them was his father, an Iranian citizen Andrei Vartanyan. When Gevork was six years old, in 1930, a family from his native Rostov-on-Don moved to Iran, where his father got a good business of his own and a respectable status. But he did not lose ties with the USSR, moreover, he was active in undercover work. Fortunately, the position in society was a reliable cover.
Ivan Agayants, whom he met in February 1940, became "godfather" for Gevork. The scout made a huge impression on the young man: “I learned that Ivan Ivanovich Agayants is a legendary Soviet scout. He was a strict and at the same time kind, warm man. I worked with him for a long time, until the end of the war, and he made me a scout. I was busy, but met with me, taught, coached, "Vartanyan later said.
3.400 enemy dips
The efficiency of the work of young Vartanyan and his equally young team was amazing. During the war years, "Light Cavalry" identified in Tehran about four hundred German agents, saboteurs and their informants.
4. Top secret spouse
For many years Gevork Vartanyan's partner and closest person was his wife Gohar. Even during the years of the "Light Cavalry" she became part of this group, and in 1946 she was married. Interestingly, he was only the first among several registered for their life together. A few years after the war, the young family moved to Yerevan to get an education, and in 1955 began working for Soviet intelligence again, going abroad for three decades. During this lengthy work, the couple had to marry three more times in different countries to obtain new documents.
Gevorg Vartanyan with his wife Gohar, 2001. A photo: Boris Kavashkin / ITAR-TASS
5. Cunning and ingenuity
One of the main qualities of Vartanyan, which made him an intelligence officer of the highest class, was his incredible resourcefulness. Here are just two cases in which he managed to manifest it.
In the early 40s, Gevorg was detained by the Iranian police due to contacts with two identified intelligence officers. While the police were driving him around the city, he decided to "cooperate" with them - to indicate the people with whom the members of his group allegedly communicated. These persons were imprisoned for six months, but in reality they were opponents of Soviet intelligence. However, Vartanyan himself did not manage to get out of the water completely dry: only three months later he was released.
The second story took place in 1942. Vartanyan managed to open a British intelligence school in Iran, after which it was closed at the request of the USSR. He managed to do this by entering this school. There he quickly got to know the "classmates" and established their identities. When young spies were sent to the USSR, they were immediately brought out into the open.
6. Your own idol
One of the main feats of Vartanyan and his guys in Tehran was the operation to prevent the assassination attempt on Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt during the 1943 conference. If the plans of the Third Reich were realized, the development of the war could take on a different character, but the sabotage was prevented by a group of young men who skillfully and professionally deciphered German agents.
More than three decades later, this story formed the basis for the film "Tehran-43", and Gevork Vartanyan acted as a consultant and prototype for the protagonist - a young intelligence officer Andrei Borodin. The performer of this role, Igor Kostolevsky, admitted that he considered meeting Vartanyan one of the main successes in his creative life.
7. Around the world
Since the mid-1950s, Gevork and Gohar Vartanyan went on a "foreign tour" for three long decades - they worked together as illegal intelligence officers. During this long "journey", the couple visited about a hundred countries, the full list of which remains unknown to this day. It is only known that the main front of work was concentrated in only a few countries. Scouts visited dozens of others only in transit.
Paradoxically, it was Gevorg Vartanyan, then still 19, who commanded a group of young people like himself, soviet intelligence officersthat prevented the assassination attempt on Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt in Tehran in 1943 during the first conference of the Allied leaders during the Second World War. German radio operators were dropped into Lake Kumskoye 70 km from Tehran. They were supposed to help the military to arrive at the scene, who, according to the plan, were to make an attempt. Thanks to Gevorg Vartanyan's group, these plans were not destined to come true. More than thirty years will pass, and this story will form the basis of the film "Tehran 43", where Igor Kostolevsky will play the hero of Vartanyan.
To go or not to go to reconnaissance - such a choice for 16-year-old Gevorg simply did not stand. By that time, his family lived in Iran, and he already knew that his father had been working for Soviet intelligence for a long time. In Tehran, there were many Armenians sympathizing with the Soviet regime, because Amir, as Gevorg was nicknamed, easily recruited agents. No vocational training, weapons, ammunition - the group traveled around Tehran on bicycles. They were called that - Light cavalry. It was in this group that several years later Gevorg met his future wife Gohar. They were married in the Armenian temple of Tehran in 1946, and this was the first of three weddings of the Vartanian spouses. In the future, they again needed to marry in order to obtain documents. In 1951 they came to Yerevan to receive higher education at the Faculty of Foreign Languages. They were not yet thirty, but they already had a serious experience in intelligence behind them, and ahead of them - work in dozens of countries (mainly in Italy) until 1986.
The Vartanyans believed that they were incredibly lucky: they had worked as a couple all their lives. In addition to professional advantages (often a woman is trusted much more during recruitment), they supported each other during hundreds of secret operations. Once in the United States, intelligence officers were on the verge of being exposed. They were invited to the reception by a familiar colonel, and it was impossible to refuse the invitation, as usual, because the scouts avoid too crowded places. Going to the door, Gohar Vartanyan quickly looked around the room and noticed there a woman whom the couple knew from Iran. There they lived, of course, under different names, so the whole operation was on the verge of exposure. Then Gohar faked an attack of cholecystitis, demanded a doctor, locked herself in the car, asking to be taken home. They even invited the priest who was present here to read a prayer over the woman. Gohar writhing in pain, and as a result, together with Gevorg, they went home, safely saving not only the operation, but, possibly, their own lives.
Their names were declassified only on December 20, 2000, on the day of the 80th anniversary of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. Gevorg Vartanyan died in 2012, and Gohar Levonovna Vartanyan still lives in Moscow.
In a telegram of condolences, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called Vartanyan "a real patriot of his country, a bright and extraordinary personality." “He was a participant in brilliant special operations that went down in the history of the national foreign intelligence service,” the head of state emphasized, Interfax reports.
Gevork Andreevich Vartanyan was born on February 17, 1924 in Rostov-on-Don in the family of Andrei Vasilievich Vartanyan, an Iranian citizen, director of an oil mill.
In 1930, when Gevork was six years old, the family left for Iran. His father was associated with Soviet foreign intelligence and left the USSR on her instructions. Under the guise of commercial activities, Andrei Vasilyevich conducted active intelligence agent work. It was under the influence of his father that Gevork became a scout.
Gevork Vartanyan linked his fate with Soviet intelligence at the age of 16, when in February 1940 he established direct contact with the NKVD station in Tehran. On behalf of the resident, Gevorg headed a special group to identify fascist agents and German intelligence officers in Tehran and other Iranian cities. There was no operational training: surveillance methods and other professional tricks had to be learned on the fly. In just two years, his group identified about 400 people, one way or another connected with German intelligence. At the same time, Vartanyan meets the sister of one of the active members of the residency - Gohar, who becomes a member of the reconnaissance group, and later his wife.
In 1942 "Amir" (Gevorg Vartanyan's operational pseudonym) had to carry out a special reconnaissance mission. Despite the fact that Great Britain was an ally of the USSR in the anti-Hitler coalition, this did not prevent the British from conducting subversive work against the USSR. The British created an intelligence school in Tehran, which recruited young people with knowledge of the Russian language for their subsequent transfer with intelligence missions to the territory of the Soviet republics of Central Asia and Transcaucasia. On the instructions of the Center "Amir" infiltrated the intelligence school and passed a full course of study there. The Tehran residency received detailed information about the school itself and its cadets. The "graduates" of the school, abandoned on the territory of the USSR, were rendered harmless or recruited and worked "under the hood" of the Soviet counterintelligence.
Later, it was the group led by Vartanyan who thwarted the assassination attempt on the leaders of the Big Three - Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin, which Hitler had planned in 1943 during the Tehran Conference. One of the most secret operations of the Third Reich was thwarted by the group of Vartanyan, who was then only 19 years old. Several days before the start of the conference, German agents were arrested in Tehran.
Based on these events, the famous film "Tehran-43" was shot with the participation of Igor Kostolevsky, Natalia Belokhvostikova, Armen Dzhigarkhanyan and Alain Delon. However, Vartanyan himself said that there was "a lot of shooting and nonsense" in the film. The only thing that, according to him, is true, is an attempt by saboteurs to enter the embassy building through the sewers.
In 1951 he was brought to the USSR and graduated from the Faculty of Foreign Languages \u200b\u200bof the Yerevan University.
This was followed by many years of work as an illegal scout in extreme conditions and difficult situations in various countries of the world. Always next to Gevork Andreevich was his wife Gohar, who went with him a long way in intelligence, an illegal scout, holder of the Order of the Red Banner and many other awards.
The business trip of the Vartanian spouses lasted more than 30 years.
The scouts returned from their last business trip in the fall of 1986. A few months later, Gohar Levonovna retired, and Gevork Andreevich continued to serve until 1992.
By the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR ("closed") dated May 28, 1984, Vartanyan was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Amir himself was informed about this by encryption from Moscow.
Despite the fact that Colonel Vartanyan was retired, he continued to work actively in the SVR: to meet with young employees of various foreign intelligence units, to whom he passed on his rich operational experience.
The Vartanyan spouses trained personnel for the USSR / RF Military Intelligence Service until 2000, when Vartanyan's name was declassified. This happened on December 20, 2000, on the day of the 80th anniversary of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). However, most of the operations carried out by him are still classified.