The person in question occupies a special place among the honorary citizens of Rostov-on-Don. Unfortunately, he is no longer alive. But for those who knew him, and those who have heard about him, he will forever remain a real legend, with which one way or another is associated not only with our country, but also with many other states of the world. This man's name was declassified less than 15 years ago, in 2000. As for his activities, it can be assumed that in many respects remains a secret for the uninitiated to this day.

Hero of the Soviet Union Gevork Andreevich Vartanyan was an Armenian by nationality. This is so, on a note to the champions of "purity of blood", the overwhelming majority of whom did not do even a drop for their country, for which Gevork Andreevich received a gold star. He was born on February 17, 1924 in Rostov-on-Don. As you know, the Armenians lived in the neighboring town of Nakhichevan (now part of the Proletarsky district of Rostov-on-Don) and several neighboring villages since the end of the 18th century, when they were resettled from the Crimean Khanate to the Don lands by the decision of Catherine II. The Armenian colony on the Don was very famous in the Armenian world, as the representatives of this ancient people it is good here, over the centuries of neighborhood with the Cossacks, Russians and other peoples, they have turned into “their own”, the indigenous inhabitants of the Don. Therefore, it was not surprising that Armenians from the Muslim countries of the Middle East, fleeing persecution or wanting to avoid the negativity of life in a non-confessional environment, for centuries came to the Don and settled in Nakhichevan, Rostov, and others. settlements... The hero of our article came from a family of visiting Armenians. His father Andrei Vasilievich Vartanyan (born in 1888) was a citizen of Iran. In Russia, he was in charge of an oil mill in the village of Stepnoy. Gevork Andreevich's mother was called Maria Savelyevna. She was born in 1900 and was 12 years younger than her father.

Despite the fact that Vartanyan Sr.was a specialist in food production by profession, he collaborated with the Soviet special services - obviously for ideological reasons. Therefore, in 1930, on the instructions of the Soviet intelligence, Andrei Vartanyan and his family moved from the Soviet Union to Iran. There he continued to be engaged in food production, owned a large confectionery factory. His own business helped Vartanyan, the elder, not only as a "screen" in intelligence activities, but also as a partial source of funding. It is significant that Andrei Vasilyevich Vartanyan always tried to act based on his own financial resources and not ask for money from the leadership of Soviet intelligence. The ideological supporter of the Soviet state, Andrei Vartanyan during the Great Patriotic War personally financed the construction of the tank, transferring the funds he had collected to the USSR. In 1953 he returned to the Soviet Union, to Yerevan. Behind him was 23 years of illegal work in Iran.

Amir and the Light Cavalry

It is not surprising that Andrei Vartanyan's son Gevork, the main hero of our story, also became a patriot of the Soviet state. Gevorg Vartanyan ended up in Iran at the age of six. He spent his childhood in this eastern country. Gevork Vartanyan began his service in the Soviet foreign intelligence service almost immediately after leaving childhood. On February 4, 1940, at the age of fifteen, he began to cooperate with the Soviet station in Tehran. As the son of an illegal spy who worked for the Soviet Union, he managed to do this quite easily.

Famous Ivan Agayants is now supervising Gevorg Vartanyan - resident People's Commissariat state security of the USSR in Iran. With the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, the main task of the Soviet residency in Iran was to oppose the influence of Nazi Germany, primarily the activities of German agents in Iranian government and military circles. By the time the war began, there were at least 20 thousand German citizens in Iran, among whom were military, technical specialists, diplomats. Germany hoped to turn Iran into its military ally in the Middle East, using its oil and achieving the inclusion of Iran in the war on the side of the Nazis. Naturally, the Soviet Union and Great Britain did their best to prevent these plans of the German leadership. For this, such a professional as Ivan Agayants was sent to Iran.

Ivan Ivanovich Agayants (1911-1968) for the entire period of Gevork Vartanyan's Iranian activity became his leader, teacher and reliable senior comrade. A native of the Azerbaijani Ganja (then it was still called Elizavetpol), Agayants in 1930, at the age of 19, entered the service of the economic department of the OGPU of the USSR, in 1936 he transferred to foreign intelligence. He had a chance to take part in intelligence activities in France, to take the leaders of the Spanish communists from Spain to Moscow after the victory of General Franco over the republican forces. Agayants ended up in Iran after the start of the Great Patriotic War. He worked under the guise of an adviser to the Soviet embassy, ​​while at the same time heading the Tehran station. In this capacity, Agayants was responsible for the activities of Soviet intelligence officers in Iran, including the young Gevork Vartanyan.

Thirty-year-old Agayants has shown himself to be a brilliant leader of the residency network. He managed to significantly update the agents of Soviet intelligence in Iran, getting rid of unwanted figures who had lost their trust, and acquiring new agents who supplied valuable information. In many ways, the introduction of Soviet troops into Iran in 1941 was the result of the reaction of the Soviet leadership to the information received from the Tehran station. Ivan Agayants coped well with the role of the head of the Soviet intelligence network in Iran. By the way, it was Agayants who organized the famous personal meeting of Stalin with General Charles de Gaulle, for which the intelligence officer had to fly to distant Algeria.

After the war, Agayants headed a department at the Intelligence School, then held leading positions in the state security agencies. In 1965, he received the rank of major general, in 1967 he was appointed deputy head of the First Main Directorate of the KGB of the USSR (foreign intelligence), but in the following 1968 he died of transient cancer - the health of the legendary intelligence officer, who died at an early age of 57, is negative affected by the numerous hardships suffered, severe tuberculosis, also received during Iranian business trips. Gevorg Vartanyan always spoke warmly about his real teacher in intelligence, emphasizing the importance of Ivan Agayants (along with his father Andrei Vartanyan) in shaping himself as a specialist in intelligence activities. Vartanyan himself recalled Ivan Agayants in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta: “What were the undoubted merits of the Agayants resident? He possessed the highest skill of a professional scout. He thoroughly knew the methods of work. His reaction was amazing. He was a brilliant recruiter. He knew how to navigate the situation and analyze it. And Ivan Ivanovich is also a man of high culture and rare intelligence. The network of agents he created in Tehran continued to work without failures for many years after his departure "(Dolgopolov N. 100 years without a name - Russian newspaper. 26.08.2011).

Gevorg Vartanyan received the operational pseudonym "Amir", under which he went down in the history of Soviet foreign intelligence. His first large-scale task was the formation of a group of young people oriented towards cooperation with the Soviet Union and who were Soviet patriots. Amir gathered seven people. They were guys of different nationalities, mainly Caucasian and Transcaucasian: Armenians, Assyrians, Lezgins. The created youth anti-fascist group began to fulfill the instructions of senior comrades - the Soviet residency. The guys were engaged in outdoor surveillance, delivery of orders, while using bicycles for convenience (in 1942, however, one captured German motorcycle appeared in the group's park).

Thanks to the latter fact, the resident Ivan Agayants nicknamed his young assistants "Light Cavalry". The guys on bicycles, practically teenagers, did not arouse much suspicion among respectable adults - military men, diplomats, politicians, who became objects of observation of the "Light Cavalry". This also contributed to the effectiveness of the actions of the Amir brigade, which was noted more than once by Agayants. Two years later, a girl named Gohar, who was the sister of one of the scouts, appeared in the Light Cavalry. It was she, with whom Amir, the commander of the Light Cavalry, became friends, who was destined to become a companion of his entire long life - the Vartanyan spouses lived with each other until Gevork Andreevich's death in 2012 (only the couple had no children - a life devoted to intelligence did not contribute such a crucial step).

Like Gevork, Gohar Levonovna was born in the Soviet Union, only not in Rostov-on-Don, but in Armenia - on January 25, 1926, in the city of Leninakan (Gyumri). In the early 1930s, Gohar's parents moved to Iran - there is a similarity in biographies. Gohar, like her future husband, was distinguished by remarkable abilities, thanks to which she also became a scout for her entire life - a professional of the highest class. Already at the age of sixteen, having joined the detachment of "Light cavalry" created by Amir-Gevork, she successfully completed the tasks assigned to the young scouts, in particular, she was able to prevent two Soviet pilots... The traitors flew out of Baku in their planes and landed in Iran, where a refuge equipped with German agents awaited them. The Nazis hoped to take the defectors from Iran to Germany and further use them for their own purposes, but Gohar figured out the location of the traitors and they were arrested.

When, in 1941, the Iranian special services nevertheless managed to get on the trail of the Light Cavalry and identify two of its members, Soviet intelligence ferried the latter to the USSR. However, Gevorg Vartanyan himself came under suspicion of the Iranian authorities. He had to endure a three-month sentence in an Iranian prison. But here Vartanyan also benefited the common cause - he "handed over" to the police several people who in fact interfered with the work of Soviet intelligence and, thus, got rid of the obstacle in the way of collecting intelligence with the wrong hands. In the early 1940s. Vartanyan and his associates managed to identify about 400 Iranians who are closely associated with German intelligence. When Soviet and British forces seized control of Iran in August 1941, Iranians working for German intelligence were arrested.

Despite the fact that during the war years Great Britain was one of the main allies of the USSR, Soviet intelligence officers also monitored the activities of the British, quite reasonably not trusting London. So, in 1942, the British opened in Iran special school, where they began to train intelligence officers who were supposed to be sent to the territory of the Soviet Union - to the Transcaucasian republics. They preferred to recruit Iranians, Armenians, and Assyrians who spoke Russian to the school, which, according to the calculations of the English residents, should have greatly facilitated their intelligence activities on the territory of the Soviet Union.

Gevorg Vartanyan managed not only to enter a British intelligence school to enrich his knowledge in the field of intelligence activities, but also to remember his fellow practitioners, who, subsequently, were naturally identified after being sent to the territory of the Soviet Union and arrested. Some of them were recruited and began to work for Soviet intelligence. For Vartanyan himself, studying at an English intelligence school became an extra addition of intelligence and life experience. He studied the basics of secret writing, encryption, two-way radio communications, and methods of undercover activity. The intelligence school, on the other hand, lost its meaning of existence, since all the agents released from it were declassified by the Soviet state security authorities. Soon, under pressure from the Soviet Union, the British leadership was forced to close this educational institution - again, thanks to the young Soviet intelligence officer Gevork Vartanyan.

How the Long Jump was disrupted

However, the most striking page in the "Iranian epic" of Vartanyan, and possibly in his entire biography, was the prevention of the secret operation of the Third Reich called "Long Leap". It was planned in 1943, on the eve of the Tehran Conference, at which the leaders of the three leading powers of the anti-Hitler coalition were expected - Soviet Secretary General Joseph Stalin, American President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The leaders of the Big Three were to arrive in Iran to discuss the most important issues of war and peace - both military cooperation, including the opening of a second front and the beginning of a war against Japan, and the post-war peace order in the event of a victory over Nazi Germany and its allies. Naturally, the German special services, having received news of the forthcoming conference, planned to disrupt it, and ideally to kill or kidnap the leaders of the “Big Three”. If the Nazis had succeeded in their plans, who knows how the wheel of world history would have turned in these tense years.

To disrupt the Tehran conference, a secret operation "Long Jump" was developed, approved by Adolf Hitler and directly planned by Ernst Kaltenbrunner. The immediate developer of the operation plan was the legendary German saboteur SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Otto Skorzeny, who served as the head of the SS secret service in the VI Department of the Main Directorate of Imperial Security. Skorzeny is a real legend of Hitler's intelligence, unfortunately much better known to the average Russian than the Soviet man Gevork Vartanyan. Skorzeny planned that his saboteurs, disguised as waiters, would be able to enter the hall of the Tehran conference, and then only "a matter of technology" would remain.

However, thanks to the high professionalism and courage of the Soviet intelligence officers, the leadership of the USSR secret services became aware of the impending operation. To be precise, information about the planned "Long Jump" was reported to the center by Nikolai Kuznetsov, a Soviet intelligence officer stationed in the territory of Ukraine, behind enemy lines. The leadership of the Soviet intelligence passed the available information to Tehran, the Soviet station, which was to play the main role in the direct prevention of sabotage against the leaders of the Big Three.

In August 1943, in the area of ​​the city of Qom, the sacred center of Muslim Shiites, which is seventy kilometers from Tehran, a landing of six German scouts, including two radio operators, landed. The Germans, disguised as local residents, reached Tehran on camels. The secret apartment of the German intelligence was located here, which was a villa next to the Soviet and British embassies. However, the Amir-Vartanyan group and the British intelligence MI-6 were able to intercept the negotiations of the German radio operators with Berlin and get on their trail. The radio operators were forced to transfer all information about the negotiations with the center to Soviet and British intelligence officers. Ultimately, the radio operators were allowed to report their detention to Berlin, after which German intelligence abandoned plans to conduct the operation.

Thus, the youths from the "Light Cavalry" of the nineteen-year-old Amir - Gevork Vartanyan thwarted the most serious operation planned at the very top of German intelligence and, possibly, saved the lives of the leaders of the three great powers. Following the exposure of the radio operators, many German agents were detained in Iran, including the resident of German intelligence in Tehran, Franz Mayer. The latter, pretending to be a local resident and painting his beard with henna, worked as a gravedigger in the Armenian cemetery, from which the German saboteurs planned to infiltrate the site of the Tehran conference. Gevorg Vartanyan recalled that the entire period of the Tehran conference - from November 28 to December 2, 1943 - the entire Soviet residency in Iran worked tirelessly, around the clock. At the same time, the resident Ivan Agayants reported on the progress of the work personally to Stalin.

Gevorg Vartanyan's illegal activities in Iran lasted 11 years - from 1940 to 1951. During this time, the young man not only perfectly mastered the profession of a scout, turning into a high-class specialist, carried out a number of brilliant operations, but also managed to marry his friend in the Light Cavalry. Gohar Levonovna Vartanyan was 2 years younger than her husband. They got married on June 30, 1946, when Gohar was 20 years old, and Gevork was 22. After getting married in an Armenian temple in Tehran, they received a Soviet marriage stamp in 1952 in Yerevan. Since then, Gevorg and Gohar Vartanyan walked through life together, being not only husband and wife, but also comrades in arms in the difficult intelligence service.

European epic

In 1951, the Vartanyan couple returned to the Soviet Union. Gevorg has not been here for twenty years - after leaving for Iran as a child. Already an experienced scout and a fairly adult 27-year-old man, Gevork strove for further professional development... The Vartanyans settled in Yerevan, where they were enrolled in the faculty foreign languages Yerevan State University. The study lasted five years. In 1957, after graduating from the university, the KGB of the USSR approached them with another proposal for a business trip abroad. A new page has begun in the history of the amazing life of this married couple.

Since both Gevorka and Gohar Vartanyan spent their childhood and adolescence in Iran, they both spoke Farsi as their native language. Their knowledge of Persian and their characteristic Middle Eastern appearance allowed them to impersonate Iranian citizens. Having supplied the Vartanyans with Iranian documents, the KGB sent the spouses to work illegally in Japan. The Vartanyans were in the land of the rising sun for three years. Gevork used his studies at one of the Japanese universities as a cover. In addition, he went into business in order to obtain a certain social status and related opportunities. For Japan there was a business trip to the Middle East, then to Europe. After a short stay in Switzerland, the Vartanian couple settled in France, where Gevorg presented himself as an Iranian businessman. The trade in famous Persian carpets was a cover for the Soviet intelligence officers. From France, Gevorg and Gohar moved to Italy. It was the Apennines that became the place for the further long-term activity of Soviet intelligence officers.

The best cover story for intelligence activities was business. It was much easier for a respectable Iranian businessman to find his way into the circles of the political and economic elite of Italian society. For five years, the Vartanyans have acquired the necessary contacts in Italy, quite successfully acquired acquaintances in local business circles. We must pay tribute - both Gevork and Gohar could make the right impression about themselves. At least the Italian interlocutors of the "rich Iranian entrepreneurs" did not have any suspicions about the veracity of their legend. Moreover, Gevork and Goar managed to obtain Italian citizenship, which greatly facilitated their activities both on the territory of Italy and on the scale of Europe as a whole (the attitude towards an Italian citizen in European political and business circles is undoubtedly different than towards a citizen of Iran or other eastern country). The Vartanians' mission in Italy was to monitor the activities of US and NATO forces in southern Europe. Moreover, Italy was a key military-political partner of the United States in southern Europe.

It should be recalled here that Italy in those years remained an extremely politically unstable country. It is not for nothing that this period in her history was nicknamed the "lead seventies". The heat of the political struggle between the ultra-right and the ultra-left was raging in the country, in which the Italian and American special services, the famous Italian mafia and even Masonic lodges played an important role. The "Red Brigades" and a number of other lesser-known left-wing radical organizations staged terrorist acts against political opponents and representatives of the authorities, while right-wing radical groups threatened the Italian Communist Party and other left-wing parties and movements. Soviet intelligence needed reliable information about what was happening in a large southern European country, what actions the United States was taking, and what the balance of power was on the Italian political scene. The Vartanians supplied the most relevant and secret information, receiving it while communicating in the circles of the Italian business and political elite.

After completing the tasks of the leadership in Italy, Gevork and Gohar Vartanyan were transferred to the Federal Republic of Germany. To do this, they, who were already elderly (we are talking about the early 1980s - that is, Gevork was under sixty years old), had to learn German... After eight months of studying a foreign language, Gevork and Gohar spoke fluent German. After that, for several years they worked in Germany, also acquiring appropriate acquaintances in military-political circles and finding out a lot of secrets about important NATO military facilities located in West Germany. For the Soviet Union, the information received from Germany was of strategic importance, since it was here that the United States deployed ballistic missiles, which, in the event of a war, could reach the European part of the USSR in 8-10 minutes.

The Vartanyans mined and transmitted data on the location of NATO military facilities to the center, thereby raising the awareness of the Soviet leadership about the military-political plans of the United States and its allies and strengthening the security of the Soviet state. In 1986, 62-year-old Gevorg Vartanyan and 60-year-old Gohar Vartanyan finally returned to the Soviet Union. Their illegal activities in European countries came to an end, but the experience of outstanding professionals was still in demand. Gevorg Vartanyan trained intelligence specialists and consulted special services. In 1992, at the age of 68, Gevorg Vartanyan retired on a well-deserved retirement. By this time he held the rank of colonel.

At home: assessment of merit and worthy old age

It should be noted here that, despite half a century of intelligence work, Gevork Vartanyan's ascent through the hierarchy of ranks in the state security system cannot be called rapid. The fact is that for a long time, practically all of his youth, he worked in an illegal position, remaining a "freelance" intelligence officer of the Soviet special services. That is, he was not officially recruited to serve in the state security agencies. Only in 1968 the 44-year-old Vartanyan received the military rank of captain (Vartanyan himself recalled that the assignment of the rank was an initiative of Andropov - before that, despite 28 years of intelligence service, the rank of an intelligence officer was not awarded, obviously believing that the status of an uncertified agent is better suited for an illegal ). Vartanyan received the rank of colonel of the KGB of the USSR in 1975, at the age of 51. Gohar Levonovna Vartanyan remained an uncertified illegal scout.

It is noteworthy that while working in Iran, Vartanyan, like his other colleagues, did not receive any serious material income from the leadership of Soviet intelligence. Then, in the 1940s, only enthusiasts worked in Iran - great patriots of the Soviet country, for whom political convictions and patriotism always stood above any material reward. “We, for example, did not receive any money for our activities. And when the Great Patriotic War began, they even found funds themselves to transfer them to the defense fund. Generally speaking, material benefit for a real intelligence officer is by no means the main component. Otherwise, any, even a very well-paid resident could be outbid by the enemy sides "- recalled Gevork Andreevich in an interview with" Rossiyskaya Gazeta "(Dolgopolov N. 100 years without a name. Rossiyskaya Gazeta. 26.08.2011).

The services of Gevork Andreevich Vartanyan were highly appreciated by the Soviet leadership. On May 28, 1984, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR privately conferred the title of Hero of the Soviet Union on Gevork Andreevich. His wife Gohar Vartanyan was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Despite the fact that Gevorg Vartanyan retired in 1992, his name was declassified and revealed to the general public only in 2000. Even today, despite the decades that have passed since the spouses' intelligence activities, a large number of episodes of their illegal work remain classified. After all, many of those people with whom the Vartanyans "worked" in Europe now occupy prominent positions in the establishment of Western states - in the political, economic, military, diplomatic elite.

After retirement, the Vartanyans lived in Moscow. Their life together lasted 65 years. Almost before recent years life Gevorg Vartanyan participated in the work of the Foreign Intelligence Service Russian Federation, in the preparation of a young replenishment of already Russian intelligence officers.

On January 10, 2012, at the age of 87, Gevorg Andreevich Vartanyan died of cancer. His grave is located at the Troekurovsky cemetery in Moscow. The funeral ceremony of the legendary Soviet intelligence officer was attended not only by his friends and colleagues in the shop, but also by the top leaders of the Russian state - Vladimir Putin, who at that time held the post of Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation, in the past ran into Gevork Andreyevich in the past and knew him personally. He laid flowers at the coffin of Colonel Vartanyan. On February 17, 2014, the legendary scout would have turned 90 years old.

Scout's memory immortalized big amount publications in the Russian press dedicated to the long and interesting life of this amazing person, a great patriot of the Soviet state. Under the authorship of N.M. Dolgopolov in the series "The Life of Remarkable People" in 2014, the biography of Gevork Vartanyan was published (Dolgopolov N.M. Vartanyan. 2nd ed. - M .: Molodaya Gvardiya, 2014). Dedicated to Gevork Vartanyan documentary in the series "More expensive than gold", several other films. It was Vartanyan who became the prototype for the protagonist of the Soviet-French film Tehran-43, although at the time the film was being filmed, the real name and surname of the Soviet intelligence officer was still classified.

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There are no former scouts ...

Outstanding Soviet illegal spy, veteran of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Gohar Vartanyan - turned 91!

Gohar Vartanyan - the same "Anita" - the wife of Gevorg Vartanyan, the legendary Soviet intelligence officer who forever inscribed his name in the history of Soviet foreign intelligence.

Gevorg Andreevich followed in the footsteps of his father - a man who had a respectable position in society, the owner of a confectionery factory known throughout Iran for its sweets. Under the guise of a successful businessman, on instructions from Soviet intelligence, he conducted active intelligence and agent work in Tehran. In 1942, "Amir" (the operational pseudonym of Gevorg Andreevich) 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 him. The British created an intelligence school in Tehran, which recruited young people for their subsequent transfer to the territory of the Soviet Union. "Amir" infiltrated the intelligence school, went through it full course learning. Tehran station 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.

Amir took an active part in ensuring the security of the leaders of the Big Three during the Tehran Conference in November-December 1943. It was Gevorg Vartanyan, then 19, who commanded a group of intelligence officers who were young like himself, who prevented the assassination attempt on Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt in Tehran in 1943 during the first conference of Allied leaders during the Second World War.


Preparations for the conference were carried out in complete secrecy, but a leak nevertheless occurred, and another country, Germany, began to prepare for the upcoming meeting. It was important for Hitler to disrupt the negotiations at all costs. Operation "Long Jump" to eliminate the Big Three was led by Otto Skorzeny.

German radio operators were dropped into Lake Qom, 70 km from Tehran. They were supposed to help the military arrive at the scene, who, according to the plan, were supposed to make an assassination attempt.

The attack was scheduled for November 30, 1943, Churchill's birthday, when the big three gathered at the British embassy. Amir's group was instructed to find the landing force thrown out for the operation. Experienced German intelligence officers could not help but notice the annoying teenagers riding their bicycles through the streets of Tehran. Yet they underestimated these Light Cavalry cyclists who played a leading role in disrupting Operation Long Jump.

Neither British nor American intelligence was aware of how the tragedy had been avoided. They know only one thing - the assassination attempt was averted by the Soviet residency in Iran. Thanks to the group of Gevorg Vartanyan, the plans of the German command were not destined to come true. If the plans of the Third Reich were realized, the development of the war could take on a different character ... In addition to exposing the fascist saboteurs, Amir's group managed to identify more than 400 German residents. Winston Churchill's granddaughter expressed her gratitude and gratitude to Gevorg for saving her grandfather's life.

More than three decades later, this story formed the basis of the film "Tehran-43", and Gevorg 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.

During the execution of this dangerous mission, Gevorg met Gohar Levonovna, also an employee of Soviet intelligence. According to Gevorg Andreevich, this was the most successful "recruitment" in his life.

They were married in the Armenian temple of Tehran in 1946, and this was the first of three weddings of the Vartanian spouses. They have lived together for over 60 years.

Gevorg Andreevich and his wife Gohar worked for many years in the residency of Soviet intelligence in Iran and only in the 50s returned to the USSR to graduate from the Yerevan Institute of Foreign Languages, to come to Moscow, to receive a new intelligence mission of special importance through the First Main Directorate of the KGB of the USSR in as illegal scouts, and go on a new overseas business trip.

For 35 years of work, they successfully worked in an illegal position, changed countries, cities, homes, professions, religions, and Gohar even had to marry Gevorg three times, as circumstances required.

Gevorg and Gohar Vartanyan have no heirs. Their life together was devoted to moving from country to country and the constant risk associated with illegal work. It is not customary to talk about it, tk. most of the operations performed by Anita and Anri will never be made public. The Vartanyan couple 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. Experts say that an illegal scout is not a profession, but a way of life. Any awkward movement, accidentally dropped word, rash behavior can cause the death of not only the scout himself, but also the whole intelligence network, many people. Constant tension, anticipation of danger, willingness to risk their lives - not everyone is capable of this. Scout films have little to do with the actual events. It is in the movies and books that the scouts run around the streets with weapons, scattering heaps of pursuers and boldly getting involved in clashes with the pursuers. In life, their most reliable weapon is stealth ...

Over the decades of continuous work abroad, they have not suffered a single failure, have not lost contact with any informant, have not lost a single recruited agent. For this reason, no details of this life-long foreign business trip have been declassified - right down to the host countries, cover legends, and even to the exact list of foreign languages ​​owned by G.A. Vartanyan. It is only known that he knew 8 foreign languages, 5 of them perfectly. It can be assumed that the main work of the Vartanian spouses was aimed at identifying plans and information about the activities of the NATO states in Europe.

Only in 1986 did the scouts return to their homeland, and on December 20, 2000, on the day of the 80th anniversary of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, the "secrecy" label was removed from the Vartanyans. Their names and activities were allowed to be made public. Books and articles have been written about them, films have been made. Anita and Anri, one of the rare happy married couples who dedicated their lives to illegal work, continued to exist.


By the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR ("closed") dated May 28, 1984 for the results achieved in collecting intelligence data and the courage and heroism shown in this, Colonel Georgy Andreevich Vartanyan was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the award of the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal ( No. 11511). By the same decree, the Hero's wife - Vartanyan Gohar Levonovna - was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

Until the end of his days, Gevorg continued to work in the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, using his experience to train future illegal agents for work abroad.

On January 10, 2012, an illegal Soviet intelligence agent, Hero of the Soviet Union Gevorg Andreevich passed away, ending the great era of outstanding intelligence officers.

Vartanyan's work was so impeccable that although his name was declassified, most of the details of the operational operations carried out by him remained under a veil of secrecy.
He was the first intelligence officer who was awarded the highest rank of the USSR in peacetime, and the third intelligence officer who was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union after the Soviet intelligence officers Richard Sorge and Nikolai Kuznetsov (if it is absolutely certain, he is the second after Kuznetsov, since Vartanyan and Kuznetsov worked on the line preceding the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), and Sorge worked from military intelligence(GRU). According to authoritative experts, the Hero of the Soviet Union G.A. Vartanyan is one of the hundred great intelligence officers in the world.

Gohar Levonovna, a veteran of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, which has made a huge contribution to ensuring the country's national interests and security, recently turned 91. It is not customary to talk about female age. But even in these years she remains beautiful, elegant, stands firmly on heels and instantly reacts to every remark, any breath in a complex conversation that changes the topic, retains a tenacious memory - but this is no longer from God, but purely professional, when she had to memorize numbers, codes, places of appearances and meetings. Small, harmless, fragile, chirping in five or six languages, she loves to watch figure skating, cross-country skiing and biathlon competitions and is very worried about the performance of our hockey team. In short, an active modern woman!)

Gohar Vartanyan's merits were awarded with the Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of the Patriotic War II degree and many medals.

Usually, the names of the scouts are made public after the failure of their operations. The Vartanyan couple had no failures. That is why, and their names for a long time remained unknown to anyone, and according to experts, the results of the work of Gohar and Gevorg Vartanyan will also never be fully declassified. Perhaps this is the highest assessment of the intelligence officer's activities ...

Family and adolescence

Born February 17, 1924 in Rostov-on-Don in the family of Andrei Vasilyevich (born in 1888) and Maria Savelyevna (born in 1900) Vartanyan. Armenian by nationality. Andrei Vartanyan was an Iranian citizen, director of an oil mill located in the village of Stepnoy.

In 1930, when Gevork Vartanyan was six years old, his family left for Iran. His father was associated with Soviet foreign intelligence and left the USSR on her instructions. 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. He almost never used the financial resources of the Center, he managed with the money that he himself earned. During the Great Patriotic War, Andrei Vartanyan collected a significant amount of money, which was transferred to the Center for the construction of a tank.

In 1953, Andrei Vartanyan returned from Tehran to Yerevan, having worked in Iran for Soviet intelligence for 23 years. He was a 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. He later recalled:

Service in Iran

Following in the footsteps of his father, Gevork Vartanyan linked his life with intelligence activities. On February 4, 1940, he established contact with the Tehran station of the Soviet intelligence in the person of Ivan Agayants. Subsequently, recalling that meeting, he said:

After meeting with the resident Gevork Andreevich, who was given the operational pseudonym "Amir", he received the task to create a group of several reliable guys to help senior colleagues. By that time, a significant part of the Iranian population held a pro-Soviet position. Therefore, Amir quickly coped with his first task, having gathered a group of like-minded people of about the same age, there were Armenians, Lezgins, Assyrians. All are from the USSR. Their parents were either expelled from the Soviet Union after 1937, or they themselves were forced to leave. All members of Amir's group were united by love for the Motherland. There were seven like-minded friends who were ready to fight Nazism. The guys did not have any operational training: they learned both the methods of conducting external surveillance and other professional tricks on the go. The group moved around the city on bicycles, for which Ivan Agayants jokingly called the group "Light cavalry", and it went down in history under this name. After 2 years, the sister of one of the active members of Hovhannes' residency, Gohar, appeared in the group, who would later become the life partner of Gevork Vartanyan.

In 1941, two members of G.A. Vartanyan's group were identified by the Iranian police, and they urgently had to be transported to the USSR. Since Vartanyan had contact with them, he was detained. Vartanyan pretended to agree to cooperate and went with the police around the city, showing the places where two members of his group had been and the people with whom they allegedly communicated. In fact, these were people who interfered with the work of Soviet intelligence. They were arrested and held in prison for about six months. Gevorg Vartanyan himself spent three months in prison.

In the early 1940s, in Iran, due to the strategic (mainly due to the large oil reserves) and geographic importance of the region, the interests of the leading world powers of that time intersected. By the beginning of the war, there were about 20 thousand German citizens in Iran - military instructors and agents disguised as merchants, bankers, engineers; the head of the German station in Iran was Franz Mayer.

Vartanyan's group identified about 400 Iranian agents working for Germany. After the Soviet-British occupation of Iran in August 1941, they were arrested and for the most part recruited to work for the USSR and Great Britain.

In 1942, the British opened a reconnaissance school in Iran, where they trained agents to be sent to the territory of the USSR. Vartanyan managed to enter this school and establish the identities of the students, which helped to detain them after being sent to the USSR. After the protest of the Soviet side, the intelligence school was closed.

The historical significance of the conference can hardly be overestimated - it was the first meeting of the “big three”, at which the fate of millions of people and the future of the world were decided. The leadership of the Third Reich understood this, too, which instructed the Abwehr to organize an attempt on the life of the leaders of the USSR, the USA and Great Britain in Tehran. The secret operation, codenamed "Long Jump", was developed by the famous Nazi saboteur No. 1, the head of the SS secret service in the VI department of the main directorate of imperial security, Obersturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny, who since 1943 was Hitler's special agent for special assignments. Later, in 1966, Otto Skorzeny confirmed that he had an order to kill Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt, or steal them in Tehran by entering the British Embassy from the Armenian cemetery.

Information about the impending terrorist attack was reported to Moscow from the Ukrainian forests by the scout Nikolai Kuznetsov, and in the spring of 1943 a radiogram came from the center, which said that Germany was planning to carry out a sabotage in Tehran during a conference with the participation of the leaders of the USSR, the USA and Great Britain, with the aim of sabotage is the physical elimination of conference participants. All members of the group were mobilized to prevent a terrorist attack. At the end of the summer of 1943, the Germans dropped a team of six radio operators into the area of ​​Lake Qom near the city of Qom (70 km from Tehran). At that time, the Germans had powerful agents there with good cover. The Germans changed into local clothes, repainted themselves with henna, someone even portrayed a mullah. The Soviet special services did not have access here. On ten camels, the Germans carried with them a walkie-talkie, weapons, equipment. After 10 days, they were already near Tehran, where they changed to a truck and got to the city.

Their secret villa was located on one of the central streets, not far from the embassies of the USSR and Great Britain. 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 landing of saboteurs led by Otto Skorzeny, a "man with a scar" who at one time rescued Mussolini from captivity, who carried out a number of high-profile operations. such as the assassination in 1934 of Austrian Chancellor Dollfuss and the arrest in 1938 of Austrian President Miklas and Chancellor Schuschnigg, followed by the Wehrmacht invasion and occupation of Austria. It was Skorzeny that Hitler ordered to destroy the Big Three. However, the ambitious plans of the Wehrmacht were not destined to come true, Vartanyan's agents, together with the British from MI6, took bearings and deciphered all their messages. Soon after a lengthy search for a radio transmitter, the entire 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.

As a result of the operation, the group of 19-year-old Vartanyan thwarted the assassination attempt on the leaders of the "big three", which was planned by the intelligence of Nazi Germany. One of the most secret operations of the Third Reich was thwarted by a group of young men led by a young Soviet intelligence officer. Several days before the start of the conference, German agents were arrested in Tehran. The last was the resident Franz Mayer, who went deep underground: he was found in the Armenian cemetery, where he, having painted and let go of his beard, worked as a gravedigger. Of the large number of agents discovered, some were arrested, and most were recruited. Some were handed over to the British, others were taken to the Soviet Union.

Post-war time

On June 30, 1946, Gevork Andreevich married Gohar Levonovna, a girl who was a member of the Light Cavalry reconnaissance group (later, in order to obtain new documents, this marriage was registered several times in other countries).

Service in Iran, which lasted from 1940 to 1951, became the most important stage of life for Gevork and his wife. Here they became high-class scouts. From here began their career in foreign intelligence. And this is the only "page" of their agent activities that can be talked about openly (that is, declassified).

When the situation in Iran became calmer, the Vartanian couple asked the Center to allow them to return to the Soviet Union to pursue higher education. In 1951, they arrived in the Armenian SSR and entered the Faculty of Foreign Languages ​​of the Yerevan University. After graduating from university in 1955, they received an offer to work further and agreed. This was followed by three decades of illegal intelligence work in the West, the Far and Middle East. All these years Gevorg and Gohar Vartanyan worked together, not allowing a single failure. The Vartanians declassified dozens of NATO bases in Europe, and Gevork Andreevich ruined the work of the school of English saboteurs, where he infiltrated, amazing the leadership of this "educational institution" with his knowledge of eight languages; he was friends with the officers of all the intelligence services of the world, remaining for them either an Iranian businessman or a Spanish journalist. During his overseas work, he visited about a hundred countries. The main work was concentrated in several dozen countries, and in the rest, Gohar and Gevorg Vartanyans were passing through.

In 1975 (according to other sources, in 1968) GA Vartanyan was awarded the military rank of "colonel".

By the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR ("closed") dated May 28, 1984, Colonel Georgy Andreevich Vartanyan was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal (No. 11511).

In 1986, Gevork returned with his family to his homeland, but, remaining "closed", continued to work, preparing future illegal agents for work abroad. Gevorg Vartanyan said about his work:

He was retired since 1992.

On December 20, 2000, on the day of the 80th anniversary of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), his name was declassified.

He was buried at the Troekurovsky cemetery in Moscow on January 13, 2012. The funeral was attended by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who laid flowers at the coffin and talked with relatives. There were also SVR leaders, the Armenian ambassador to Russia, and colleagues.

Gevork Andreevich Vartanyan was the third intelligence officer awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union after Richard Sorge and Nikolai Kuznetsov (according to other sources - the second after Kuznetsov).

Awards

• Hero of the Soviet Union
• Order of Merit for the Fatherland, IV degree
• The order of Lenin
• Order of the Red Banner
• Order of the Patriotic War II degree
• Order of Honor (Armenia)
• Medal "For the Defense of the Caucasus"
• Medal "For Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945."
• Other medals of the USSR, Russia and the Republic of Armenia
• Honorary Chekist of the USSR
• Honorary State Security Officer

Gevorg Vartanyan photography

Wife - Gohar Levonovna Vartanyan (born in 1926).

Richard Sorge, Nikolai Kuznetsov - Heroes of the Soviet Union - legendary scouts of the 20th century. Their activities had a significant impact on the course of large strategic operations during the Great Patriotic War and World War II, moreover - on their results as a whole. 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, 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 made 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.

Gevorg 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, Gevork also linked his fate with Soviet foreign intelligence. The first task received from a 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.

Best of the day

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 also at the front in Poland, spoke fluent Iranian and Russian, knew how to masterfully disguise and disguise himself. But the guys kept him under surveillance. They lacked professionalism, but senior comrades suggested how best to conduct surveillance, 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 springboard for the German invasion of the territory 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. Those few who firmly adhered to the fascist position were deported to the USSR. Later, after the defeat of the Germans at Stalingrad, they 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, who 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 had been, 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. When he learned that two "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 to be thrown 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 was coming 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 of deployment of British troops, 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 tips, there were many recruits, and traitors were also identified. A feeling arose between Gevork 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. Spouses now 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 a German landing of six radio operators had been deployed on the outskirts of Tehran, 70 kilometers from the city. 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 at one time 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 the prevention of a terrorist attack in Tehran in 1943, the group received a telegram of thanks 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 - captain was awarded 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 working on both sides, and to catch traitors. We also collaborated with military intelligence.

When the situation in Iran became calmer, the Vartanian spouses asked the Center to allow them to return to their homeland, to the Soviet Union, to get a higher education. In 1951, they arrived in Yerevan and entered the Institute of 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 was a special year in the lives of Gevork Andreevich and Gohar Leonovna Vartanyan. They were marked high awards Homeland.

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. A short telegram is always an alarming sign: either the intelligence officer is in danger, or some misfortune has happened to his loved ones 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, World 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. Until now, he remains in excellent physical shape, to which he considers himself 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.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in a telegram of condolences 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 stressed, 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 was active in intelligence agent work. It was under the influence of his father that Gevork became a scout.

Gevorg 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" (Gevork 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 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 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 ​​of the Yerevan University.

This was followed by many years of work as an illegal intelligence officer 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.