On December 7, 1988 at 11:41 local time, an earthquake with a magnitude of 11.2 on the Richter scale occurred in Spitak. Spitak was destroyed in 30 seconds and during this time 25 people died thousands of people.
The Armenian people have suffered many misfortunes, suffering and unsubstantiated disgusting attitudes. A well-known killer more than 1.5 million innocent people, persecution, massacres, earthquakes, wars and conflicts on religious and territorial grounds (Nagorno-Karabakh) - the people of Armenia and nearby villages endured all this with dignity and with their heads held high. The number of victims and deaths is difficult to calculate, and the pain for one’s people and for one’s ancestors, which is born and dies with every Armenian, is unimaginable.
Undoubtedly, in the history of every nation there were and are turning points and injustice, but not in such a seemingly short period of time. Many Armenians who survived Armenian genocide And earthquake in Spitak, in prayers to God they asked why their people were so displeasing to him, why he sent such trials.
Spitak was a city in Armenia and was located 100 kilometers from Yerevan. Translated from Armenian, “spitak” means white, light. During its existence, it changed its name several times, and received the last one in 1960.
It should be noted that Spitak earthquake also has a name Leninakan earthquake, because it was not only Spitak, but also such cities of Armenia as Leninakan, Stepanavan, Kirovakan and about 400 villages, villages and towns. According to some reports, as a result of this disaster More than 40% of Armenia was destroyed. The main blow fell on Spitak.
Many interested and caring people are still wondering what this catastrophe is connected with and why such grief again overtook the Armenian people. Let's try to figure it out.
In 1899 and 1940, Armenia was already hit by such sudden earthquakes, but this happened more or less calmly. Everyone knows the fact that at the site of earthquakes, cracks form in the earth’s crust, which can subsequently provoke new tremors and, at the same time, new catastrophes. Depending on the location and terrain, only the magnitude of the disasters and their scale will change. Considering the location of Armenia, namely its location on the Armenian Highlands, and a certain pattern of past earthquakes, the Spitak earthquake was quite predictable and expected. After the last earthquake recorded by seismologists in 1940, it was formed 37 km fault and just in the place where December 7, 1988 at 11:41 am local time the worst thing happened and devastating earthquake throughout the history of Armenia.
We can say that the Armenian people are somehow accustomed to tremors and earthquakes. IN different years and with different magnitudes, earthquakes took place in cities such as Yerevan, Leninakan, Garni, Zangezur and, directly, Spitak. The latter was the most noticeable, destructive and led to irreversible consequences.
It should be noted that at that time in Armenia, as in many countries, they were rather negligent about the issues of urban planning, the nuances of the soil and permitted buildings on a given site. There was no accounting of faults and no conclusions from seismological services on permits. Houses, churches, schools, hospitals, kindergartens and various city buildings were erected where it was convenient, acceptable and, often, the issue of safety of operation in the future could not even be considered. According to many experts and witnesses of the earthquake in Spitak, it was noted that the city was doomed and even tremors weaker than what happened would have destroyed the city and destroyed many of its buildings.
According to the recorded data of seismologists, at 11:41 there was a powerful and destructive shock of magnitude 11.2 points on the Richter scale ( maximum value 12). Tremors and an earthquake wave circled the entire Earth and were felt in Asia, America and Australia. Spitak was destroyed in 30 seconds. The whole city with its infrastructure, many buildings, local residents, it was simply buried under countless tons of construction waste. This construction waste, just a couple of minutes ago, was a fully developed and rather large city. Of course, when you think about it, it becomes scary.
Until now, scientists and experts shrug their shoulders when they learn about the following fact. A couple of days before the destructive event, tremors were recorded. Local authorities did not pay any attention to this, because given the location of the city, such an event was not uncommon. But the tremors were very noticeable and should have warned of something terrible. But either due to a lack of information, or hoping “at chance,” or perhaps even then knowing that they could not help or hinder in any way, the local authorities, together with the city population, chose to forget about it. But nature itself reminded of itself and subsequently hinted at human helplessness in the face of the elements. Here is what a local resident, who miraculously survived the disaster, writes on one of the forums: “My family and I probably felt the first tremors on December 5th. All the dishes in the closet fell and broke. Dad was very wary then and, despite our ridicule of him, he sent us, the children, and his wife to relatives in Tbilisi. We never saw dad again.”
After the shock that destroyed from above 25 thousand people, left homeless and in a situation of complete helplessness more 500 thousand people, the city plunged into thousands of groans and pitch darkness. This darkness was artificial - the bitterness of loss, fear and pain created this state.
Immediately learning about what had happened, thousands of Armenians, whose relatives lived not only in Spitak, but also in nearby cities, dropped everything and tried to fly away to help their loved ones. There was a ringing silence at the city airports, once again hinting at something terrible. Araik, retired military man: “My brother and his family lived in Spitak. The news of this event overtook me at work. I don’t remember anything else: how I left work, how I bought a ticket and got to the city. I remember how I arrived in the city. More precisely, of course, not the city, but what was left of it. It’s terrible, I still can’t hold back my tears remembering it. I found my brother already in one of the Moscow hospitals. He was taken there by helicopter or plane, I don’t remember. When they called me and said that my brother was alive, I didn’t even specify what condition he was in, the main thing is that he’s alive.”
It should be noted that by coincidence, the winter of 1988 in Armenia was the coldest. And even those who managed to survive the earthquake could be killed by the weather, the cold and the inability to shelter from the horribly low temperatures that reached 35 degrees, below 0. 17 thousand were provided with all possible medical assistance. It was feasible because the disaster did not spare doctors, medical staff, and did not leave medical institutions intact.
Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev, who was on a government visit to the United States at the time, interrupted his trip and immediately flew to the destroyed city. Next, Minister of Health Chazov arrived in Armenia.
As the day passed, it became clear that the local authorities were unable to cope with the disaster that had befallen them. Both high-ranking officials, Gorbachev and Chazov, assessed the situation as extremely critical and requested humanitarian assistance, helicopters and planes to transport the wounded. Also, M.S. Gorbachev issued an order to move those in need into shelters and hotels in Moscow. Due to the inability to provide first medical care For survivors of the earthquake, people's condition worsened and became critical.
In many cities not only in the USSR, but also in Europe, humanitarian aid was collected and almost continuously delivered to the epicenter of the tragedy. Having learned about the tragedy, ordinary people in the cities began to collect humanitarian aid. In schools, higher educational institutions, hospitals, bureaus collected parcels. There was no need to ask people for help; mutual assistance, solidarity and sympathy did their job. Many housewives came to aid collection points and asked to enter the addresses of their houses, inviting victims and homeless people to move in with them.
Charitable organizations and foundations were also created. Among them are “Aznavour for Armenia”, founded by a French chansonnier of Armenian origin,
The whole world has rallied to help Armenia. Countries such as Belgium, Norway, France, Germany, Italy were the first to respond and offer their help. High-ranking officials were faced with the task of restoring short time city, which they did. Spitak was rebuilt in a place near the previous location of the city. Currently, the city's population is more than 30 thousand people.
22.08.16 16:20
As you know, provocative pro-Western propaganda is used to make people hostile to Russia. former peoples The USSR invents and aggravates all kinds of historical myths. Today, “puppeteers” from the United States, who are trying to get Armenia into the anti-Russian camp, are trying to launch the myth of an alleged “genocide” that, they say, Russia once organized against the Armenian people.
It is clear that so far no anti-Russian myths can compete with the myth of the “Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire”. Although more and more Armenians are blaming the events of 1915 not only Ottoman Empire, but also Russia (but not themselves). In the absence of facts about the catastrophe of the Armenians “comparable to genocide”, which could be attributed to Russia, those who are tasked with further quarreling Armenians and Russians resort to complete historical fiction, which nevertheless resonates with the infected Russophobia of Armenia.
For this purpose, they begin to exploit the theme Spitak earthquake, they tried to prove that this was in fact nothing more than an act of “genocide” by Russia in the form of the then USSR against the Armenians. They say that the earthquake occurred because Russia decided to use “geophysical weapons” against the Armenians.
It is in this vein that this tragedy is presented in the material “How Spitak was blown up in 1988 - the monstrous murder of 350 thousand Armenian population» posted on the website analitik.am on March 31, 2016 (two days before the start of the four-day war in Karabakh, after which anti-Russian sentiments in Armenia began to go off scale). I wonder if this is " random coincidence", or is there some kind of pattern here?
Here is an excerpt from this material:
“Starting from the summer to the end of November 1988, in an urgent but organized manner, under the leadership of the military and representatives of the KGB of the USSR and Armenia, all Azerbaijani villages were resettled to “Azerbaijan” and to Georgia, starting from Kapan in the south, to Stepanavan, Kalinino and Ghukasyan - in the north.
In November 1988, the wife of a Russian general, resting in the Arzni sanatorium, confidentially (in her ear!) informed the wife of academician S.T. Eremyan, Ruzan Eremyan, that a “terrible disaster” awaited Armenia in early December and advised her to leave Armenia . She told me about this. I called the KGB of Armenia, where these rumors were denied as not worthy of attention.
In mid-November 1988, pianist Svetalna Navasardyan received a call from an acquaintance from Leningrad who advised all Leninakans to urgently leave the city of Leninakan.
At the end of November 1988, a telephone operator in the city of Hrazdan overheard a conversation between a Russian general and Moscow, where he literally told his wife the following: “I’m delayed! I’ll come back after the tests.”
At the end of November - beginning of December 1988, dozens of cases were noted in Leninakan when military personnel, remaining in the city themselves, sent their wives and children from Armenia to Russia without explanation.
On December 4, 5 and 6, 1988, powerful explosions occurred in the Spitak-Kirovokan area, causing an earthquake with a magnitude of 3-4. The earth shook, the glass rattled; Running snakes and all kinds of living creatures appeared in the mountains - rats, moles. Residents said: “What are these damned military men doing to us? If this continues, they will destroy our houses too!”
On December 7, 1988, at 10:30 a.m., Turkish workers working on the right bank of the Arpa River near Leninakan abandoned their work and hastily retreated deeper into their territory.
On December 7, 1988, at 11 o’clock, a soldier came out of the training ground near Spitak and told the peasants who were working in the field picking cabbage: “Go away! Hurry up! The tests will begin now!”
On December 7, 1988, at 11:41 a.m., in the area of the city of Spitak and the village of Nalband, two sounds were heard with an interval of 10-15 seconds. most powerful explosion: after the first explosion, the ground went horizontally, and a column of fire, smoke and burning erupted from under the ground to a height of over 100 meters.
One peasant from the village of Nalband was thrown up to the top of the wires of an electric pole. At the top of Spitak, near a grocery store, a Zhiguli car was thrown 3-4 meters towards a fence. Before the passengers had time to get out of the car, the second thundered terrible explosion, accompanied by an underground rumble. This is the energy of the subsoil released! The city of Spitak went underground and settled in front of the car’s passengers. In Leninakan, 75 percent of buildings collapsed. High rise buildings after the first blow they turned around their axis and after the second blow, without returning back, they settled and went underground to a height of 2-3 floors.
After testing geophysical weapons, the cities of Leninakan and Spitak were cordoned off by troops. Near Nalband, which was completely destroyed, the military cordoned off... a wasteland where the ground dropped 3-4 meters. It was forbidden not only to approach, but also to photograph this area.
Dosimetering was also prohibited. Special military brigades that arrived in Leninakan were tasked with clearing out the military dormitory.
They refused to be rescued from the ruins civilian population, referring to the fact that: “There is no such order.” These were soldiers from Tomsk airborne division, airlifted to Yerevan in the summer of 1988, where the girls presented them with flowers, cake and cigarettes. In the absence of any rescue equipment, the surviving population of Leninakan and relatives who broke into the city with their hands raked away the ruins of houses, from where, in the bitter cold, groans of the wounded and calls for help were heard.”
In general, everything is clear. The “insidious” Russians in 1988, like the no less “insidious” Turks in 1915, decided to exterminate the Armenians, conceived and carried out a monstrous crime. Therefore, Russia must, like Turkey, forever repent to the Armenians and recognize its terrible “seismic genocide of 1988.”
What can you say about this?
Let's start with the fact that the author of the “sensational” material is trying to present the case in such a way that allegedly Soviet authorities(read - Russians), trying to organize another “genocide” of the Armenians, and not wanting to put the “kindred in spirit” Azerbaijanis at risk, deliberately resettled them from the place of this very future “seismic genocide of the Armenians” to a more safe places.
Well, the unfortunate Armenians did not know anything about the impending “genocide” and apparently were very surprised why their Azerbaijani neighbors were leaving them so suddenly “for some unknown reason.”
But the reality, alas, was completely different. Azerbaijanis left their villages, where their ancestors lived for centuries, not according to “ insidious plan Russians and the KGB,” but to escape mass pogroms and brutal murders by Armenian nationalists, who swept across the entire Armenian SSR in 1988, but were particularly harsh in the northern regions of the republic.
Russian historian Yuri Pompeev described the horrors of the violence of the pogroms and deportation of Azerbaijanis from Armenia in the fall of 1988. Here is an excerpt from his memoirs:
“Defenseless and unarmed Azerbaijanis, usually kicked out of their houses undressed and barefoot, were told: “Damned Turks, get out of Armenia!”
On the night of November 25-26, the Armenians carried out an armed attack on the village of Shahumyan ( former name was Vartanly) near the city of Kirovakan (present-day Vanadzor), 14 Azerbaijanis were brutally killed and burned. On snowy and cold days, the surviving population of the village hid in the mountains and forests during the day, and set out on the road at night, and only after 13-14 days they were able to reach Azerbaijan.
On November 28, 1988, attacks were also carried out on Azerbaijanis in the Spitak region (Khamamli). Three people were killed, 7 were seriously injured.
Before the Spitak earthquake on December 7, 1988, in all areas where Azerbaijanis lived on the territory of Armenia, Armenian armed groups committed mass riots, murders and robberies.
Armenian bandits in the village of Kuibyshev, Stepanavan (Jalalogly) region, mercilessly killed 3 more Azerbaijanis with edged weapons. And in the village of Gerger, one woman was burned alive, and the corpse was thrown into a garbage dump....”
There are other facts and eyewitness accounts. In November 1988, in the city of Spitak, the first secretary of the Spitak city committee Communist Party N. Muradyan, first secretary of the district executive committee of the Communist Party F. Abuchyan, chief physician of the district R. Baghdaryan, judge E. Nazaryan, police chief V. Sargsyan, prosecutor Arakisyan, accompanied by several armed militants, expelled Azerbaijani families from their apartments and committed massacres against them. As a result, 36 people, unable to withstand the sophisticated torture, died.
On November 27-28, 1988, the first secretary of the Spitak district party committee, Norayr Muradyan, allegedly organized the removal of Azerbaijanis from Armenia. People were put into trucks, but they never reached their destination. Between the Russian villages of Lermontovo and Fioletovo, these innocent people were burned alive. There were children, women, and old people in the trucks. By chance, the survivors traveled for 5 days through snowy passes to the Kazakh region of Azerbaijan.
But the most terrible crime in the Spitak region was the following: several dozen children aged 5 to 12 years were walled up alive in a pipe 20 meters long and 1.5 meters in diameter. Another 27 Azerbaijani children were taken away to an unknown direction; no one knows what happened to them.
This is only a small part of the facts of the monstrous atrocities of Armenian nationalists against the Azerbaijani population. So, the Azerbaijanis were evicted from the Spitak region not at all “according to the insidious plan of the KGB” but to escape from real genocide. Unfortunately, not everyone managed to escape.
As for the “selection of facts” that supposedly testify to the “artificial” nature of the Spitak earthquake, then yes, indeed, in their nationalistic hatred of other peoples, including Russians, many Armenians believed in these myths then - and believe now .
As you know, hatred, especially nationalist hatred, deprives people of their reason and it is very easy for them to convince them of the most fantastic “versions” of natural disasters by providing dubious and biased information.
In reality, technologies and techniques that would guarantee to cause an earthquake in a precisely specified place do not exist now, just as they did not exist in 1988.
Of course, the study of the influence of various influences on seismic processes is being studied in many countries. They also studied in the USSR... It was even scientifically proven that earthquakes may well be provoked by such an impact on deep layers as excessive pumping of minerals, the same oil or gas, or filling with water large reservoirs and so on. But in order to specifically provoke a destructive earthquake at a certain point, science has not yet reached this point, not in the years of the USSR, nor today.
Even underground nuclear tests seismically active areas, such as the Semipalatinsk region in Kazakhstan and the test site in American state Nevada did not cause catastrophic earthquakes.
The source of the Spitak earthquake was at a depth of 10 km. Provocateurs and creators of the myth about the “seismic Armenian genocide” are trying to prove that the Soviet authorities deliberately provoked it by drilling a well and organizing underground explosion.
However, the reality is that the Spitak region is already a seismically active zone. It is enough to take even Soviet seismic maps, published long before 1988, it is clear that historically numerous earthquakes were with epicenters precisely in the area of the Pambak ridge located near Spitak or north of it, in the area of the Javakheti ridge which crosses the current Armenian-Georgian border.
It’s strange why Armenians want to blame Russia, being supposedly “believing Christians,” but they do not take into account another hypothesis, which is obvious precisely from the point of view of Christianity: natural disaster often sent by God as punishment for transcendental human sins and crimes. The fact of such a crime in the Spitak region was recorded.
The point is that when during rescue work was discovered in the Spitak area terrible find: several dozen corpses of Azerbaijani children walled up in a pipe. The foreign rescuers who discovered them were so shocked that they continued to participate in the work.
Who knows how many similar “finds” the rescuers mistook for those killed by the earthquake - but in reality they were Azerbaijanis killed before the earthquake. If we consider that just the day before, a wave of pogroms and murders of peaceful Azerbaijanis swept across Armenia, and many of them were considered missing, then it becomes clear what an outrageous atrocity was committed by local Armenian nationalists.
The earthquake in Spitak was perceived by those in Moscow who wanted to extinguish Karabakh conflict as a kind of “appeal to reason” - albeit a terrible one. They still hoped that the earthquake would force people in Armenia to come to their senses and stop both the persecution of Azerbaijanis in the Armenian SSR and demand the annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia.
Unfortunately, the earthquake only delayed bloody events for the final expulsion of the Azerbaijani population from the Armenian SSR for a very a short time, not to mention the fact that it did not at all prevent the Armenian aggression against Azerbaijan and the activity of militants in Karabakh.
Despite the fact that the majority of Azerbaijanis are natives northern regions The Armenian SSR was saved precisely by the fact that at the time of the earthquake they had already been expelled from their homes, which after the earthquake turned into ruins (often burying the Armenian marauders who had captured them under the ruins); people still remained in many Azerbaijani villages. But local Armenian nationalists did everything to prevent help from reaching the Azerbaijanis affected by the earthquake. Naturally, the Azerbaijanis who survived the earthquake were expelled from Armenia within several months.
The myth about the “artificial” Spitak earthquake was, in principle, invented by “well-wishers” of Russia a long time ago. But today it falls on " fertile ground” in the form of the consciousness of the majority of Armenians clouded by extreme nationalism. It is possible that the matter will not be limited to this myth. Perhaps in the near future other absolutely fantastic versions will appear, accusing Russia of “plans for genocide” of the Armenian people.
In 1988, the most catastrophic earthquake throughout the history of the Soviet Union. This happened on December 7 at about 12 noon local time. The epicenter of the disaster occurred in the city of Spitak, where tremors with a magnitude of 10 were recorded.
In neighboring Leninakan, tremors of 7.2 points were recorded. In terms of power, this earthquake can only be compared with the explosion of ten nuclear bombs, V TNT equivalent equal topics, which were dropped on the Japanese Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
Monstrous elemental power
The Spitak (another name is Leninakan) earthquake lasted only about 30 seconds. During this time, the city was completely wiped off the face of the earth. Neighboring settlements were also heavily damaged. The tremors were clearly felt in Tbilisi, Yerevan and many other Armenian and Georgian cities. They caused such a wave of such force that it circled the planet twice and was clearly felt in Asia, America and other continents.
Casualties and destruction
During those fateful 30 seconds, while lithospheric shifts occurred underground, 25 thousand people died in Spitak. The disaster captured the territory where more than a million citizens lived. In addition to such a colossal death toll, many thousands of injured and homeless residents became victims of the earthquake. 20 thousand people were left disabled for life. 514 thousand Armenians literally found themselves on the street in December.
In addition to the cities of Spitak and Leninakan, another 300 cities and towns of the Armenian SSR were affected. 58 villages were destroyed to the ground. Northern region The country was completely paralyzed. Was stopped nuclear power plant to avoid an accident. The power of the elements swept away 40% industrial enterprises countries. In the Spitak area - industrial center Armenia - the entire infrastructure was completely destroyed. Armenia has not yet been able to recover such losses.
Humanitarian assistance
Mikhail Gorbachev, only after learning about the tragedy, interrupted his international visit and flew to the Armenian SSR. He immediately requested humanitarian assistance from all concerned. The USA, France, Belgium, Israel, Russia, Norway and 105 other world powers participated in the liquidation of the consequences of the earthquake. Hundreds of thousands of victims were accommodated wherever possible: in hostels, luxury hotels, even in non-residential buildings.
The process of eliminating the consequences of the disaster was not without casualties. 2 planes delivering humanitarian cargo crashed (Soviet and Yugoslav). The third day after the incident in Spitak was declared a national day of mourning in the Soviet Union. On a hill in the city of Gyumri, where numerous victims were buried, a one-of-a-kind church, entirely made of metal, was subsequently erected. It is dedicated to the victims of the Spitak tragedy.
On the same topic:
Earthquake in Armenia in 1988: the most catastrophic in the history of the USSR
On December 7, 1988, at 11:41 a.m. Moscow time, an earthquake occurred in Armenia. The cities of Spitak, Leninakan, Stepanavan, and Kirovakan were destroyed. About 60 villages in the north-west of the republic were reduced to ruins, almost 400 villages were partially destroyed. According to scientists, during an earthquake in the rupture zone earth's crust energy equivalent to the explosion of ten atomic bombs, dropped on Hiroshima. The wave caused by the earthquake circled the globe and was recorded by seismographs in Europe, Asia, America and Australia.
500 thousand people died, tens of thousands were wounded, missing, traumatized for life. The pain of the Armenian people was felt by people all over the world. The bell of the tragedy was heard by all humanity. In those days, Armenia became a place of heroism. And together with everyone else, this feat was accomplished by the rescue team of the Peoples' Friendship University. Soldiers of the student detachment of the UDN named after. Patrice Lumumba took on the responsibility of helping people in trouble. And God knows, we did everything possible for this.
We bring to your attention 2 interviews with eyewitnesses of the earthquake in Armenia who were clearing away the rubble.
Earthquake in Armenia
Yuri Aleksandrovich Reznikov, graduate Faculty of Law Russian University Friendship of Peoples, was part of a detachment that was sent to Armenia in 1988 in connection with a tragic event.
Yuri Alexandrovich, tell us,please, about the squad. What were you doing there?
There were two detachments, they were sent in turns, one after another. I was in the first one. There were many brigades within the detachment: rescue, medical, humanitarian aid, and a corpse brigade. I was in the corpse brigade. Only guys worked there. Each brigade needed a representative who would resolve organizational issues; I was such a representative. This was at the beginning of the first year. I just recently returned from the army (I served in Afghanistan), perhaps this is one of the reasons why I was chosen as a brigadier. When we arrived at the scene, they immediately began digging and searching. We looked for the living, but, unfortunately, we didn’t find any living ones... We walked around the objects, collected, cleaned, and loaded dead bodies.
Ruins, dead bodies... YouIt was scary?
Was. Not without it. But my partner was a Marine, very good man, in any troubles with him it was not so scary. It was still difficult, of course. The boys screamed at night in their sleep and woke up. After seeing enough during the day, falling asleep was not so easy.
How many days did you stay at the site?
About two weeks, but every day there passed like a year. There were a lot of unpleasant things.
How did the city residents behave? Did they help you?
They helped as much as they could... But they were in a completely different situation. How were they supposed to dig? What if they find one of the relatives? It turned out that they were sitting near the ruins, lighting fires, and waiting. We cleared out the rubble. There were children and old people there - everything in a row. They were also broken. After we found the bodies, they called them meat, there was a lot of cynicism there on purpose, in order to make it easier to relate to what they saw, they put them in a coffin and either gave them to relatives, or took the coffin to the square, from where their relatives soon took them . There were cases when people simply fainted when they recognized one of the dead.
What mark did this tragic event leave on your life?
This is a huge mark on my life. These two weeks turned my life upside down. I began to look at the world differently. By that time I already had army experience - these were not the first dead I had seen in my life.
What is important in this incident is how living people behaved in the midst of all this nightmare. How did you behave? local residents, who miraculously retained at least some sense of reason, it was something incredible for them. The way our squad guys behaved, we can be proud of each of them.
Do you remember your state whenreturned to Moscow?
We got together often, especially the first few weeks: it was impossible to separate. It felt like we were different from other people. We have become different. We were looking for meetings with each other, because some kind of pain settled inside that no one would understand except the one who was there. You just have to approach, look into each other’s eyes, say some words... and you understand the person completely differently. No one will understand you like someone who has gone through this.
Do you often remember this event?
Yes. It's less common now. It was too painful and scary to remember. In the early years it was a huge block of its own history. These two weeks were very concentrated. I have never seen so many deaths in the army, in Afghanistan. Due to the fact that we saw many dead people, we could smell life very keenly. Many people live and never think about death, they avoid thoughts about it. After this story, everyone present there had a different outlook on life.
What would you do after going through such a difficult life path, wished us, the youth of the 21st century?
Probably look at your life broadly with open eyes, even if they are open. Open them again and again. Evaluate life based on death, knowing that death is inevitable, it will happen to everyone.
Earthquake in Armenia 1988, video
Senior Lecturer of the Department foreign languages Faculty of Law Kamo Pavlovich Chilingaryan shared his memories, and this is what I managed to find out.
I know that 20 years ago, immediately after tragic events in Armenia, RUDN University students went to the scene of the incident, and you were among them. Tell me how many students succeeded go to the rescue and what united you?
At first there were 33 of us, then 33 more arrived, then 13. 7 more people arrived individually, for a total of 86. All were united by one desire to help people in trouble. RUDN University students came to help my people, although many of them only heard about Armenia in geography lessons.
Who took part in this trip?
Among us were guys from different faculties, even graduate students. I was a student at that time. There were not only Armenians, but also Russians, Georgians, Ukrainians, Kazakhs, Azerbaijanis, and Uzbeks. There were many people who wanted to go and help, but the issue of obtaining visas played an important role here.
How did you manage to go to Armenia almost immediately after the earthquake, because there weren’t enough tickets for all the people who wanted to help?
I remember it was December 10th. On this day, from the very morning, donors went to donate blood. About an hour later the food was ready to be sent, but the issue of the detachment had not yet been resolved. Organizational issues were resolved quickly, on the run. Everyone was involved: the party committee, the trade union committee, the Komsomol committee. A couple of hours later we were given the go-ahead, but it was unknown whether all the volunteers were going or only half of them. Everyone was in a hurry. They loaded the bus with blankets and food. We acted like a capture group. We went to Vnukovo airport. To get to the ticket counter, you had to push past the crowd. We were offered an option: to act with a policeman. Finally, late in the evening everything was settled: our detachment flew out the next day in the morning.
Debris clearance in Armenia
What did you encounter at the airport?
There were a lot of people at the airport - real pandemonium. All these people listened and watched the “Time” program with faces petrified from emotions. There were tears in their eyes. People tried to fly there, but there were no tickets. I remember that everyone considered themselves the most necessary. One woman argued that she had the right to fly first, since she works in a hospital, and rescuers are not the main thing.
With what thoughts did you go to Armenia, to the scene of the incident?
I thought: tomorrow we will see the pain and the depth of the tragedy with our own eyes. WITH tomorrow we are fighters.
And what did you see upon arrival?
We arrived in Leninakan. We entered the city at midnight and searched for headquarters until two o’clock. There was no water in the city, fires were burning. It was a ghost town. IN night darkness, in the light of the headlights we saw the horror with our own eyes. Corpses, ruins, coffins, coffins, coffins... We pitched two tents on Lenin Square. Night. Dirt. Rain. Cold. Faceless people. There were also looters among them: before our eyes, unknown people were dragging from the former “ Children's world» toys, pens...
What problems did you face?collide?
Infection had spread throughout the city, so the main problem was the lack of water. You can't drink water. Only mineral water. The city was paralyzed. And an incredible thing was happening in the square: there was a line for diesel fuel, bread, and water. However, there was still no mineral water. We approached other groups, asked for at least one bottle, and they did not refuse us. Sometimes the army provided food. After several days it became very cold: 20 at night, 10 during the day. The newspapers wrote that there were bathhouses, but at headquarters they only promised to take us there. Armenian students took several children with them and went home to wash themselves. Everywhere, in all the yards, there are coffins. Large and small, plywood and planks, hastily knocked together. The presence of such huge amount corpses could cause an epidemic in a few days. I remember how our doctor said, our health is in our hands. But this was not a slogan. This is a fact of life. I was a supply manager, and that meant a lot of work. Every day it was necessary to get bread and mineral water. I remember one day the French gave us a bag of concentrates and a bag of biscuits. "Will live!" we thought.
Did you have a specific object,and what was your squad involved in?
The desire to work did not leave us, despite everything we saw. We helped everyone. The next day, as soon as we arrived there, in the afternoon, some people approached us and asked us to remove the children from the rubble of the school. Even now it’s hard to talk about it. That day we returned to camp tired, frightened... Then for the first time in our lives we shook hands with death.
What remains of the city of Leninakan?
The Flower City has turned into a Dead City. From everywhere there is only noise, fuss, smoke, stench. Ironically, next to the ruins there was an exhibition “Leninakan Today”, although empty. At times the landscape resembled a surreal painting. The house, as if cut by a powerful cutter, with all its sofas, bathtubs, hangers, stands in front of you and silence...
What feelings took over you?returning to another world, to Moscow?
A strange feeling gripped everyone who came from the earthquake site. It seemed that what he saw there was just a nightmare. The withdrawal was slow. Our squad has fulfilled its duty to Armenian people, in front of the Motherland.
What did this trip change in your life?
I began to appreciate life more. “Friendship” has transformed from an ephemeral concept into a real concept. We then lived in an overly politicized state. But here, in Leninakan, we saw Americans, Swiss, Poles and many other volunteers from different countries, ready to help people in trouble and the country as a whole.
We began to feel differently about Israel when we saw their rescuers with dogs. There were no more enemies, imaginary or real. It was the unity of peoples, which we sometimes lack so much today.
December 7, 1988 the north-west of Armenia was shaken powerful earthquake the force of which at the epicenter reached 10 points on the Richter scale. The tremors, with a total duration of 30 seconds, wreaked havoc and destruction in more than 370 populated areas.
The city of Spitak was closest to the epicenter. In just half a minute, the city, which was home to 18,500 inhabitants, was completely destroyed. killed 25,000 people and left more than half a million homeless.
Other cities were also affected by the Spitak earthquake. Thus, in Leninakan and Vanadzor, almost 90% of buildings and structures were destroyed, and 58 villages were destroyed to the very foundation. But it was Spitak that took the first blow of the disaster.
The city of Spitak, located in the north-west of Armenia, was one of those quiet and peaceful towns where nothing disturbed peaceful life residents. However, “under the city” everything was different. Spitak was built right at the junction tectonic plates, in an area of increased seismic activity.
Earthquakes have happened here before, but destruction has never reached such a scale. The Spitak earthquake was the strongest throughout the Soviet Union in the last 40 years. The tragedy took everyone by surprise. Neither were ready for it simple people, no power, no infrastructure.
A minute lasts a lifetime
© Tourex.me
December 7, 1988 back at 11:41 local time, the city of Spitak was living its everyday life, but already at 11:42 life froze.
The Spitak earthquake literally swept away everything in its path. From industrial city All that remained were ruins and people who had not yet realized the full horror of what had happened. Thousands of people found themselves under the ruins, and in the world and even in the south of Armenia itself, no one had any idea what had happened.
For several hours there were no reports on either radio or television. tremors shook the north-west of the Armenian SSR. In many settlements located far from the epicenter, tremors were also felt, but they were much weaker, and it was almost impossible to understand the real scale of the consequences of the earthquake.
The residents of Yerevan also felt the Spitak earthquake. Rumors began to circulate about the urgent departure of the head of the Communist Party of Armenia towards Spitak and Leninakan. Many were also worried by the fact that their relatives and friends living in the north of the country stopped answering calls. In the evening, my worst fears were confirmed. Immediately after the release of the evening news, which was entirely dedicated to the terrible events in the north of Armenia, thousands of people rushed to help the residents of the affected areas.
Help came from all over the world. More than 111 countries sent their specialists, doctors and humanitarian aid here. The first two weeks after the tragedy, real chaos reigned in the country. Destroyed cities, overcrowded hospitals, very coldy, the lack of basic necessities and, most importantly, the complete unpreparedness of the population and the authorities deprived people of all hope.
And only weeks later, rescue operations began to be more or less organized. For many it was already too late, but there were still wounded in hospitals, and people were still freezing in the streets who still needed to be saved. Life, which had stopped for a minute, continued.
The Spitak earthquake left lasting consequences. More than 25 thousand lives were lost forever, and 500 thousand people were left homeless. Immediately after clearing the rubble, restoration work began. But here, too, new problems arose.
Broken up Soviet Union, then an armed conflict began in Nagorno-Karabakh, and eliminating the consequences of the Spitak earthquake faded into the background. Some of the destroyed infrastructure was restored, but many victims are still huddled in temporary housing, awaiting a new chance for a full and decent life.
Restoration work continues, and despite everything, people believe that soon December 7, 1988 will remain in the past, which they will try to forget about, but will always remember.
12/07/1988. SPITAK.
