“Vardan came to the “Saint Vardanants” Church in Yerablur. Everyone in Yerablur, call him a smiling boy,” Vardan Zakaryan’s father, Artur Zakaryan, says in the framework of “Immortal Victims of the Artsakh War” series of Iravaban.net. The father says that his son was very patriotic and kind to his parents.
“My father taught me that there are sacred things, it is the family and the homeland. I explained the same to my son that there is a family and a homeland, that is, there is no family without a homeland, if you do not have a homeland, you do not have a family either. Vardan was not enrolled to the army at the age of 18, due to health problems, he went, and applied that he should be taken to the army, but, he was not taken because he had stones in his kidneys. He loved military clothes, wore his friends’ clothes and took pictures. He also loved military clothes, he loved the motherland, and if you loved the motherland, then you would not try to escape from the army service,” his father says.
Of course, Vardan did not “run away” from the service. On 31 August, 2020, he was drafted into the army and was a soldier for only a few days when the enemy unleashed a full-scale war against Artsakh, targeting the civilian population.
Vardan, like many recruits, lied to his parents, saying that he was not participating in combat operations; he was in a safe place.
“When he called, I asked him, ‘What are you doing?’ he said, ‘I just woke up.’ Well, we also thought that he was a 12-day serviceman; maybe the children were taken to bunkers. But they have been at the forefront since the very first day. They went forward and fought for their homeland and family until the end,” the father says and remembers how they approached him in Yerablur and told about his son on the battlefield.
Vardan Zakaryan died in the battles for the defense of the motherland on 23 October, 2020. You know how difficult it is when they show you a photo, say, “Is it your son?”: you say, “No”, and then the DNA proves “Yes”. “Are we Parents after this?”
Details in the video.
Hasmik Sargsyan
