“JUSTICE IS IN THE ARMENIAN’S SIDE”

On May 21st, in RA MOD Military-Sports College after Monteh Melkonyan a meeting was organized with Director of the film “Volunteer” Anna Tovmasyan and Alexander Kurepin. Around him film’s hero Dima Motrich and his two friends – Ilya Kulik and Miro-Myasnik Gasparyan gathered, they together during the Artsakh war fulfilled numerous military actions, fought in the hottest spots, trained soldiers, helped the Armenian volunteers.

Anna Tovmasyan congratulated the students on the occasion of the three May festivals and told the story of the film’s creation. College head Colonel Vitaliy Voskanyan expressed his gratitude to Alexander Kurepin and awarded him with College’s Certificate of Honour and jubilee medal “20 years of RA AF”.

Tells A.Kurepin: “Why I came to fight in Artsakh? I was thinking about that during the whole war but only now I can answer. I’ll tell you frankly – because of despair. The Soviet Union collapsed, the army, too, I had no family, no perspectives.

Why I started to fight against the Azeri troops? Unlike Azerbaijan, the Armenians didn’t pay the volunteers. I’ll answer – I was sure that the justice is in the Armenian’s side, and without that you can’t fight.

I went to the Embassy of Armenia in Moscow. On July 18, 1992 I was already in the Zvartnots airport. The same day I had a brief conversation in the Defense Ministry and went to Nagorniy Karabakh. There I introduced myself to the NKR army commander Serge Sargsyan, and I was sent to Martouni district, where the commander was legendary Avo – Monteh Melkonyan. After 10-15 days on the order of S.Sargsyan I started to form a group for demolishing tanks. There were 8 Russian volunteers under my command. Two of them – Dmitriy Motrich and Ilya Kulik were career officers”.

Shushan Stepanyan