Armen Ayriev

Armen Tevanovich Ayriev (the Armenian form of the surname is Ayriyan) was born on 20 September 1910 (7 September in the old style) in the village of Tug in Nagorno-Karabakh, into a family of Armenian peasants. The village now lies in Khojavend (formerly Hadrut) district.

He spent most of his life in Uzbekistan. After two years at a workers’ preparatory faculty he worked as a fitter at the Dehkanin plant in Samarkand. In September 1931 he was called up into the Red Army through the Samarkand city military commissariat, and in 1932 he joined the Communist Party. He trained as an aircraft mechanic at a school for junior aviation specialists in Tashkent, then moved to flying and in 1940 graduated from the Engels military aviation school for pilots.

He was at the front from June 1941, the start of the Great Patriotic War, and took part in the defensive battles on the Southern Front in 1941–1942, in the Battle of Stalingrad and in the 1943 Donbas offensive. He commanded a squadron of the 503rd Assault Aviation Regiment (206th Assault Aviation Division, 7th Assault Aviation Corps, 8th Air Army, Southern Front) with the rank of captain.

By October 1943 he had flown 105 combat sorties, and his squadron had completed 324 successful missions. Ayriev’s squadron stood out in the destruction of the German grouping at Taganrog and in the liberation of the Donbas. In all he flew 135 combat sorties on several fronts.

By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of 13 April 1944, Captain Ayriev was named Hero of the Soviet Union and received the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal no. 1316. He had already been awarded the Order of the Red Banner twice in 1942, and later received the Order of Alexander Nevsky (1945), the Order of the Red Star (1946) and a number of medals.

After the war he stayed in the Air Force: in 1947 he completed a refresher course for officers, served as deputy commander of an assault aviation regiment, was promoted to major in 1948 and went into the reserve in 1951. He lived in Tashkent and worked for the city executive committee.

Armen Ayriev died in Tashkent on 13 February 1966 and was buried in the city’s Botkin Cemetery. A street in Tashkent once bore his name (it has since been renamed); his flying helmet and photographs were handed over to Nagorno-Karabakh, and his name is on the Alley of Heroes in Yerevan.