The Feat of Shavarsh Karapetyan: Underwater Battle

He went down in history as a national hero, who pulled 46 people out of a sunken trolleybus 45 years ago. In our article, we are going to talk about the feat of swimmer Shavarsh Karapetyan and his difficult life.

The Feat of Shavarsh Karapetyan: Bet on Box of Cognac

Shavarsh grew up as a responsible child, trying to be an example for the younger brothers. He took over this character trait from his mother. It was the parents who decided that Shavarsh could prove himself in sports.  It all started with artistic gymnastics. The boy went to the first training session with enthusiasm. But the coaches said that he did not fit because of his height. Whereas in the swimming section, they admitted the 13-year-old boy without hesitation. It is interesting that at that time Shavarsh barely stayed on the water, and over the next four years he won all the allied championships.

Things were going uphill until Shavarsh was summoned to the director’s office. The unsuspecting young man was shocked when the head of the swimming federation asked him not to appear in the pool again. “You do not have a permanent coach, we have to remove you,” the functionary stunned Karapetyan. Shavarsh, upset to tears, was returning home by bus. Coming out at the stop, the swimmer met an already familiar scuba diving coach, who had recently lost his job in the same ill-fated federation. The meeting turned out to be fateful. A year and a half later, Karapetyan received the title of Master of Sports and an invitation to the USSR national team. At the very first tournament, Shavarsh set three world records and won first place. Shavarsh returned to Yerevan as a hero. 

The father was especially proud of Shavarsh’s victories. He even argued with a friend that his son would become the Armenian swimming champion. The stake is a box of cognac. Shavarsh, however, won the tournament more abruptly – the European Championship. But a friend of Vladimir Abramovich sent a car with three crates of cognac and a note: “You both won the argument.”

“I Could Have Saved One More Life!” 

The tragedy with the sunken trolleybus, which happened on September 16, 1976, divided the life of an athlete into “before” and “after”. On that day, Karapetyan could compete at the World Championships in Hanover, but due to an injury, he remained in Yerevan. “Perhaps it was a sign from above for me,” Shavarsh said later. Karapetyan and his younger brother were jogging around the Yerevan reservoir in the morning. The route of trolleybus number 15 followed him, which at that very minute, exactly in the place where the athletes were running, flew off the road at high speed and in a matter of seconds found itself at the bottom of the reservoir.

Ninety-two passengers were captured. The water temperature did not exceed 13 degrees. Karapetyan, without a moment’s thought, threw off his heavy backpack and dived into the water. At a depth of ten meters, he broke the rear window of the trolleybus and in conditions of almost zero visibility pulled passengers to the surface. In total, he rescued 46 people from the trolleybus, but only 20 lives were saved. One of those many dives he remembers especially often. “I surfaced and saw a seat cushion in my hands. I looked at it and realized that the price of a mistake is a person’s life. That pillow kept visiting me in my dreams” said Karapetyan.

An ambulance took Shavarsh from the scene of the tragedy. Doctors listened to the incoherent speech of the delirious athlete: “Let me go! I need to save people in the trolleybus, the airbag in the cabin will end soon!” Having calmed the young man, the doctors continued the examination – they recorded severe cuts, nervous exhaustion, and pneumonia. The operation was successful, but the feat cost a sports career.

The Feat of Shavarsh Karapetyan: Shoe Shop

Karapetyan spent a painful month and a half on recovery. The most unbearable test for Shavarsh was the treatment of his lungs. “Every breath is a pain,” Shavarsh recalled. Of the family members, only Kamo’s brother, who accompanied his brother in training, and his father, who arrived in time to the scene of the tragedy and watched the actions of his hero-son, knew about the tragedy itself. Mom and wife Shavarsh learned about his feat only six years later, together with the whole country. 

In 1982, Komsomolskaya Pravda published a small report with the headline “Champion’s Underwater Battle”. The editorial office of the newspaper received thousands of letters of thanks and demands to confer the title of Hero of the Soviet Union on Shavarsh. The authorities did not listen – they handed over “For the rescue of the drowning”. By that time, Shavarsh had already completed his career as a swimmer. To bet on swimming check out the online sportsbook news in Armenia, as 20BET Sportsbook and many more. The 1977 USSR Cup was the last tournament of his career. 

After all the disasters, the swimmer  “hated water.” He tried to train – he lasted two months. Then the national hero worked in areas far from sports: an electronics factory, his shoe-making workshop in Moscow. Today Karapetyan is the honorary president of the Russian Diving Association. According to online sportsbook news in Armenia, an asteroid is named after him, and competitions in his sport are annually held in Rybinsk. In May 2021, the hero of the story celebrated his 68th birthday. Years go by, but we will never forget the exploits of Shavarsh Vladimirovich. So this was the feat of Shavarsh Karapetyan: the incredible story of the Soviet swimmer.  Make sure to check out 20BET Sportsbook for the best odds.

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