The humble superman of Soviet sports: How a champion swimmer saved the lives of more than 20 people

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Today he would be called Superman, but unfortunately the name Shavarsha Karapetyanhardly known to the general public. A professional athlete, swimmer-submariner, multiple world champion, by some miracle, constantly found himself where tragedies and disasters happened, and came to the aid of people. To save them, he had to sacrifice his own future in the world of big-time sports.

The athlete who set 11 world records

The future hero was born in 1953 in an ordinary Armenian family. His father was fond of sports, and Shavarsh took an example from him from childhood. He was sent to swim, and a year after hard training he became the champion of the republic among young men in backstroke and freestyle. Then he decided to go scuba diving and after six months he became the winner at the very first competition. His coach instilled in him the installation: "There is no worthy second place", and Shavarsh carried it out in life. The athlete won 37 gold medals and set 10 world records.

Multiple world diving record holder Shavarsh Karapetyan in the pool. Photo by G. Baghdasaryan

One day in the winter of 1974, Shavarsh Karapetyan was returning home from a sports base along a mountain road. Besides him, there were about 30 more passengers on the bus. On the rise, the engine suddenly stalled, and the driver got out of the cab. Suddenly the bus started to move and rolled towards the gorge. Shavarsh rushed to the driver's cab, smashed the glass wall separating it from the passenger compartment, and abruptly turned the steering wheel towards the mountain. Thanks to his reaction, no one was hurt.

Legendary swimmer Shavarsh Karapetyan

The athlete who set 11 world records

Every morning Shavarsh and his brother jogged around Lake Yerevan. So it was on September 16, 1976. Suddenly, in front of his eyes, an overcrowded trolleybus at full speed turned off the road, fell into the water and quickly went to the bottom. The athlete immediately rushed into the lake, smashed the glass in the cabin with his feet and began to lift people from a 10-meter depth to the surface. The brother received people and handed them over to doctors. The swimmer did not pay attention to the cuts he received when he broke the glass, or to the low temperature of the water - it was in September.

A trolleybus that fell into the Yerevan Lake. Photo by G. Baghdasaryan

Later Shavarsh Karapetyan recalled: “It was like a sports relay. In 45 minutes we lifted 46 of 92 people from the bottom! Services responded quickly and the hospital was close by. But the doctors managed to save only 20 victims … I understand that at that moment in this place no one could have done what I did. All my sports training corresponded to this moment, and there was nothing to wait”. The protocol recorded that the driver had a heart attack, and therefore the bus lost control. Surviving witnesses said that in fact the cause of the accident was a quarrel between one of the passengers and the driver, who refused to stop at the dam in the wrong place and received a blow to the back of the head for this.

Legendary swimmer Shavarsh Karapetyan, 1983

For a long time, the champion could not forgive himself one mistake he was talking about: “My coach always said that one breath is not enough for the brain, and then I emerged at some point, took a breath and left back - I became so insolent with all my sports categories and records. And I almost lost consciousness, acted reflexively, grabbed another and did not feel that this was a seat, not a person … No one can reproach me, except myself, but I didn’t forgive myself for this for a very long time. This seat was worth one life."

Shavarsh (center) with brothers. Photo by O. Makarov

Champion at a meeting with schoolchildren

This feat cost the champion his sports career. After 40 minutes in cold water, Karapetyan developed bilateral pneumonia and spent a month and a half in the hospital. He tried to return to big sport, but it was difficult to reach the previous heights with damaged lungs. In 1977, the athlete set his last, 11th world record at a distance of 400 meters, and in 1980 he decided to retire from the sport. He got married soon after, in the 1990s. moved to Moscow and went into business.

The Karapetyan brothers train young athletes

Lake Yerevan and the road from which the trolleybus fell into the water. Photo by O. Makarov

It is surprising that the newspapers wrote about the tragedy on Lake Yerevan only a few years later, and even then they only named the number of people rescued, but they kept silent about the dead - in the USSR, trolleybuses were not supposed to fall into the water! Therefore, the name of Karapetyan remained unknown to many. Meanwhile, fate was preparing another test for the champion. In 1985, he was at work in an office when suddenly a fire broke out in the building opposite. And he rushed to help again. As a result, he received severe burns, doctors said that he miraculously survived.

Multiple world diving record holder Shavarsh Karapetyan

The swimmer who saved 20 lives

Today Shavarsh Karapetyan is 64 years old, his main pride is two daughters and a son who is also engaged in scuba diving. The man who saved the lives of dozens of other people admits: “I have become an honorary citizen of Russia. The international medical community gave me a special rescue robe. But it really warms my soul that people are still alive, and not that someone shook my hand and said thank you … I do not think that I behaved like a hero. I behaved like a person. And this is already, believe me, a lot."

Athlete with his son Tigran

Shavarsh Karapetyan carries a torch during the start of the Olympic torch relay in Moscow. Photo by A. Filippov

A Soviet athlete, whose feat is rarely remembered today. Photo by V. Matytsin