Azat Arshakyan: We wanted to become pilots to bomb the Kremlin

October 30 is observed as the Day of Political Prisoners. It was first observed in 1974 when Soviet political prisoners in Mordva and Perm camps and Vladimir prison held simultaneous hunger strikes and peaceful vigils to commemorate the victims of communist repressions in what became the first Political Prisoners’ Day. The idea, proposed by dissident Kronid Lubarsky, took hold: this day has been observed, in one way or another, every year. Azat Arshakyan, a dissident of Soviet year and former political prisoner, was closed in Soviet prisons from 1974 to 1987. “In the beginning, the meetings and discussions hold by free-minded youth had innocent character but later they served as the basis for the formation of organizations that carried out anti-Soviet activities,” Mr Arshakyan recalls. The former political prisoners says unlike many others who wanted to become doctors, they wanted to become pilots to bomb the Kremlin.