Name: Zakaryan Vardan Pegatosovich
Date of Birth: June 12, 1971
Current status: main sentence served
Articles of Criminal Code of Russian Federation: 282.2 (1.1)
Time spent in prison: 4 day in a temporary detention facility, 376 day in a pre-trial detention, 893 day Under house arrest, 551 day in prison
Sentence: punishment in the form of imprisonment for a term of 4 years and 3 months with serving the sentence in a correctional colony of general regime
Released: October 13, 2025

Biography

In November 2020, security forces broke into the apartments of peaceful Muscovites with searches. Vardan Zakaryan was seriously injured during the raid. From a blow to the head with a butt, he received a head injury and was hospitalized.

Vardan Zakaryan was born in 1971 in the capital of Armenia, Yerevan. He is the eldest of three brothers. As a child, he was engaged in sambo. Vardan also liked to help his grandmother take care of the garden. Later, it helped him in his life—he worked as a florist for more than 12 years and had his own small flower business.

In 1991, when Vardan was already living in Russia, he was the first of his family to associate with Jehovah's Witnesses and became interested in Bible teachings. He began to treat the Bible in a special way when he read it in Armenian and became convinced that the name of God, Jehovah, occurs there more than 7000 times. Later, his mother joined him in the study of the Holy Scriptures.

In 2000, Vardan got married. The couple raised two children. At the time of the search, their daughter was studying at the university, and their son was in high school. Vardan is a tailor by profession, he has been working in an atelier for the last 30 years.

Vardan's relatives were shocked by the brutality of the security forces during the search. They wonder why the court considered him a dangerous criminal and sentenced him to 4 years in prison only because of his faith. While Vardan is in prison, his wife has to work for two to provide for the family.

Case History

In November 2020, a massive special operation took place in Moscow — searches in 22 homes of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Vardan Zakaryan was hospitalized due to injuries inflicted by the law enforcement officers. He, as well as Vitaliy Komarov, Yuriy Chernyshev, Ivan Chaykovskiy and Sergey Shatalov were placed in a temporary detention facility. They were charged with organizing the activity of an extremist organization, and Zakaryan was charged with involving others in it. It is worth noting that in 2010 through the ECHR Chaykovskiy, obtained compensation for the violation of his rights due to the illegal liquidation of the Moscow Community of Jehovah’s Witnesses. In the winter of 2022 the case went to court. The charges were based on the testimony of FSB agent “Makarov”, who feigned an interest in the Bible. In March 2023, the court sentenced Chaykovskiy, Komarov, Chernyshev and Shatalov to 6 years and 3 months, and Zakaryan to 4 years and 3 months in a penal colony. The courts of appeals and cassation upheld this decision. Vardan Zakaryan was released in October 2025.
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