In the photo above are Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin. Khudyakov is third from the right. Yalta, February 9, 1945.
Until 1946, no one knew that Khudyakov was an Armenian and his name was not Sergei but Armenak and his surname not Khudyakov but Khanperyants.
In 1943, he was entrusted with supervising the Soviet delegation’s flight to the Tehran Conference. He competently and with honor fulfilled the combat mission of the High Command.
On December 14, 1945, Khudyakov was arrested in Chita and taken to Moscow where he was charged under Article 58-1 “b” of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (treason to the Motherland). His involvement in the appropriation of captured property and valuables from a disappeared aircraft was also investigated (Article 193-17 “a”).
The investigation of the case lasted more than four years and ended in 1949. During interrogations on June 10–13, 1953, M. Ryumin claimed that extra details were included in the testimony of the air marshal.
On April 18, 1950, Sergei A. Khudyakov was sentenced to the most severe punishment – to be shot with confiscation of property. He was shot on the same day. His ashes were buried at the Don cemetery.
On January 13, 1951, Varvara Petrovna Khudyakova with her young son Sergei were arrested as members of the traitor’s family and were deported to the Krasnoyarsk Territory – to the village of Glinnaya in the Taseevsky District.
In the meantime, Lieutenant Vladimir Khudyakov, the adopted son of the Marshal, was removed from the Soviet Army and then sent to exile by special decision. Vladimir was an awardee of the Order of the Red Star and fought in the 1st Air Army as a radio operator, gunner, and pilot.
In accordance with the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of March 27, 1953, the Khudyakov family was amnestied and allowed to return to Moscow from their exile. In August 1954, the Chief Military Prosecutor’s Office began a supervisory review of the materials of the archive-investigative case No. 100384.
The supervising military prosecutor concluded that the archive-investigative case should be submitted for re-consideration to the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR with a proposal to cancel the sentence in connection with newly discovered circumstances.
In this official document, the real surname, name, and patronymic of the Marshal, Khanperyants Armenak Artemovich, were written. When re-examining the case, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court found that the accusation of Khudyakov-Khanperyants could not be confirmed by any objective data.
By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR from July 6, 1965, S. A. Khudyakov, rehabilitated by court order, was posthumously reinstated in the military rank of Air Marshal and in the rights to awards. A little later, the party commission at the Main Political Administration of the Soviet Army and Navy reinstated Air Marshal Khudyakov in the party.
So, had Khudyakov not been arrested, he would have remained in history as the son of Russian and Georgian parents while being a pure Armenian.
