The Yerevan Computer Research and Development Institute (YCRDI) occupies a few offices in a concrete-and-glass multi-storey building in the centre of Armenia’s capital - a faint image of the landmark institute’s former glory.

Better known as the Mergelyan Institute - after the mathematician who played a leading role in setting it up, Sergey Mergelyan - the centre opened in 1956 and it soon became the jewel in the crown of USSR’s information and communication technology (ICT). Pre-independence Armenia boasted more scientists per capita than any other Soviet republic and it produced about a third of the hi-tech and microelectronic equipment used for the country’s defense and space systems. The Mergelyan Institute designed one of the first Soviet computer systems in 1959, and by the late 1980s, it employed about 7,000 people.

Maxim Hakobyan arrived at the institute in 1958. He was fifth year student at the Yerevan Polytechnic Institute. He then went on to specialize with a PhD in Technical Sciences.