At the age of thirteen, "by the order of the Emperor Nicholas I", Kelbali Khan was admitted to the Corps of His Imperial Majesty's Pages in St.

On 14 May 1854, the Second Lieutenant Nakhchivanski was appointed as head of the Erivan Bek squad, replacing in this position his elder brother, the Captain Ismail Khan.

On 17 July 1854, a 5.000-strong Erivan detachment under the commandment of the Lieutenant General Baron K. K. Wrangel defeated the 16 000 strong Turkish corps of Selim Pasha in a battle on the Chingil Heights and occupied Bayazet.

On 15 April of the following year, he was awarded the Order of the Holy Great Martyr and Victorious George of the IV degree for the horse attack on 17 July 1854 on the Chingil Heights.

[6]In 1856, the lieutenant Kelbali Khan, along with other envoys of the Caucasus and Transcaucasia, represented the Erivan province at the coronation ceremony of the Emperor Alexander II in Moscow.

On 26 August of the same year, by the highest decree with the rank of lieutenant, he was transferred to the Life Guards Hussar Regiment, leaving him as a senior official on special assignments under the Erivan military governor.

During the defence of Bayazet in June 1877, the Major General Kelbali Khan Nakhchivanski, in fact, was the only link between the besieged garrison and the commandment of the Russian troops.

On 5 June, to reinforce the Bayazet garrison there was sent a squad of four hundred of the Erivan irregular cavalry regiment headed by the Colonel Ismail Khan Nakhchivanski.

From a telegram from the Major General Kelbali Khan Nakhchivanski to the Erivan military governor the Major General M. I. Roslavlev dated with 10 June 1877: Now I have received the following note from the commandant of the city of Bayazet through a secretly sneaked man, sent out on 8 June at 9 o'clock in the afternoon; all our troops since the 6th date, from 10 o'clock in the morning, were surrounded in the Bayazet fortress; the Turks are bombarding; the situation is critical, mainly there is no water; our loss is great; Patsevich was wounded, Kovalevsky was killed; all horses of the cavalry have been taken by the enemy; we have no help from the detachment; help us as soon as possible, otherwise everything is lost; there are very few cartridges, the enemy's assaults are still beated off ...

Seeing the superiority of its forces and not having a convenient position for defence, I preferred to retreat to a more advantageous position; but the enemy fiercely began to pursue us and intended to bypass our flanks... Not allowing the enemy to reach their goal, until 2 pm, retreating under heavy firefight, I crossed the village Karabulakh and 2 versts away from it, took a strong and advantageous position for defence, from which, thanks to the commanding heads of the units, the perseverance and well-aimed shooting of the infantry and the combined rocket platoon, the rapid timely movement of the Cossacks to the enemy's left flank, all the enemy's attacks were repelled, who, seeing the impossibility of bypassing or overcoming us, began to retreat from 5 o'clock in the afternoon; having stayed at this position until 8 o'clock in the evening, I retreated to the Chingil Heights, where, after giving the troops a rest and leaving the observation picket, at 12 o'clock in the morning I arrived at the Orgovsky post.

From a message to the Erivan military governor, the Major General M. I. Roslavlev, dated with 23 June 1877: Yesterday, two companies, an artillery battalion and three hundred Cossacks, arrived to the Chingil Heights, and at 9 o'clock in the evening I received a letter from the Colonel Morozov as follows: "The prince of Qajar came from detachment; he says that Ter-Gukasov is spending the night in our Caravanserai in the most disastrous situation, he is going to Igdyr.

[10]After lifting the blockade, the detachment of Kelbali Khan Nakhchivanski for some time continued to carry out tasks for the defence of the Erivan province.

From the telegram of the General Tergukasov to the Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich on 9 July: Due to the changed circumstances and the new information about the enemy, the assumption of transferring the detachment entrusted to me to Tauz-Kul and Abaz-gol could not be realized.

Although the Major General Kelbali Khan is lower in rank than you, but, as he knows in all the details and all the circumstances the case and the area itself, then, upon joining him, you have to be guided by his instructions ...[12]In October 1877, as part of the Erivan detachment, Kelbali Khan participated in the battle and defeat of the Turkish troops under the commandment of Mukhtar Pasha, who were trying to block the path of the Russian troops to Erzurum at the Deve Boynu pass.

On 24 January 1879, as a reward for the "excellent courage and bravery shown in different times with the Turks in 1877", he was awarded the Order of the St. Anna of the 1st degree with swords.