Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov has awarded public and political figure, political scientist Yuri Navoyan with the Medal for Partnership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.

As reported Hayern Aysor, on 24 March, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Secretary General Grigory Karasin granted the award on behalf of Lavrov at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. After the award ceremony, Grigory Karasin and Yuri Navoyan exchanged views on Russian-Armenian relations and the future plans for cooperation.

Yuri Navoyan is the first citizen of the Republic of Armenia to receive the Medal for Partnership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. It should be noted that Yuri Navoyan also recently received the Medal of Honor of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia granted to him by Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia Edward Nalbandyan in October 2016.

The granting of these awards serves as a sign of cooperation between Russian and Armenian state and public diplomats.

Yuri Navoyan was born in 1969. He graduated from the Faculty of History at Yerevan State University, the Faculty of International Relations of the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Moscow School of Political Studies, completed the political courses of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg and the conflict management program offered at the School of Law of the University of Harvard in Boston.

Before moving to Moscow in 2012, Yuri Navoyan served as Head of the newly established Diaspora Department at the RA Ministry of Education and Science. In Moscow, he served as the longstanding director of the Russian-Armenian Cooperation Organization. Through his activities, Navoyan has contributed to the enhancement of the Russian-Armenian political dialogue, inter-parliamentary relations and the relations between political parties and to the implementation of scientific and analytical activities.

Among the well-known initiatives of the Armenian activist are the “Beware! They are historical facts” Program targeted against falsification of history, the series of books entitled “Library of Russian-Armenian Cooperation”, the “Armenia through the Eyes of Friends” Project, the “Voice of Russian-Armenians” TV program, the organizing of roundtables devoted to Armenia at the annual Moscow Economic Forum, as well as the conduct of numerous international conferences devoted to regional security and integration issues.

Throughout his career in Moscow, he has also promoted the self-organization of the Armenians by helping establish new Armenian national and cultural institutions, Armenian Sunday schools, as well as youth and women’s unions in Moscow and large cities of Moscow Oblast.

In 2010, Yuri Navoyan and his supporters established the Forum of Armenian Organizations of Moscow in order to establish a new culture of cooperation between the organizations in Moscow and help them carry out joint and substantial activities. In 2012, they established the Armenian Genocide Centennial Moscow Regional Committee. Navoyan has served as one of the co-chairs of these organizations. Since 2013, Yuri Navoyan is the coordinator of the Armenian Genocide Centennial All-Russian Committee.

In addition to the state awards that he has received in the Republic of Armenia and the Russian Federation, Yuri Navoyan has also received the Movses Khorenatsi Medal of the Republic of Armenia, the Medal of Gratitude of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, the Gold Medal of the Ministry of Diaspora of the Republic of Armenia, the Certificate of Appreciation of the Secretary-General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Medal for Merit of the Institute for Strategic Studies adjunct to the President of the Russian Federation, the Order of Honor of the Institute of CIS countries “For Academic Research and Support to Compatriots” and the Alexander Griboyedov Medal of the Union of Writers of Russia.