On May 20 the RA President Serge Sargsian signed a Decree on the appointment
of Samvel Farmanian to the position of his Press Secretary. Samvel Farmanian
was born in 1978. In 1999 he graduated from the History Department of the Yerevan
State University, in 2001 he got his MA at the same Department. In 2001-2003
he studied at the Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies of Lund University
(Sweden), getting his second master’s degree. In 2001-2004 he was at the graduate
school of the YSU Anthropology Chair. In 2003-2005 he was civil society and
media projects officer at the Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation-Armenia.
In 2005-2006 Farmanian was the foreign policy advisor of the RA National Assembly
Speaker Arthur Baghdasarian (leader of “Orinats Yerkir” party, currently the
Secretary of the RA Security Council). In “Orinats Yerkir” Samvel Farmanian
also headed the youth wing of the party. In 2007 he was elected the Secretary
General of the United Liberal National Party.
At the position of Serge Sargsian’s Press Secretary Samvel Farmanian came to
replace Viktor Soghomonian – the spokesman of the RA Second President Robert
Kocharian since February 2005.