by David Zenian
The rules of engagement in Russian politics have changed dramatically since the collapse of the Soviet Union a decade ago, but Arthur Chilingarov has climbed the political ladder to hold the position of Deputy Chairman of the State Duma, the 450-member lower house of the Russian Parliament.
Sahak Karapetyan also entered politics after the collapse of the Soviet Union and like Chilingarov, he too was elected to the Duma and served for four years before his appointment to his new position as Senior Assistant to the General Prosecutor of the Russian Federation.
Lt. Gen. Yevgeni Gurgenovich Batalov may have stayed in active duty if not for his advanced age of 76.
All three men are Russian born Armenians who have integrated into Russian society and served their country while maintaining their ethnic identity and adapting to the changes around them.
"I don't look at my Armenian roots from a narrow perspective," explained Chilingarov during a recent interview in his Moscow office.
"I am a Russian-Armenian and Russia is my country, just like the United States is for American-Armenians. I will serve both as best as I can," he said.
Chilingarov was born in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) in 1939 and grew up in an Armenian family, but he had few Armenian friends. "I might have had more Armenian friends and interaction with fellow Armenians if we had a working church in St. Petersburg, but things were different then," he said.
Chilingarov, who accompanied President Putin during a visit to Armenia last year, admits that maybe he is not a very religious person, but is quick to add that the church should have a prominent place in modern society.
"I visit Armenia at least once a year and have very close relations with His Holiness Catholicos Karekin II. I am convinced that the stronger the Armenian Church becomes, the stronger will relations between Armenia and Russia become too.
"The Russian church is a very powerful institution and has a say in what happens here. The same should be true with the Armenian church," Chilingarov said.
"Russian politics is unique. Despite the large size of the Armenian population in Russia, they cannot have any political clout—not for a long time anyway. But a strong Armenian Church is a different matter. There is respect for the church here," he said.
A 1963 graduate of the Arctic Faculty of the Leningrad Marine Institute with a degree in engineering-oceanography, Chilingarov began his career at the Tiksi Observatory of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute.
Despite his busy schedule as a politician, Chilingarov, who has spent the better part of his adult life on the icebergs of the Arctic and is the author of 50 scientific publications, still finds time for his science and research.
During his long career, he has been awarded the Order of Lenin, Hero of the Soviet Union medal, and membership in the Russian Academy of Sciences, and since 1992 assumed the presidency of the Polar Explorers' Association.
He entered politics "from the back door"—or at least not as a representative of any political party. His work as a scientist had kept him in Russia's Ninens Autonomous District, some 1,600 kilometers northeast of Moscow, close to the North Pole.
According to the Russian constitution, the region was entitled to one deputy to represent it in the Russian Duma, and the choice was Chilingarov. He was elected with an overwhelming majority and upon arrival in Moscow he campaigned and was elected to the prestigious post of deputy Chairman of the State Duma—a position, which he still holds.
"It's been almost 40 years since my first Arctic experience, and it is still my first love. Politics is a career, but the Arctic is my passion," he said with a broad smile pointing at the dozens of momentos from his numerous expeditions, including his last one to the South Pole in January, 2002.
Chilingarov was the first Armenian to reach the South Pole with a team of scientists who flew on a modified Antonov III aircraft piloted by Ukrainian-born Sergei Tarasuk, whose mother is Armenian.
"As much as I was part of a Russian expedition, I was still an Armenian there. My colleagues found it very amusing when I put up a wooden marker with the distances from where we were to the cities representing the origins of team members.
"The marker, which is still there, clearly says Yerevan, 16,116 kilometers. Of course it also gives the distances from Moscow and Kiev, and St. Petersburg, my birthplace.
"I also took a bottle of Armenian brandy with me as a gift to the American team which was also involved in the expedition," Chilingarov said with a huge smile on his face. As an Armenian, I cannot celebrate an important occasion without some Armenian brandy," he said.
Chilingarov may be the most visible Armenian in Russian politics today, but by far not the only one.
Sahak Karapetyan's route into politics was different. The old communist world was vanishing and a new breed of politicians was moving in when Karapetyan, who is now 42 years old, joined the "Yabloco" (which means apple in Russian) liberal democrat party in his native Rostov in southern Russia.
Unlike many in his generation he had tried to join the communist party, but was turned down because "they considered me too liberal, too much of a black sheep, a nationalist."
A graduate of the Rostov Law school, Karapetyan was elected and served in the Duma for four years after practicing law and holding several positions in the public prosecutor's office.
When his term expired, he was offered his old job back in Rostov, but decided to stay in Moscow because of family commitment.
"My party lobbied for me for the position of Senior Assistant to the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation and I got the assignment. It is a very difficult and responsible position because I represent Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov (an appointee of Russian President Vladimir Putin) in the Duma," he said in an interview.
In his position, which carries the quasi-military rank of Major General of the Justice, Karapetyan oversees all government and military agencies and has the authority to investigate, try and issue arrest warrants of all elected officials along with military personnel.
The Prosecutor General's office maintains 40,000 appointed lawyers and has branch offices in all regions of the Russian Federation.
How did an ethnic Armenian make it in such a sensitive and high position? Is the new Russian system really color blind and does not differentiate between the ethnic background of its citizens?
Karapetyan, a soft-spoken family man and father of a teenage daughter, has never felt discrimination because of his Armenian roots.
"I tried to join the communist party as a young student, but was turned down. The strange thing is that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, I got a letter saying my application had been approved. I laughed. I did not even reply. It was fashionable to be a communist 20 years ago, and my application had nothing to do with my convictions," he said.
"I am sure that I would not have reached this position if the communists were still in power. My road to success has always been through my hard work, party affiliation and the election process. I received more that 210,000 votes and all were Russians. They voted for the Yabloco Party to which I still belong," he said.
As a lawyer and a politician—and for that matter a Russian citizen—Karapetyan's future never depended on an Armenian voting public, but his work and reputation reflect positively on Armenians living in Russia.
"Everyone knows that I am an Armenian. I have not changed my name, and denied my ethnic identity. The respect I get from my fellow party members, government officials and the Duma is also respect for us Armenians. I have always wanted to set a good example, and I will continue doing so," Karapetyan said in Armenian.
"Don't forget that I come from Rostov, where Armenians have a 230-year-old history and culture. We don't take our history and roots lightly," he said.
If Chilingarov and Karapetyan have climbed the political ladder through the democratic election process in the past decade, retired Lt. Gen. Yevgeni Gurgenovich Batalov took the communist party route.
"You can call me old school. You can call me an old communist, but whatever you say, you must always remember that I have always been not only an Armenia, but an Armenian with roots in Nagorno Karabakh," the 76-year-old Batalov said during a meeting in the offices of fellow Armenian Major Andranik Babayan, the police chief of Moscow's populous Khoroshevski District.
The two men smile.
"Imagine ... A decade ago we would have been classified as traitors if we had met a Western journalist like you. Just the fact that we can sit here, talk freely as fellow Armenians without any fear is like a dream come true," Batalov said.
Looking a lot younger than his age, whose knowledge of the Armenian language is limited to a few phrases like Ha Jan (yes, my dear) and Lokh Lava (very good, in the Karabakh Armenian dialect), was born in Moscow and spent his life until retirement with the Soviet military.
"I'm not exactly a politician as you understand the term today, but all the positions I held had very deep political overtones. The military was, and in some cases still is, a political institution," he said.
After graduating from engineering school, Batalov was drafted into the army as a junior officer and began climbing up the ranks until 1965 when he was transferred to the Interior Ministry—itself a police unit, which, as Batalov puts it "kept an eye on Soviet society."
In 1967 he was named police chief of Moscow and later was put in charge of a division which coordinated investigations involving all foreign diplomats and nationals living on Soviet soil.
But despite all the power he had, nothing came close to the most sensitive assignment of his long career, including police chief of the city of Kirov during the Brezhnev era.
"I was vacationing on the Black Sea with my wife and only daughter in 1974 when I was ordered to move to Armenia and assume the position of Interior Minister—a Moscow-appointed position which was a lot more powerful than that of the Secretary General of the Armenian Communist Party," Batalov said.
"The years between 1974 and 1984 are the most memorable in my life. They were also the most difficult. I was a Soviet, but also an Armenian. I will never forget what my father said when I asked his advice before leaving for Yerevan. He said son, act like a Soviet but feel like a true Armenian. Be sure that they not only respect you, but like you as well. I hope I lived up to my father's expectations," Batalov said in an emotional voice.
"It was during my service in Yerevan that I realized I was an Armenian, genetically and by nature. I never felt that way growing up in Moscow. We had a lot of Armenian friends, but being on Armenian soil was a totally different experience," he said.
Batalov can speak for hours about his life long experiences, but stops to single out a few, like the time he went with a police regiment to quell a prison riot, or decided on the fate of a woman who was serving time in jail because she refused to give up her only adopted child.
"The top criminal leading the prison riot in Kirov was an Armenian and he only surrendered because he knew I was an Armenian. As for the Armenian mother, that was in Yerevan. It made me realize what an Armenian mother was, and how strong the Armenian family ties were," he said.
"I just could not ignore her love for her child. I set her free. I could not separate mother and daughter," he said.
Years have gone by, the Soviet Union has collapsed, but Batalov's reputation in Armenia is still alive.
"It was all very much of a surprise when I got a call last year from the Interior Minister of Armenia inviting me to visit Yerevan on my 75th birthday. I had not been back in 16 years, and I hesitated at first, but my daughter, who is married to a young man from Armenia, insisted that we both go," Batalov said.
On his arrival, Batalov was welcomed by not only top Interior Ministry officers, but even his old personal assistant and driver who came to the tarmac in the exact model of car he used during his long tenure in Armenia.
"If returning to Armenia after all these years was difficult at first, leaving was much more traumatic. In my heart, I want to go back again and again, but at my age, I don't think I can handle the emotional stress of having to leave and return to my home in Moscow. After all I am a Moscovite, and my mother was Russian. I guess my Armenian genes are stronger," Batalov said turning to Maj. Andranik Babayan—a new generation police officer.
His advice to Maj. Babayan??
"Don't forget your roots. You can be a good Russian officer and a true Armenian at the same time. Serve both with dignity and honor."
