Russian comedian of Armenian origin Mikhail Galustyan received Armenian citizenship. He himself told journalists about this in Yerevan at one of the commercial events, the local portal News.am reports.
“Justice has prevailed, I finally received Armenian citizenship. I followed the most honest and correct path, submitted the documents honestly, and finally got it, ”he said.
In a conversation with The Insider, the representative of the artist Tabriz Shahidi confirmed this information, specifying that nothing will change in Galustyan's life:
“Mikhail Galustyan remains a tax resident of the Russian Federation and a Citizen of the Russian Federation and is not going to move anywhere from Russia. Russia loves, supports, was and will be with the Motherland.
We have dozens of projects in the works, shooting films and series, advertising commitments. And the parents' house is also in Russia, in Sochi.
As for Yerevan, Mikhail, who adores Armenia, decided to fulfill his mother Susanna Ardashevna's old dream and give her an apartment next to the house-museum of director Sergei Parajanov.
Mikhail also dreams of an apartment or a house in the Crimea, where his father was born.
By the way, from the point of view of the Russian authorities, the situation in which a person has dual citizenship with the Republic of Armenia in the Russian Federation is quite legal – you can have two passports in accordance with the provisions of Art. 62 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation. However, the Russian must notify the Main Directorate for Migration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs about this. It is perfectly legal to have passports of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Armenia from the point of view of the two states. The main thing is to satisfy the requirements established for obtaining a passport and promptly report such a status to the migration service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation.
In 2012, during the presidential elections in Russia, Galustyan participated in the election campaign of candidate Vladimir Putin. In May 2016, he entered the main headquarters of the Yunarmiya military-patriotic movement. During the 2018 presidential election, he became a member of the Putin Team movement , which spoke in support of Putin, and the initiative group that nominated him as a candidate (in the same year, TASS called him Putin's confidant). Galustyan also collaborated with the Russian Ministry of Defense in the framework of the Patriot Military-Patriotic Park of Culture and Recreation of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
Galustyan is also known for his informal relationship with the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. In 2016, a video appeared on the network where Galustyan, under the leadership of Kadyrov, rehearses a number for KVN, trying to imitate the manner of speech of the head of Chechnya. “So okay? Fine?" he turns to Kadyrov for advice.
Later, Galustyan showed this number at a concert in honor of the 55th anniversary of KVN.
In March 2015, thanks to the Anonymous International hacker group and leaked correspondence , it became known that Galustyan published texts about the war in Ukraine on his blog, coordinating their content with Timur Prokopenko, deputy head of the internal policy department of the Presidential Administration, and also participated in the presentation of T-shirts with Putin .
In January 2023, against the backdrop of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Galustyan was placed on Ukraine’s sanctions list “for visiting the occupied territories after the start of the invasion, participating in propaganda concerts, and publicly supporting the war and the Putin regime.” In February 2023, he was also included in the Canadian sanctions list for being involved in the spread of Russian disinformation and propaganda.