There are most probably 1,800,000-1,900,000 Armenians living in Russia. This is what political scientist Hrant Mikayelyan said in an interview with Armenian News-NEWS.am.

Moreover, according to him, based on the data of the 2010 census, there were 1,182,000 Armenians living in Russia.

“In addition, 600-650,000 of them are citizens of Armenia. At the same time, during this period, tens of thousands of Armenians have acquired Russian citizenship. So, it’s safe to say that there are almost 2,000,000 Armenians living in Russia,” Mikayelyan clarified, noting that, according to the accepted evaluation, there are more Armenians living in Russia than in Armenia, even though this isn’t the case.

The political scientist went on to say that 138,000 people have left Armenia in the first half of this year and that this is a rather serious figure for the country.

“This is a rather serious indicator for Armenia. Out of those people, 80,000 will most probably never return to Armenia. This is an extremely large indicator for six months,” Mikayelyan said.

According to the political scientist, most of the citizens who left Armenia have gone to Russia since the easiest route to take is the route to Russia during the coronavirus pandemic. “However, it should be mentioned that the Armenians don’t have a major position in Russia due to the decline in the level of relations between Russia and Armenia. There are simply Armenians who don’t want to see this,” Mikayelyan said, adding that the reputation of Armenians and Armenia has seriously decreased in not only Russia, but also other parts of the world due to the defeat in the recent war.