Armenian media outlets with reference to a Russian Regnum news agency (meanwhile, the information there was deleted due to censorship there) drew attention to a publication dated June 17, 2009 entitled "Dmitry Medvedev is een Armenier" ("Dmitry Medvedev is an Armenian"), in the Dutch paper De Week Krant.
The Dutch paper writes that during a BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) press conference, a Russian a journalist from the RIA Novosti news agency asked the Russian president Medvedev whether he had Jewish roots. Medvedev replied that such rumors about his Jewish roots didn't correspond to reality.
It is to be mentioned that according to information from Jewish sources in Tallinn (Estonia), the real name of Dmitry Medvedev is David Aaron Mendel. After converting to Hasidism, he changed is first name to Menakhem and became Menakhem Aaron Mendel. It least, it's what the rumors say.
The Dutch paper says that after denouncing his Jewish roots, Medevedev emphasized at the press conference that he was an Armenian and that his ancestors originated from the town of Adana (in Turkey, in what Armenians call "Western Armenia"), but he himself was born in Russia.
His farther's name was alegedly Bagratyan, and and the maiden's name of his mother was Nakhshikyan, which means in translation "an Armenian of diaspora".
He had to change his name, Medvedev-Mendel- Bagratyan added, to have an opportunity to become the head of the KGB in France because there's a large Armenian community there therefore it is undesirable that a KGB agent has Armenian roots.
Menakhem (David) Aaron Mendel (AKA "Dmitry Medvedev") stressed: "I am a 100 percent Armenian and I am proud of my roots".
"Let the Russian president say that he is proud of his Armenian parents and ancestors," Medvedev said as cited by the mass-circulation Dutch newspaper De Week Krant.
Earlier, the same information has been published on the website of the influential Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf (link here), but it was later deleted.
A journalist from the De Week Krant explained in the guestbook of his paper that the information about Medvedev's confessions had been received from sources in Moscow's newspaper Vesti.
The De Week Krant also published a photo of Medvedev-Mendel-Bagratyan with the president of Armenia, entitled "Dmitry Medvedev in the land of his ancestors".
Department of Monitoring,
Kavkaz Center
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