What Is Known About Dmitry Mezentsev, Who Was Appointed Russian Ambassador To Belarus?
- 1.05.2019, 15:47
- 6,484
The President of the Russian Federation has signed a decree appointing a new ambassador to Belarus.
What is known about Dmitry Mezentsev, who became Russia's ambassador to Belarus?
The future ambassador was born in Leningrad in the family of Fyodor Mezentsev – a participant in the Great Patriotic War, a front-line correspondent, euroradio.fm writes.
He has graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Railway Engineers. Not long he worked as a foreman in one of the depot of the October Railway.
He moved to power through Komsomol: in 1990, at the time he was elected the deputy of the Leningrad City Council, he was secretary of the Komsomol committee of the battalion of students of the Leningrad Higher School of Railway Forces.
From 1991 to 1996 he worked in the administration of the mayor of St. Petersburg, Anatoly Sobchak. In the same years, future President Vladimir Putin worked with Sobchak.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Mezentsev defended his thesis on the topic “The Psychology of the Influence of the Media on the Formation of the Political Attitudes of the Individual”. He’s a Candidate of Psychological Sciences.
In 2009 he headed Irkutsk region of Russia. It is in Siberia, where Lake Baikal is. By the way, there is a large Belarusian diaspora in Irkutsk region – about 50 thousand people.
Mezentsev tried to participate in the elections for the presidency of Russia in 2012, but after rejecting a number of the subscription lists, he had not enough signatures. The election was won by Vladimir Putin.
PHOTO: REUTERS
From January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2015, he was the Secretary General of the SCO – the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
On June 8, 2011, an Aeroflot flight from Irkutsk to Moscow was delayed for an hour because of Mezentsev. The governor was late for the plane due to official reasons. He could take a private flight, but did not do it: was too expensive for the region budget.
In 2014, Vladimir Putin conferred the diplomatic rank of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Dmitry Mezentsev.
Dmitry Mezentsev is 59 years old. He is married, he has an adult daughter and a grandson.
