Margarita Simonyan
| Margarita Simonyan | |
|---|---|
Simonyan in 2010
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| Born |
April 6, 1980 Krasnodar, Soviet Union |
| Nationality | Armenian |
| Alma mater | Kuban State University |
| Occupation | journalist, the editor-in-chief of RT and Rossiya Segodnya |
| Years active | 1999—present |
| Website | www |
Margarita Simonovna Simonyan (Russian: Маргари́та Симо́новна Симонья́н; born 6 April 1980) is the editor-in-chief of both the English-language, television news network RT (formerly Russia Today) and the state-owned international news agency Rossiya Segodnya.
Simonyan was born in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar into an Armenian family. Both of her parents are descendants of Armenian refugees from the Ottoman Empire. Her father's family, originally from Trabzon, settled in Crimea during the Armenian Genocide of 1915. During World War II, they were deported to the Urals along with thousands of other Hamshen Armenians. Her father was born in Yekaterinburg (Sverdlovsk). Her mother was born in Sochi to an Armenian family that had fled the massacres of the Armenians in the late 19th century. Her family owns a restaurant in Moldovka town in Adlersky City District, Sochi. She is from a working-class family and decided at an early age she wanted to become a journalist. She first worked for the local newspaper, and then for a local television station while studying journalism at Kuban State University.
In 1996, Simonyan spent a year in Bristol, New Hampshire, as part of Future Leaders Exchange student exchange program. She says during that time she discovered Russians and Americans "are so much alike in terms of culture, in terms of family values, ways of life, reactions, sense of humor".
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