Mikhail Margelov

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Mikhail Margelov (Михаил Маргелов) (born in Moscow, December 22, 1964) is the current Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Federation Council of Russia. He is a member of the United Russia party and has represented the Pskov region in the Federation Council since December 2000. He has been a member of the European Democrat Group in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) since 2002 and is its current chairman.

He graduated from the Institute of Countries of Asia and Africa, which is affiliated to Moscow State University. He has worked as an interpreter in the International Department of the Central Committee, Communist Party of the Soviet Union, taught Arabic at the Higher School of the USSR State Security Committee, and was Senior Editor of the Arab section in the TASS News Agency. He is also fluent in English.

In 1990-1995, he was employed by a number of US consulting companies dealing with investment projects in the Commonwealth of Independent States. In 1995, he became project director for the publicity campaign of Grigory Yavlinsky and the Yabloko movement. In 1996, he was chief co-ordinator for advertising for President Boris Yeltsin's 1996 re-election campaign. He went on to head the President's public relations department from November 1996 to May 1998.

Between October 1999 to October 2000, he was a director of the Russian Information Centre (Rosinformcentr), a government agency covering events in the Northern Caucasus From May 1998 to September 1999, he held a managerial position at RIA-Novosti Information Agency. From January to March 2000, Mikhail Margelov served as a consultant to Vladimir Putin's Electoral Headquarters, in charge of contacts with foreign media.

In PACE, he is a member of the Committee on the Honouring of Obligations and Commitments by Member States of the Council of Europe (Monitoring Committee), the Political Affairs Committee and the Sub-Committee on the Middle East. Having served as the vice-president of the PACE, he was due to be appointed president in 2008. However, he was controversially blocked in what some regarded as an anti-Russian move.^[1]

Mikhail Margelov is married and has a son, Dmitri.