Lev Karakhan Lev Karakhan Lev Mikhailovich Karakhan ("Karakhanian") Armenian Կարախանյան Լեւոն Միքայելի, Russian Лев Михайлович Карахан (20 January 1889, Tiflis – 20 September 1937, Moscow) was an ethnic Armenian-born Russian revolutionary and a Soviet diplomat. A member of the RSDLP from 1904. At first a Menshevik, he joined the Bolsheviks in May 1917. In October 1917, he was member of the Revolutionary Military Council; then served as secretary of the Soviet delegation at the Brest-Litovsk peace talks together with Leon Trotsky and Adolph Joffe. In 1918-1920 and 1927–1934, he was the Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs. In 1919, he issued a
Semyon Davidovich Kirlian Semyon Davidovich Kirlian Semyon Davidovich Kirlian (; ; ; 20 February 1898 – 4 April 1978) was a Soviet inventor and researcher of Armenian descent, who along with his wife Valentina Khrisanovna Kirlian (; died 1972), a teacher and journalist, discovered and developed Kirlian photography. Kirlian was born in 1898 Yekaterinodar, Russian Empire (now Krasnodar, Russia) in an Armenian family. He possessed an early interest in, and aptitude for, work with electricity. Just before the Russian Revolution of 1917, Kirlian attended a conference in his home city at which Nikola Tesla gave talks and demonstrations; Tesla was one of Kirlian's