Moscow News

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For the Imperial Russian newspaper, see Moscow News (Imperial Russia).

Moscow News is Russia’s longest-running independent English language daily newspaper. Some of its articles are translated from Moskovskiye Novosti. Current managing editor is Andrei Belikov. Its central offices was located in Pushkin Square. Now address of editorial offices: 1, Zagorodnoye Shosse, 117152 Moscow. Tel.: 540-99-22 / E-mail:info@mn.ru. Moscow News is now owned by Arcadi Gaydamak, who proposed in March 2006 to buy back 100% of France Soir shares ^[1].

[edit] History

It was originally founded by American socialist Anne-Louisa Strong and approved by Joseph Stalin 1930 as an international newspaper with the purpose of propagandizing its foreign audience. The original paper was published in many languages, including French, Spanish and Arabic.

The paper was shut down in 1949 after its editor-in-chief, Mikhail Borodin, was arrested and died in the Gulag. It continued publication in January 4, 1956, but under hard control of the Communist Party.

At the onset of perestroika, the freeing of the press gave it the opportunity to openly address the democratic processes. Under Mikhail Gorbachev, Moscow News became one of the first papers to experiment with glasnost. In this incarnation its readership grew dramatically to one million copies per week.

Under Putin, and suffering from declining sales, Moscow News was bought by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, one of Russia's oligarchs and owner of Yukos. Khodorovsky hired Yevgeny Kiselyov, an outspoken liberal journalist. Today, the paper has many prolific writers, including Robert Bridge, whose "American in Moscow" column has achieved critical acclaim in the Russian capital.

Moscow News has had numerous other owners, and as such has never considered itself an instrument of any particular governmental group. Ogonyok, International Book, and the All-Union Society of Cultural Ties with Foreign Countries among others have controlled the newspaper at one time or another.