Yuri Luzhkov, one of the most famous faces of Russia and long a political heavyweight as Mayor of Moscow, died at the age of 83 years in Munich. This is what the Russian Embassy in Berlin announced today on its website. Luzhkov had died in a clinic.
His relatives are helped to bring the body to Moscow, it said in the message. Media in Moscow reported that Luzhkov had been to a routine operation in Munich and died there.
18 years at the top of the cityMoscow
Mayor Sergei Sobyanin expressed his condolences to the relatives. Luzhkov did a lot for the city and the Muscovites in the heavy post-Soviet period. Luzhkov ruled Moscow from 1992 for more than 18 years. In 2010, then-President Dmitry Medvedev removed the powerful man with the – allegedly bulletproof – Schiebermütze from office to make room for Sobyanin.
Luzhkov, who was born in Moscow on 21 September 1936, stood like no other for a thoroughly corrupt and crony system in Europe’s largest city. Again and again there was criticism that he had made the metropolis with plenty of crime and great pollution to one of the most expensive in the world.
