Press Release, 10.12.2019

On 10 December, ex-Mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov died aged 83. The condolences to the family of the deceased were expressed by Grigory Yavlinsky, Chairman of the Federal Political Committee of Yabloko, who worked with Luzhkov in the Committee for the Operational Management of the National Economy of the USSR which exercised the functions of the Russian Government after its dismissal on 28 August of 1991, after a failed coup:

Yuri Luzhkov was a bright and interesting person of a bygone era, a political and public figure of the transition period. He himself, his life and work, reflected all the features and contradictions of that time.

Luzhkov has always been a real public politician. He had real supporters and voters who supported him sincerely, and not by order or because of the lack of an alternative. There were a lot of them in Moscow. That is why he was squeezed out of Russian politics at a time when people with their own political base were no longer in power.

Luzhkov had serious opponents, but he was able to object them on matters of principle to him, openly disagree with influential people – Yeltsin, the government of the “young reformers”, [and then President] Dmitry Medvedev.

Yuri Mikhailovich Luzhkov was a good friend and a warm person to those whom he loved.

I convey my deepest condolences to the relatives and friends of Yuri Mikhailovich.

May his memory last forever.