Controversy
In 2002, Luzhkov proposed returning to Lubyanka Square the fifteen ton iron statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Soviet Cheka. The statue was removed after the failure of an attempted coup against the Soviet government of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991. Opponents of the proposal collected the signatures of 114,000 Moscow residents against the statue's return.
Alexander Korzhakov, former chief of the RF president's security service, told journalists that Boris Berezovsky had tried to talk him into assassinating Vladimir Gusinsky, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, singer and Duma deputy Joseph Kobzon, and others (Novy Vzglyad newspaper, 19 October 1996),.
According to David Satter, the Moscow-based company AFK Sistema run by Luzhkov's brother-in law Vladimir Yevtushenkov is linked to Semion Mogilevich, the "most dangerous gangster in the world," and the Solntsevo Russian mafia gang.
In September 2010, Russian federal television stations NTV and Russia 24 aired a number of broadcasts critical of Luzhkov, sparking speculation that he would be dismissed soon from his position of the mayor of Moscow.
Read more about this topic: Yury Luzhkov
Famous quotes containing the word controversy:
“Ours was a highly activist administration, with a lot of controversy involved ... but I’m not sure that it would be inconsistent with my own political nature to do it differently if I had it to do all over again.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)