MOSCOW, September 29 (RIA Novosti) - The chief editor of one of Russia's leading dailies, Kommersant, resigned Friday, one month after it was taken over by a prominent businessman, and the new editor has been named as Andrei Vasilyev, who was until recently the chief editor of Kommersant Ukraine.
The Kommersant publishing house, whose eponymous flagship daily is known for its opposition to the government, was bought in late August by Alisher Usmanov, an Uzbek-born Russian tycoon and head of a subsidiary of state-owned energy giant Gazprom.
"It is my last working day today," Vladislav Borodulin said. "I have six hours left to work here, and the decision is final."
Borodulin, 40, who was chief editor of the Kommersant newspaper since the summer of 2005, said he coordinated his resignation with Usmanov, adding that he was not pressured from above.
"It was a joint decision. Alisher Usmanov, conversely, was very generous," he said. "He offered me various posts, but we decided to take a pause and wait."
In August, shortly after the Kommersant acquisition by Usmanov, Borodulin said the newspaper's current policy would meet the commercial interests of its new owner.
"I think if shareholders are interested in the commercial performance of the company, they should make every effort to hold on to the core of the personnel and leave its main policy line intact," he said.
On his last working day at the newspaper, Borodulin said he was unlikely to return to Kommersant.
"The newspaper has entered a new phase. For five days we have been publishing issues in color," he said. "The newspaper is progressing faster than I expected, and it can safely be left as a functioning entity."
"I don't think it would have been correct to devise any complicated schemes for me to stay," Borodulin added.
Usmanov, 52, bought Kommersant from Georgian tycoon Badri Patarkatsishvili, who acquired the company from his business partner and controversial Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky, a Kremlin insider under President Boris Yeltsin, who is now living in Britain as a political emigre.
After Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000, both Berezovsky and Patarkatsishvili were put on the wanted list in Russia on fraud charges. Patarkatsishvili is now living in Georgia.
Kommersant's outgoing chief editor said he did not know yet where he would go next.
"I want to take a holiday - I haven't had one for a long time - to kick the autumn leaves and then decide what to do next," he said.
Some media reports have said that Demyan Kudryavtsev, director general of Kommersant, would also quit by the end of the year.
Borodulin, however, declined to comment on the reports. "It is not in my jurisdiction," he said.
