Russian politician Yuri Luzhkov (born 1936) proved to be a popular mayor of Moscow. He ushered in reforms to the economy and infrastructure that increased the prosperity of the nation's capital.

Yuri Luzhkov, mayor of Moscow since his appointment by Boris Yeltsin in 1992, is a reformer who directly involves city government with the interests of private economic enterprises. Perhaps more important, he seems to have an intuitive sense of knowing what issues to champion, which people to support, and when to be in the public eye. He has made it clear to his subordinates and to Muscovites alike that he is the man in charge of the city. At times, he appears to be the ruler of a near-independent city-state. He has used his position to refuse the federal government's plan to privatize state assets in his city; as a result, Moscow now controls all federal property within its...