Ousted Moscow mayor goes back to university – as a dean

Yury Luzhkov, sacked by the Russian president “due to a loss of confidence”, has obtained a position as the City Management faculty dean at Moscow’s International University, with a token salary of one ruble a month.

Actually, Luzhkov is the very man on whose initiative the faculty was founded in 2002, and he has been its academic supervisor ever since.

The university’s head said the idea of a one-ruble-a-month salary belongs to Luzhkov himself, though he was offered a fee commensurate with the salaries of other deans.

At first Luzhkov will be fulfilling administrative work – co-ordinating the work of sub-departments and academic activities – as preparing a course of lectures will take some time on his part.

Earlier, in an interview with “The New Times” magazine, Luzhkov said he intended to create his own political movement to work on forming democratic laws.