 | |
 Front page on 27 December 2010 | |
| Type | Dailynewspaper |
|---|---|
| Owner | Alisher Usmanov |
| Founder | Vladimir Yakovlev |
| Editor-in-chief | Mikhail Loukin |
| Founded | 1989; 37 years ago (1989) |
| Language | Russian |
| Headquarters | Moscow |
| Circulation | 120,000–130,000 (July 2013) |
| ISSN | 1561-347X (print) 1563-6380 (web) |
| OCLC number | 244126120 |
| Website | www |
Kommersant (Russian:Коммерсантъ,IPA:[kəmʲɪrˈsant],The Businessman orCommerce Man, often shortened toЪ) is a nationally distributed daily newspaper published inRussia mostly devoted to politics and business. The TNS Media and NRS Russia certified July 2013 circulation of the daily was 120,000–130,000.[1]
It is widely considered to be one of Russia's three mainbusiness dailies (together withVedomosti andRBK Daily).[2]
The originalKommersant newspaper was established in Moscow in 1909, but was shut down by theBolsheviks following theOctober Revolution in 1917.[3]
In 1989, with the onset of press freedom in Russia,Kommersant was relaunched under the ownership of businessman and publicistVladimir Yakovlev.[4][5] The first issue was released in January 1990.[6] It was modeled after Westernbusiness journalism.[5]
The newspaper's title is spelled in Russian with a terminalhard sign (ъ) – a letter that is silent at the end of a word in modern Russian, and was thus largely abolished by the post-revolutionRussian spelling reform, in reference to the originalKommersant.[6] This is played up in theKommersant logo, which features a script hard sign at the end of somewhat more formal font. The newspaper also refers to itself or its redaction as "Ъ".
Founded as aweekly newspaper, it became popular among business and political elites.[6] It then became a daily newspaper in 1992.[6][7] It was owned by the businessmanBoris Berezovsky from 1999 until 2006, when he sold it toBadri Patarkatsishvili.[5][7] In September 2006, it was sold toAlisher Usmanov.[7]
In January 2005,Kommersant published a protest at a court ruling ordering it to publish a denial of a story about a crisis atAlfa-Bank.[8] In 2008,BBC News namedKommersant one of Russia's leading liberal business broadsheets.[9]
It has been argued thatKommersant strategically uses an ironic tone in its reporting, expressed in "creativeneologisms,wordplay, metaphors, and legally imposedeuphemisms," allowing it to maintain a degree of independence in periods of severestate censorship.[10]
