Ex-Moscow mayor Luzhkov, populist heavyweight, dies

Former Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, a political heavyweight who transformed Russia's capital but was dogged by corruption claims, has died aged 83, the current mayor said Tuesday.

Sergei Sobyanin, who succeeded Luzhkov nine years ago, announced Luzhkov's death on Twitter, calling him a "life-loving person" who "did a lot for the city and for Muscovites."

Luzhkov, who burnished his populist credentials with a trademark flat cap and a passion for bee-keeping, was unceremoniously fired in 2010 after running the city for 18 years.

A major political figure during the 1990s, Luzhkov was a key ally of Russia's first president Boris Yeltsin until 1999 and was one of the founders of Russia's ruling United Russia party. His long stint as mayor saw the capital swell both in population and economic clout, but he was also associated with corruption owing to the success of his wife, a construction magnate.

Luzhkov shared his hobby energetically, launching ubiquitous honey festivals in Moscow. He was loved by older Muscovites for increasing their pensions but hated by preservationists for his allegedly garish taste and destruction of historic buildings.

His dismissal in 2010 came after a series of hastily compiled documentaries that discredited him on Russian television. Luzhkov was one of the last of the type of popular politicians elected in the pre-Vladimir Putin era and was replaced by Sobyanin, a Siberian technocrat.