The first deputy mayor of Russia's biggest city, Vladimir Resin, is now its acting mayor, after Yury Luzhkov was fired early Tuesday by President Dmitry Medvedev.
Some basic information on Resin:
* Vladimir Iosifovich Resin was born Feb. 21, 1936, in the Belarussian capital, Minsk. He graduated in 1958 from the Moscow Mining Institute. He is married with a daughter and has said his work is his main interest in life.
* After working in the Soviet coal-mining sector and for several construction organizations in Moscow, he became head of the capital's flagship construction firms Glavmosinzhstroi and Glavmospromstroi in 1974.
He started working in the city's administration in 1988 and is now head of architecture and construction. He prides himself on the rebuilding of the Christ the Savior Cathedral and has criticized the modern style of the British Embassy in Moscow.
* Like Luzhkov, he often wears a flat cap in public. In an interview with Izvestia in August 2005, he was asked of whom he was afraid: "My wife Marta and Luzhkov. The mayor's opinion has always been important to me."
* Resin also has a penchant for expensive wristwatches. When Vedomosti last year published pictures of outlandishly expensive watches on the wrists of the national elite, the most expensive — recognized by experts as Swiss-made DeWitt, Academia Tourbillon Differentiel rose gold, costing more than 1 million Swiss francs (about $1 million) before tax — belonged to Resin.
* He has been decorated 49 times for his services to the state and is a freeman of three cities: the Armenian capital, Yerevan; Gyumri, also in Armenia; and Balakhna, in the Nizhny Novgorod region.
Compiled by Reuters from Construction World, the official web site of the Integrated Body for Urban Design Policy and Development of Moscow, City Hall's web site, Vedomosti and Izvestia.
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