Exactly one year ago, Derk Sauer, the founder of The Moscow Times, passed away. His death was untimely and unexpected, the result of an accident. Derk remained actively involved with The Moscow Times until his last day. He had no plans to retire and was not preparing to step down.

“I believe that an entrepreneur’s life is divided into four quarters,” another remarkable entrepreneur, watch industry icon Jean-Claude Biver, once told me. “The beginning of a career is the ‘apprenticeship’ quarter; the longest is the ‘active’ quarter; the ‘handover’ quarter; and the final ‘retirement’ quarter.”

By this definition, Derk was still in his “active” quarter. It seemed as though his unexpected passing would inevitably spell the end of The Moscow Times. After all, how could a Russian-English publication about Russia, operating in exile from Amsterdam — where we ended up thanks to Derk, without whom we might instead have ended up in a Russian prison — possibly survive without its founder?

Success always attracts envy and ill will, and a publication with a clear political stance, such........

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