It must be nice for Derk Sauer to get out alone for once. The diminutive Dutchman, a media mogul in Russia, has been going around Moscow with some of Mikhail Gorbachev’s former bodyguards for four years since someone shot the editor of Russian Playboy, one of his magazines. But this morning in Amsterdam, his home town, he shows up unaccompanied at breakfast in Hotel Europe.
The chandeliered dining room, replete with ‘new Russians’, befits Mr Sauer’s new status. The Maoist-turned-war correspondent is founder and chief executive of the Russian publisher Independent Media. Earlier this year the Finnish media group SanomaWSOY bought it for €142m ($172m). It was Mr Sauer’s reward for becoming the first foreigner to crack Russia’s media market.
