A few months before his instantly notorious purchase of the London Evening Standard, oligarch Alexander Lebedev had shuttered his Russian tabloid: The Moscow Correspondent. The laid-off staff of that paper still know how to wield that poison pen, though, as they have shown in a pseudo-deferential open letter to “the honorable Alexander Evgenievich.”

In the strenuously sarcastic screed published on the Private Correspondent web site, the staff remind Lebedev that “only two months ago, you fired us, with the explanation that this damned crisis and the greed of higher-ups had left you with not enough money to help with children's clinics and temple restoration.”

“Strange... you don’t have the 200,000 rubles to pay Moscow’s journalists, but you scarcely miss the millions you spent on the English press. And what, pray tell, of the children and temples?”

Touché. Here’s another jab: “Thinking you incapable of lying, we were initially delighted. You’ve bought your English publication, now you’re ready to pay us... Then it dawned on us: one of your assistants promised to find a good place for the fallen staff of Moscow Correspondent. So that’s what you were talking about!"

“Alexander Evgenievich, we are immensely thankful for your concern. And we’re ready to start work tomorrow for your publication. There’s only one problem—not all of us know English. But you, with your generosity and sense of duty, will certainly arrange for our English courses!”

From our safe, comfortable and highly renumerated (right? Ilya?) perch as American bloggers, we wonder why the staff didn’t march straight to the courthouse after Lebedev failed to pay them their final month’s due. But hey, Russian scribes have been using dark sarcasm as their preferred problem-solving method for centuries. No reason to stop now.

Open Letter to Alexander Lebedev [Private Correspondent]
Alexander Lebedev's Evening Standard Takeover [Guardian]

Photo courtesy of guardian.co.uk