09 JANUARY / Nikolai Uskov has decided to step down as Editor-in-Chief of GQ Russia and to accept the offer to head the Jivi! Media Group, which publishes the SNOB project. Nikolai will be succeeded at GQ by novelist and journalist Michael Idov.
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Nikolai Uskov has decided to step down as Editor-in-Chief of GQ Russia and to accept the offer to head the Jivi! Media Group, which publishes the SNOB project. Nikolai will be succeeded at GQ by novelist and journalist Michael Idov.
Uskov has been at the helm of GQ Russia for eight years, and has created a unique magazine formula, combining fashion and style with politics and social issues. Under the guidance of Nikolai Uskov, GQ Russia has become both a style authority and a social and political medium, in line at once with the distinctive GQ style and the traditional Russian literary-magazine format.
«Nikolai was not simply a great innovator of Russian GQ. He was an embodiment of the lifestyle and the ideas the magazine was popularizing. I am grateful to Nikolai for everything he has done for us, and I will watch the future stages of his career with great interest. I wish him all the success and hope to be able to continue to cooperate in many possible ways», - says Karina Dobrotvorskaya, President and Editorial Director of Conde Nast Russia.
«The decision to leave GQ was a hard one to take, says Nikolai Uskov. – Eight years, over 100 issues of GQ and GQ Style, gq.ru, GQ Bar, GQ Men of the Year Ceremony, the first iPad issues, and last but not least our five-volume, tenth-anniversary book. All of this was a fantastic time, and I am deeply grateful to Condé Nast for its generous trust, constant support and the fabulous experience I had working for the best publishing house in the world. However, every man reaches a moment in life when he decides to try something new. This is where I find myself now. And I am happy that the new Editor-in-Chief of GQ is not a stranger to the magazine – it will be Michael Idov, our columnist and GQ Writer of the Year in 2010. I would like to wish Michael all the luck».
Michael Idov is widely known in Russia – he has been a contributor to many Condé Nast Russian magazines. In the U.S., where Idov lives since 1992, he is a contributing editor at New York Magazine, has edited his own magazine, and has written high-profile features for the American edition of GQ. Michael Idov is appointed Editor of GQ Russia as of February 1st, 2012.
«I believe that GQ Russia will greatly benefit from Idov's experience, his understanding of the ethics and the objectives of journalism, his connections in the international magazine world, and his fresh point of view, says Karina Dobrotvorskaya. – Michael is moving to Moscow specifically for GQ Russia. I am sure he will not regret it, as this job promises to be both challenging and rewarding».
«In a stroke of unbelievable luck, I am taking one of the most interesting jobs in Russia at one of the most interesting times for Russia. Having spent twenty years in the U.S., 14 of them in my dearly (and loudly) beloved New York, I am delighted to accept the position - and with it, the equally exalted position of a Muscovite», - says Michael Idov.
Michael Idov was born in Latvia in 1976 and has lived in New York City since 1998. In his five years as a contributing editor at New York Magazine, he became a three-time recipient of the National Magazine Award. Idov is also the author of the novel «Ground Up» and its bestselling Russian adaptation «Kofemolka», as well as the non-fiction book «Made In Russia: Unsung Icons of Soviet Design». His work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, Foreign Policy, Food & Wine, Glamour, Slate and many other publications, as well as the Russian magazines Afisha, Snob, Mir, and Big City. In 2010, Idov became the first author to simultaneously begin contributing to the American and the Russian GQ. He is moving to Moscow with his wife Lily, a photographer, their infant daughter Vera, and cat Katsuko.
