Melor Sturua

Melor Sturua (born April 10, 1928 in Tbilisi, Georgian SSR, USSR) is a Russian journalist who has written for Izvestia since 1950. He is the longest serving journalist at the newspaper.[1]

His father was one of the founders of the Social Democratic Party in Russia and also was the former Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Georgian SSR. Because his father wrote an autobiography in which he tried to clear his friends who had become victims of the Great Purge and was removed from office because of that, Sturua could not enter a diplomatic career and so he eventually became a journalist, with the aid of Deputy Prime Minister Anastas Mikoyan.[2]

Sturua became the Deputy Foreign Editor for Izvestia and was Bureau Chief for the newspaper in New York between 1968 and 1972 and was acting Foreign editor between 1972 and 1976. From 1976 till 1982, he was Washington Bureau Chief and from 1982 till 1984 he was Foreign Editor. Sturua has been a political columnist since 1982.

I can't provide any references/proof, but I lived in USSR for almost 40 years, read, listened, watched on TV Melor Sturua and it was widely known that his first name "MELOR" is first letters of "Marx-Engels-Lenin-Organisers-(of) Revolution". This was a common practice at the time he was born and names like "VILEN" (male) and "VILENA" (female) first letters of "Vladimir Ilyich Lenin", "Stalina" (female) self explanatory, etc. were frequently used. Interestingly that originally it was MELSOR which is first letters of "Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin-Organisers-(of) Revolution" After Stalin's cult of personality was strongly condemned, he changed name dropping "S" for Stalin and became Melor, which was rational move considering political environment. This is not by any means diminish his journalistic talents and achievements.