"In the past, the City Duma awarded the title and the tsar approved it," Kovalevsky said this week. "In today's Russia, maybe it will be approved by the president -- or maybe by the mayor himself."
Under the tsars, the title was awarded to prominent citizens such as Pavel Tretyakov, the merchant who donated his collection of Russian art to the city to form the Tretyakov Gallery. He was named Esteemed Citizen in 1896 and received a calligraphed letter stamped with a picture of St. George thanking him for his "great service" to the city, Kovalevsky said.
Though Luzhkov rose to power as a Soviet bureaucrat, Kovalevsky believes he fits right into the tradition of "city fathers," merchants and industrialists whose capital helped build many of Moscow's churches and museums.
Kovalevsky praised Luzhkov's efforts that resulted in the rebuilding of the Kazan Cathedral on Red Square and his drive to launch the grandiose project of rebuilding the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, dynamited under Stalin.
Kovalevsky said that as in tsarist times, the title would carry no special privileges or material rewards.
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