He died as a result of injuries referred a month ago in a sailing accident that occurred when he and his wife Ellen Verbeek sailed into the water.
Sauer, born in Amsterdam, spent his youth as a leftist activist, and then became a journalist of Dutch newspapers and television stations.
In 1989, together with Verbeek, he moved to Moscow in the last years of the Soviet Union.
In 1992, Sauer founded The Moscow Times, an English -speaking journal directed to the growing emigrant community in Russia's post -Soviet Russia. Under his leadership, the newspaper became a trusted, independent source of information for millions of readers in the country and abroad, and helped in the start of their career dozens of outstanding journalists.
In the same year, Sauer and his business partner Annemmarie Van Gaal founded an Independent Media, which published the Russian versions of the magazines “Cosmopolitan”, “Playboy”, “FHM”, “Harper's Bazaar”, “Good Housekeeping”, “Esquire” and “Men's Health”.
In 1999, Sauer became a co -founder of “Wedomosti”, one of the main business newspapers in the country. He also served as the director of “RBC”, another leading business publishing house.
Sauer, a well -known character in the Dutch media, regularly wrote a column for the “Het Parol” newspaper and often appeared on Dutch television.
After the sale of The Moscow Times in 2005, in 2017 he bought the publication and re -launted it as a digital medium. The editors operated in Moscow until March 2022, when the Russian war censorship regulations forced Sauer and employees to move to Amsterdam.
Thanks to the support of Sauer, the Independent TV station TV Rain and journalists from the exiled Russian Information Service Meduza also moved to Amsterdam, helping to create the center of independent Russian media in exile.
Derk Sauer left his wife and three sons.
