Gazprom-Media chairman appointed Malta honorary consul

Dmitry Samokhin has been appointed as honorary consul for Malta in Veliky Novgorod, a historic Russian city that serves as the centre of the Novgorod Oblas district situated between Moscow and St Petersburg.

Samokhin is chairman of the board of NTV-PLUS of Gazprom Media.

He met members of the Chamber of Commerce in March 2014, accompanied by two representatives of the Maltese foreign ministry.

Although there is already a consul for Malta in St. Petersburg, Samokhin is representing Malta in the surrounding area St Petersburg. “Both parties agreed that even though Russia is a major economic power in the world, the growth areas between Malta and Russia in recent years have concentrated around two areas – the influx of Russian English language students and the many sectors associated with high net-worth individuals such as real estate, yachting, financial services and medical services,” the Chamber said back in March 2014.

Gazprom-Media is the largest Russian media holding founded in 2000 as a subsidiary of Gazprom, the Russian energy giant. In 2000 it acquired NTV, the only nationwide state-independent television in Russia of the time, as well as other media assets of Vladimir Gusinsky’s Media Most group, which raised a major controversy and resulted in considerable changes in their editorial policy.

In 2005 Gazprom-Media purchased Izvestia, a leading nationwide newspaper. In August 2005 Gazprom sold the group to Gazprombank.