Former Czech President Klaus Wins Yegor Gaidar Award

Former Czech President Vaclav Klaus has received an annual award named after the late Russian reformer Yegor Gaidar.

The chief of state-controlled Russian corporation Rusnano, Anatoly Chubais, presented Klaus with the 2014 award "for contribution to development of ties with Russia" at a ceremony in Moscow on November 19.

The chief editor of Moscow-based newspaper "Novaya Gazeta," Dmitry Muratov, won the award for "achievements in the development of civil society in Russia."

Historian and philosopher Aleksandr Yanov won the 2014 award in history and Yevsei Gurvich was honored as the best economist of the year.

The annual awards were established in 2010 by the Yegor Gaidar Foundation.

Gaidar, a liberal reformer who was Russia's acting prime minister from June to December 1992 under President Boris Yeltsin, is known as a chief author of Russia's wrenching transition from a communist economy to a free-market system.