The Russian Booker Prize (Russian: Русский Букер, Russian Booker) was a Russian literary award modeled after the Booker Prize. It was awarded from 1992 to 2017. It was inaugurated by English Chief Executive Sir Michael Harris Caine. It was awarded each year to the best work of fiction, written in the Russian language, as decided by a panel of judges, irrespective of the writer's citizenship. As of 2012, the chair of the Russian Booker Prize Committee was British journalist George Walden. The prize was the first Russian non-governmental literary award since the country's 1917 Revolution.Each year, a jury choose a short list of the six best novels up for nomination from a "long list" of nominees. Initially, the winner received £10,000, roughly 48,000 RUB or $16,000. This was increased to 600,000 rubles in 2011, roughly $20,000 (roughly £13,000), while each of the short listed finalists earned $2,000 (roughly £1,300). The criteria for inclusion included literary effort, representativeness of the contemporary literary genres and the author's reputation as a writer. Length was not a criterion, as books with between 40 and 60 pages had been nominated. From 1997 to 2001, the award was renamed the Smirnoff–Booker Literary Prize, in honour of entrepreneur and Smirnoff founder Pyotr Smirnov. From 2002 to 2005, Open Russia NGO was the general sponsor of the Booker Literary Prize in Russia, leading to its name change to the Booker–Open Russia Literary Prize during that time. Before the announcement of the 2005 winner, the Booker Foundation decided to end its partnership with Open Russia after the foundation's chairman, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was sentenced to nine years in prison for tax evasion. In 2005, the committee signed a five-year contract with London-based BP. In 2010, the prize ran into funding problems and preparations for the 2010 prize were suspended because no new sponsor could be found. Since 2011 new sponsor is Russian Telecom Equipment Company (RTEC).In 2011, a "novel of the decade" was chosen due to lack of sponsorship to hold the customary award. Five finalists were chosen from sixty nominees selected from the prize's past winners and finalists since 2001. Chudakov won posthumously with A Gloom Is Cast Upon the Ancient Steps, which takes place in a fictional town in Kazakhstan and describes life under Stalinist Russia. Lyudmila Ulitskaya holds the record for most nominations (five, winning once), followed by Andrei Dmitriev (four, winning once) and Alexey Slapovsky (four, no wins). No person has won the award more than once. On 19 September 2019 Foundation Board and the Аward committee of the Russian Booker Prize officially announced the termination of the award. However, the Russian Booker Fund was not closed, "leaving the opportunity for the renewal of the award". Source: Wikipedia (en)