Exit The Exile, pursued by Russian bear

It has survived a 1999 front page demanding that Boris Yeltsin "Die Already" and a cover photo depicting Vladimir Putin in a Hitler-Jugend outfit. But a couple of months into the reign of the supposedly liberal Dmitry Medvedev, it looks like time is finally up for The Exile.

An 'unplanned inspection' of the Moscow-based English-language newspaper and its editorial content two weeks ago has caused its Western investors to flee in terror, said Mark Ames, an American citizen who founded the paper and is still its editor.

"The investors all told me that they love the paper but that they didn't want to be the subject of a government investigation as they have too much to risk," said Ames. "The newspaper is dead."

Ames (right) was fined a measly $22 for administrative violations but there is a chance that the editorial staff could be charged on anti-extremism and pornography laws. The check was more likely a scare tactic, and it looks like it's worked.

The cult fortnightly publication was set up in 1997 and ever since has dished up excellent political analysis mixed with outrageous pranks, always pushing the boundaries of good taste. With columns such as 'War Nerd', 'Death Porn' and 'Whore-R Stories' the newspaper has always disgusted many.

It also featured unedited columns in broken English by opposition radical leader Eduard Limonov, who has previously been jailed.

"They wanted to know why we publish Limonov," said Ames. "They also said that we mock and humiliate Russia." According to the editor, the investigators were particularly confused by the 'Recession Penis', a recurring section featuring a male gland that got bigger or smaller in line with the American economic crisis. "They kept asking what it meant," he said.

The paper has also targeted many Western correspondents in Moscow for what it sees as sloppy and anti-Russian coverage of politics here. Its journalists have even slapped a pie full of horse sperm into the face of one American correspondent, and in recent months have targeted a British journalist who they allege regularly plagiarises their articles.

The paper's last issue mocked Medvedev's words on a new, liberal era, suggesting that Russia was now so free that the publication could "urinate in the president's mouth".

What surprises most people is that it's taken 11 years for the Russian authorities to move against the newspaper. But even those who despised the publication will have to concede that Moscow will be duller without The Exile. ·