Former Press editor Anna Dolgov dies at 47

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Anna Dolgov, a globetrotting, polyglot journalist and former editor at The Riverdale Press, died after suffering a stroke in her Riverdale apartment last Saturday. She was 47.

Dolgov amassed more than two decades of local and international reporting experience, including at The Boston Globe and The Moscow Times, prior to taking the helm at The Press in 2016. She was the immediate predecessor of current editor Michael Hinman.

“As a resident of the community, I am thrilled to be involved with my hometown paper,” Dolgov told The Press at the time. “I was attracted to working at The Press because it’s one of the most honored community newspapers in the nation, and I could tell how hard the staff was working.”

Dolgov spent her youth in Russia and Japan. She learned English as a second language before discovering her knack for storytelling while a student at the University of California at Berkeley.

“She was very passionate about her work, very creative,” said her brother, Dmitri Dolgov. “She was one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. When she set her mind on something, she would just go after it, whether it was in school, or her career in journalism.” 

Fluent in Russian and Ukrainian, Dolgov would go on to cover breaking stories throughout the former Soviet Union for The Associated Press, including the war in Chechnya. Her AP team was a finalist for the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for what judges called “skillful and courageous coverage of the Russian attack on Chechnya.”

Perhaps one of her most inspiring qualities, Dmitri says, “was how audacious she was at tackling the things that she was most passionate about. She would just fly out” to Chechnya and “be on the front lines. She wanted to make sure that she was reporting accurately, with no regards for her own health or safety.”

Which wasn’t exactly easy on her family.

“She would come back and she would tell stories about her trips,” Dmitri said. “My parents and I would be scared and shocked, but she would just be so excited about the work that she had done.”

Returning to the United States in 2006, Dolgov covered the United Nations for the AP, according to The Press, and dove into digital technologies, developing websites and computer applications for clients, including the American Jewish Committee. 

She later rejoined The Moscow Times to cover Russia- and Ukraine-related events at the United Nations.

Dolgov was pursuing a master’s degree in data analytics at Fordham University at the time of her death.

But Dolgov applied no less passion to covering her own northwest Bronx community, which she called “a wonderful place” with “so many fascinating stories.”

“She would always pour her heart and all of her energy into whatever she was working on,” Dmitri said.

In addition to her brother, Dolgov is survived by her father, Alexander, and mother, Inna.

Funeral services were held Wednesday at the Flower Funeral Home in Yonkers, followed by a burial at Woodlawn Cemetery on Webster Avenue.

Anna Dolgov, The Riverdale Press, Zak Kostro