According to the Forbes magazine's annual survey of the wealthiest 100 Russians, which was published on Thursday, April 19, Roman Abramovich is still Russia's richest citizen. He has a fortune of $19.2 billion.
Abramovich's No.1 spot was untroubled by his divorce earlier this year, which under Russian law could have cost him half his fortune and left both him and his ex-wife Irina in equal 11th place in the rankings.
Behind the 40-year-old soccer patron was a chasing pack of oil and metals magnates led by aluminium tycoon Oleg Deripaska with $16.8 billion, mainly the beneficiaries of Russia's swift privatization of its huge natural resources in the 1990s.
In 55th place, with $1.1 billion, was Boris Berezovsky, a Kremlin power-broker under President Boris Yeltsin who fell foul of his successor, Vladimir Putin, and now lives in political asylum in London.
Berezovsky said he had sold all his former Russian assets and now kept his money in bank accounts and liquid assets.
Names from outside the natural resources sectors still made up only a smattering of entries on the list, showing that Russia has a mountain to climb if it wants to achieve Putin's dream of diversifying the economy away from oil and metals.
As in previous years only one woman made the top 100 - Yelena Baturina, the wife of Moscow's mayor. Her wealth, based on the Inteko construction company, is now $3.1 billion, Forbes said.
Forbes said the list included people who had accumulated most of their money through business and were not in government service. It did not elaborate. -Source: MosNews.com
Most Rich People in the former USSR Have Questionable Riches
If Russia was truly of former communist USSR where property belonged to the state, then how would it be possible for some Russians to be rich whereas the majority are still poor?
That means some of the powerful must have cheated and looted the state as the USSR collapsed.
One God, one faith.