|
The thing about oligarchs is that they're not really chatterboxes. Or at
least, they might be, under the right circumstances, but this particular
circumstance involving me and my notebook, hanging around the gala opening
evening of Moscow's Millionaire Fair, like nothing so much as a bad smell,
does not appear to be one of them. This is possibly, in part, because my
attempt at the dress code is somewhat off the mark. I am wearing leather
boots and a black coat instead of something more occasion-appropriate: a
pair of gold lame hotpants, say, teamed with a cutaway bra-top. Or a
backless silver dress slashed to the thigh worn under a floor-sweeping fur
coat made of an endangered animal dimly recognisable from an old Life on
Earth
Mostly, though, the problem is the notebook. Oligarchs don't do press. Not
really, not outside the financial pages, and only occasionally then. But
then, why would they? The last Russian billionaire to get himself noticed,
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the head of the Yukos oil company and in 2004 number
one on Forbes magazine's first Russian rich list, with an estimated fortune
of ?8bn, was promptly arrested on the orders of Vladimir Putin and is now
languishing in a Siberian jail.
There's no real incentive, then, to make polite chit-chat with random
foreign journalists, although the director of the fair assures me that
there's a full complement of oligarchs - Potanin, the billionaire head of
Norilsk Nickel, for example, and Prokhorov, the man usually described as
'Russia's most eligible bachelor'. Last year, former Chechen warlord Ramzan
Kadyrov toured the show with his entourage; Ksenia Sobchak, Russia's answer
to Paris Hilton, is around somewhere, and everywhere you look there are 6ft,
high-cheekboned, otherworldly models, although what with the gold lame
hotpants and the silver dresses, and the chiselled features and unblinking
eyes, they're more like model-cum-replicants, draped artfully over
super-cars or parading down catwalks on long, giraffish legs.
For there are an awful lot of things for sale at the Millionaire Fair, most
of which you could never have even imagined that anyone might want, let
alone possibly need, or ever realistically consider buying. A cigarette
dispenser carved from the tusk of a 10,000-year-old woolly mammoth dug up
from beneath the Siberian permafrost? A Swarovski crystal-encrusted Mercedes
Benz? A diamond-studded computer zip card? And they all require 6ft
model-cum-replicants artfully displayed next to them to properly show off
their beauty.
The occasion is the third annual Moscow Millionaire Fair, the biggest and
most successful component of a worldwide franchise founded by a Dutch
entrepreneur, Yves Gijrath. When asked by a journalist what marked out
Russian millionaires from their foreign counterparts, Gijrath's answer was
succinct: 'They spend more,' he said.
They certainly do. Or, at least, it's certainly hoped that they will carry
on doing so. Given the financial troubles elsewhere in the world, Russia -
with its 40 per cent annual growth in sales of luxury goods, its fabled
super rich and its legendary New Russians - is the promised land. These are
the people who, it's hoped, will help pull us out of worldwide recession.
There are Gulfstream jets for sale at $55m, Bugatti Veyrons at ?1.3m, and a
ruby- and diamond-studded mobile phone that I think is somewhat pricey at
?120,000, until I spot another one for ?350,000. There's a stuffed
sabre-toothed tiger for $75,000, a Plexiglas self-playing piano for
?120,000, a mattress that costs $70,000 (which is almost enough to make a
sabre-toothed tiger look cheap - how can a mattress cost $70,000? If it is
made from cashmere and silk, it turns out) and a sort of home cryotherapy
unit in which you sit in temperatures of -85C and enjoy its supposedly
rejuvenating qualities. A snip at ?160,000.
There is a stand devoted to the work of Ivan Slavinsky, the self-styled
'most expensive artist in the world'. It's an interesting claim, being a)
untrue, and b) meaningless, particularly given that c) the paintings are
like a trip inside Jeremy Clarkson's subconscious: semi-naked ladies in
half-open overalls writhing in ecstasy over a Formula One car. One is even
licking the wheels. But it can't beat my favourite stand: a German company
selling 'cigar jewellery'. For ?89,000 you can buy a ring decorated with
rubies and diamonds for your cigar to wear.
It's unclear who any of this stuff is aimed at and whether anybody's buying.
It's the opening night, VIP invitation-only affair, but there's still a lot
of people who are, like me, gawping and pointing in disbelief. A set of
diamond-encrusted hubcaps? A gold-plated coffee maker?
At a property stand I slump into a suede sofa next to a group of three
twentysomething women. I chat for a bit with one of them, Liana, and then I
ask her, 'Are there any oligarchs here?'
'There is one sitting right there,' she says.
'Where?' I say. 'There,' she says. 'He is the owner of this company. In
fact, I have just bought an apartment, in his block...' And then a few
minutes later, the man himself comes over and Liana whispers and giggles in
his ear. When he leaves, she says: 'I know him very well. I was just asking
him about some things I left at his apartment after a party.'
It's quite clear that Liana has been to his apartment more than once,
although whether it's as a mistress (the oligarch I read later is in the
throes of a messy divorce), a girlfriend or a potential Mrs Oligarch-to-be,
it's difficult to tell. She has her own firm, she tells me, which, very much
a niche Moscow business this, specialises in decorating things - household
objects, utensils, whatever - with Swarovski crystals.
'Do you think women want to make money themselves or marry money?' I ask
her.
She doesn't hesitate for a moment. 'They want to marry money. In Russia,
women still want to be looked after, they want the man to put on her coat,
and to open doors and to bring presents. My jewellery, this is all presents.
The ring? It is garnet and diamonds. Clothes, these boots, these are things
that we buy for ourselves, but jewellery like this should be a present. This
necklace, this ring, this bracelet, these earrings - they are all presents.
This is the way that it is.'
This may be the way it is but, for all the diamonds and baubles, it's not
always a pretty sight watching Russia's rich at play. At the end of the
evening, I watch as a few men who cannot wait any longer push their way to
the front of the cloakroom queue and demand their coats; a Hummer
circumnavigates a traffic jam by simply wheeling up and across a central
reservation; and in the lobby, three young children run around a delicate
crystal tree in the lobby, tugging at its translucent branches. Their mother
sits and watches them until the inevitable happens, the branch snaps, and
she simply turns away and the children play on, without a hint of a
reprimand. Later, in the toilets, I enter a cubicle from which a stunning
6ft supermodel type in an immaculate designer dress, make-up and fur coat
emerges. There is piss all over the seat.
Part of the problem with finding oligarchs is that while everyone either
knows them or knows of them, no one actually believes that they are an
oligarch. In the Nineties, it came to be the word for the handful of
individuals who wrested control of the old state-run enterprises, making
billions of dollars in the process and, for a time, wielding vast political
power. The Khodorkovsky affair signalled the end of that period, and now the
label is applied to any super-rich businessman, or woman, but mostly men. Of
which Russia has hundreds, thousands. And the rich here are so much richer
than they are almost anywhere else.
When Forbes magazine began compiling a Russian rich list in 2004, it stated
that there were 36 billionaires. Last year there were 53, worth a total of
$282bn; and in this year's the editor believes there will be 'at least 80' -
only the US has more. The 100 richest citizens are reckoned to be worth
almost 25 per cent of the nation's GDP, while 20 per cent of the country
lives below the poverty line, according to the most conservative estimates.
In a recent survey, 75 per cent of respondents said they wanted to be
properly hugely wealthy, not merely middle-class. The oligarchs are not just
a massive pillar of the entire economy, or a small elite of reclusive,
secretive individuals who wield more wealth than most developing nations,
they are a cultural touchstone for the entire nation.
On day two, the fair is open to the public, and more than 40,000 people,
paying ?30 a head, will eventually pass through the doors. In terms of
oligarch-hunting, however, the prospects look poor, until I meet Anton, the
marketing manager for a property firm, Villagio, that specialises in
building 'cottage settlements' - dachas in well-guarded compounds on the
outskirts of the city.
Anton agrees to take me on a tour of its latest development and arrange a
meeting with one of the company's joint owners, Sergey Kozlovskiy. When I
Google him later, I discover he is a bona fide Russian rich man - a
mid-lister, in Forbes's terms, not so rich as to be a household name, but
rich enough to be very rich indeed.
We drive out of Moscow to a surprisingly beautiful spot. The development is
in the middle of a forest, and with a sprinkling of fresh snow on the ground
it looks rather magical. Anton and his colleague, Paul, the sales director,
bombard me with figures: the company employs 10,000 people, including 300
architects, it's worth $4bn, there are five kilometres of canals, a large
artificial lake, a school, a health-care centre, shops. The houses aren't so
much cottages as the type of property Tony Soprano lives in - it's all
double garages and pastel colours, and picture windows and balustrades and
cornices - sort of New Jersey moderne.
Before we meet Kozlovskiy, whom I have come to think of as the Oligarch,
Paul and Anton tell me that he is a very modest sort of oligarch. That 'he
doesn't fly a private jet even when we ask him to. He never wants them, he
says it's an unnecessary luxury.' How he's still married to his childhood
sweetheart, and how he refused to buy his son a car 'until he was 18 and
then bought him a not very good one and the next one he had to earn'.
An unassuming oligarch? This doesn't fit my preconceptions at all. The only
sign of oligarchiness is that he is building a new house which, at 10,000
square metres, will be one of the biggest private houses in Russia. Paul
interrupts this news to stop his car to say hello to some customers.
'Where?' I say. There's only a man in a shell-suit, flat cap and work boots
looking at a hole in the ground. Is he an oligarch? It turns out that he is.
'He is a very important client. Very very rich. Gas industry. No pictures.'
His wife is waiting in a fairly unassuming Mercedes, wearing a plastic mac.
They're about as unlikely a vision of oligarch and oligarch's wife as you
could ever hope to meet.
I'm beginning to realise that my preconceived ideas about Russians aren't
right. There's a distinct lack of flashiness among the real elite. It's
those on the way up who have to look the part. 'The first thing I did when I
had money was to buy an expensive car,' says Paul. 'To do business in Russia
you have be on the same level. Or at least pretend to be on the same level
as your customer.'
Kozlovskiy, when I finally get to meet him, tells me, 'Ten years ago there
was much more of this tacky, luxurious taste. Now in high society it's bad
manners to demonstrate your wealthiness. As well as connections with the
political situation, there's been a change of culture.' By which, of course,
he means Putin.
What Kozlovskiy's customers want more than anything, he says, is not
security, or space, it's 'very important to feel comfortable in the same
circle of people which surrounds you - in the social environment'. He was a
young computer programmer in 1991, discovered that there was no company
which could help you buy a flat, and set up his own, Inkom, which is now the
biggest estate agent in Russia, one of the top 100 private companies. Not
bad for a boy who grew up in a 'kommunalka kvartira', a communal flat where
his family had two rooms and shared the kitchen and bathroom with three
other families.
That's the thing about Russia. It's just so extreme, where people have come
from compared to what they have now, what has changed in the space of 15
years. 'The level of income you can achieve here is highly unlikely to be
achieved in any other country in the world,' he says.
Kozlovskiy's unusual, though, explains George Shishkovsky, the wonderfully
chatty owner of LondonDom.com, the top Russian relocation agents in London,
because he doesn't have what they call 'an airport in case of emergency' - a
house abroad. 'Everybody has an "airport" to land at in case there is
turbulence in Russia.'
It's not hard to see why. I meet Maxim Kashulinsky, the editor of Forbes
Russia, whose predecessor, Paul Klebnikov, was shot dead in a drive-by
contract killing shortly after he published Russia's first rich list in
2004. The police believed it was the work of Chechens, but nobody has ever
been convicted of his murder.
These are nervous times. A foreign journalist tells me his calls are
monitored and that, 'I don't refer to people by their names in emails any
more.' Kashulinsky asks me to email him his quotes before going to press,
and it's hard not to feel paranoid. But then it's only paranoia if there
isn't anybody following you, whereas even Daria Veledeeva, the editor of
Grazia, and very much a girl around town, tells me she has to be a little
bit careful who she chooses to put on her 'fashion jury' pages, where her
experts pick apart a celebrity's outfit. 'It's not that I've ever been
scared of anybody, but you pick the wrong person and... It's why we don't
have a proper paparazzi here. There are some photos that you couldn't
print.'
'Do you ever have kiss-and-tell stories in the newspapers?' I ask her.
'Where the mistresses of famous men come forward?'
'No, of course not. They're afraid to be killed. It's not a joke. Nobody
wants to be joking with this. It's dangerous.'
Just as the Millionaire Fair is winding down, a conference on international
luxury is gearing up. It's a high-profile affair. Tom Ford is in town, as is
Donatella Versace, and Suzy Menkes, the fashion editor of the International
Herald Tribune I go to a press conference and there's an unmistakeable whiff
of western companies trying desperately to cash in. Paul, the sales director
of Inkom, tells me of an Irish interior designer who was employed by an
oligarch to work on his house and who 'flew first class, and stayed in the
best hotels, and then he charged half a million dollars just for the initial
drawings and wanted $5m for the actual designs. Very stupid. Russian people
do still kill for this amount of money.'
Maxim Kashulinksy, the editor of Forbes, points to the fact that the gulf
between rich and poor is growing ever wider. The famous Russian middle-class
exists, he says, but is still tiny compared with most countries. He also
tells me about a law that allows government officials and VIPs to put a blue
siren on their car 'and everybody has to allow them through'. And do they?
'They do. Because if they don't it's illegal. It's quite medieval. That we
have these... sovereigns. It is quite disgusting.'
Later, I go to a party in the Versace shop, the most lucrative Versace shop
in the world, hosted by Donatella herself. Russia's fashion elite come to
pay homage at the court of Donatella. These are daughters of oligarchs,
girlfriends of oligarchs, wives of oligarchs, and the closest thing that
Russia has to aristocracy these days - the granddaughter of Mikhail
Gorbachev, Ksenia Gorbachev, and her sister Anastasia.
I chat to Ksenia, who is immaculately kitted out in a black Versace dress
with a little white collar. There are jewels at her ears, her hair is
groomed, her nails are perfect and her shoes are of the type that when she
walks downstairs she appears to be in danger of falling headlong to her
death. She has no interest in politics, she says. She had 'enough of
politics' when she was growing up and is now a 'producer' and occasional
celebrity interviewer for Grazia magazine. But then these days, her
grandfather, Mikhail, turns up in advertisements for Louis Vuitton, which
somehow says everything you need to know about Russia and its relationship
with the luxury goods business.
It's the ride of a lifetime, the Russian gravy train. Everybody wants a bit
of it, and although the organisers of the fair issue a press release saying
that seven Bugattis at ?1.3m a piece were sold, 15 GoldVish phones at
?350,000, and a gold-plated coffee-maker at ?65,000, I feel quietly pleased
that the German cigar jewellery people are wearing expressions of
disappointment. 'They just don't seem to... get it,' one of them tells me.
And I feel like applauding. But then I guess you don't get to become a
Russian oligarch, among the very richest people who have ever lived on this
earth, by being stupid enough to buy a jewelled cigar gee-gaw.
Source: http://shopping.guardian.co.uk/gadgets/story/0,,2256764,00
|
