The Radar guide to Russian oligarchs

In the mid-'90s, radish-nosed Russian leader Boris Yeltsin introduced privatization into the marketplace. A decade later, thanks to endemic corruption and sweetheart deals cut with former Communists and their cronies, 40 percent of Russia's $546 billion economy is in the iron grip of just 22 businessmen. After the recent assassination of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London, these oligarchs are as radioactive as ever. One of Litvinenko's closest allies—a key suspect in his murder, naturally—is Boris Berezovsky, whom many consider to be the nastiest of the Red moguls. How nasty is that? Meet six of the brashest, ballsiest, most brazen men ever to hobble a former superpower whilst wearing tracksuits.

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Roman Abramovich

Who is he?
Orphaned at age four, Abramovich was raised by his grandparents in a remote Siberian village 700 miles north of the capital. Today, he's considered the world's richest Russian (though he's technically Bahamian, and lives in London), with an estimated $19.5 billion stashed in various shady banks across the globe.

What does he own?
Where to begin: oil giant Sibneft, Russian Aluminum, Aeroflot airlines, and the Chelsea Premiership Football Club (yes, we mean soccer). The "stealth oligarch" also owns four luxury yachts, including the 372-foot, $90 million Pelorus, a Boeing 767, several helicopters, the governorship of the province of Chukotka in Siberia (though he's rumored to be stepping down), a compound in St. Tropez, and a 424-acre estate in West Sussex, England, which once belonged to King Hussein of Jordan, and is home to 100 horses, two polo fields, a pool, a shooting range, and a go-kart track for his five kids. Oh, and a six-story brick mansion in London, formerly home to the Duke of Westminster, worth about $46 million. A record-shattering, 525-foot-plus gigayacht called Eclipse is rumored to be under construction at the Blohm + Voss shipyard in Germany. Luckily, Abramovich isn't one to let his toys go to waste—as Vanity Fair noted, "He likes to have breakfast on one yacht, lunch on another, dinner on the third, and, of course, he's got a different set of chefs on each yacht."

NOTABLE SCANDALS
• Abramovich met his second wife, Irina, while she was serving him as a stewardess on Aeroflot. And to think, he might've just had tea! Shockingly, a divorce settlement could now be in the offing and might be the most expensive ever recorded, leaving Irina with half of Abramovich's spoils. The English press has speculated that Irina wants out due to Roman's extra-marital relations with Dasha Zhukova, the alluring 25-year-old ex-girlfriend of tennis star Marat Safin.
• Sibneft was investigated in 2001 on charges that the company failed to pay about $450 million in taxes, funds that some claim he used to buy his soccer team. The case was mysteriously closed.
• New York magazine recently speculated that Abramovich may have been the anonymous buyer of Picasso's $95 million Dora Maar au Chat, the most expensive painting ever sold, a rumor he denies.

FUN FACTS
• Despite his wealth, he sports a "chunky eighties-style digital watch," according to the Observer of London.
• His wife has four permanent bodyguards, all former SAS soldiers.
• No known photographs of Abramovich existed in the public record before 1999.
• His mother died due to complications from a botched abortion and his father was killed in a freak building accident. Before amassing his riches, Abramovich worked out of a tiny, one-room apartment selling used tires and children's dolls.