Last month, aluminum and weapons tycoon Oleg Deripaska surpassed oil baron Roman Abramovich, who has a Jewish father, as Russia's wealthiest person.
According to the Russian magazine Finance, Deripaska's personal fortune, some $21.2 billion, is roughly $200 million greater than Abramovich's. For the first time since the mid-1990s, the title of Russia's wealthiest man has been handed to someone who is not of Jewish origin.
The small revolution carried out by Deripaska is part of a much wider phenomenon: If until four years ago roughly half of Russia's billionaires were of Jewish origin, then by the beginning of 2007 that portion shrank to roughly 10 percent, according to aliyah activist Alex Tantzer. "There is a clear process of Russification of capital," said Tantzer. "The new wealthy are 'our guys' who are close to those in power. The Jewish oligarchs who were associated with Boris Yeltsin's rule have been forced to leave the country after Putin's rise to power, and have remained out of the picture."
At the end of the 1990s, Boris Berezovsky was Russia's richest man and was considered to have the greatest amount of influence on Yeltsin. A short time after Putin's rise, the "Kremlin's godfather" was forced to flee to Britain. His personal fortune was estimated in 1997 to be $3 billion and shrank by two-thirds to roughly $1 billion by 2006.
Fate of Khodorkovsky's fortune unclear
An even more famous case was that of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, owner of the YUKOS oil corporation, who was considered Russia's wealthiest person in 2003. Khodorkovsky, who publicly criticized Putin's leadership and supported opposition parties, is currently serving a long term in a Siberian prison, and the fate of his personal fortune is unclear.
Following the departure of the oligarchs who quarreled with Putin, the list of wealthy Russians continued to be led by individuals of Jewish origin. In 2004, the three wealthies Russians were Abramovich, Mikhail Friedman and Viktor Vekselberg. But even though they were wise enough to maintain good relations with the Kremlin, they were surpassed in recent years by a new group of oligarchs considered to be closer to Putin and his associates. In 2007, Abramovich was the only man of Jewish origin among the top five wealthiest Russians.
Taken with a grain of salt
The accuracy of figures regarding the size of Russian fortunes must be taken with a grain of salt. Inclusion in the Forbes or Finance list of wealthy people is considered in Russia to be a recipe for trouble.
Rumor has it that people are willing to pay large sums to the lists' formulators to not mention their name, or to reduce their reported wealth. But even if they are not accurate, much can be learned from the lists about social phenomena in Russia.
Israeli sources who are in close contact with the Russian business elite say that this group currently includes fewer and fewer Jews. They say this is not due to anti-Semitism, but rather to a changing of the country's elite.
"Jews acquired wealth because they were the first to recognize the vacuum created and they had advantages over the locals like foreign ties," they said. "Today the key to wealth is personal ties to the Kremlin and its head."
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