Russian billionaires grow

The number of billionaires in Russia nearly doubled on last year, according to Forbes Russia. And, meet Russia’s richest teenager.

Agence France-Presse
Patrick Lin

The Russian edition of Forbes released its annual rich list on Friday, showing that the number of billionaires in the country nearly doubled over the past year to reach 101.

Russia’s ranking in the billionaire game dropped dramatically in 2009, after the financial crisis hit. According to the magazine, there were 32 billionaires that year, 62 last year and a whopping 101 today.

You can read all about that here and here, but one of the most interesting tidbits was highlighted by The Financial Times. Meet Deni Bazhaev – Russia’s youngest multimillionaire. He is … 15 years old, and places 112 on the list.

The teenager is the son of a late Chechen businessman named Ziya Bazhaev and co-owns his dad’s oil and gold extraction company (Alliance Group) along with his uncle, the FT reports. Deni Bazhaev is worth an estimated at $900 million. And, I bet, is suddenly on the radar for thousands of mothers of young daughters all over Russia.