DAILY EXPRESS: LAST week Roman Abramovich spent £61m on just two paintings to add to the fleet of yachts, homes and luxury toys amassed by a billionaire who seems to spend his money like there’s no tomorrow...
The russians call it “muzhik”. It used to mean “peasant man” but it now translates as “nouveau riche”. And after growing up as an orphan close to the Arctic Circle, being so very newly rich clearly drives Roman Abramovich.
The 41-year-old owner of Chelsea Football Club, Britain’s richest man and the 16th richest in the world, is worth an astronomical £12billion and he certainly knows how to spend it.
It was rumoured at the weekend that the buyer of both Francis Bacon’s 1976 Triptych (sold for £44million) and the controversial Benefits Supervisor Sleeping by Lucian Freud (£17million – a world record for a living artist), sold at auctions in New York last week, is none other than the former Lada-driving, plastic duck salesman from Siberia.
When you’ve known hardship as Roman has and now exist under constant threat of assassination, perhaps there’s little point in letting your hard-won roubles accumulate in the bank. Here [at the Daily Express] we reveal how this highly secretive man likes to splash just some of his mega-cash… >>> By Jane Warren | May 20, 2008
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback - UK)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback - UK)
