mikhail prokhorov yacht

Biden And Allies Are Coming For Russian Billionaires’ Yachts: Forbes Tracked Down 63. Here’s Where To Find Them

• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to Linkedin

Most of the yachts are registered through offshore vehicles and docked in far-flung locales.

Updated with new sanctions on September 14, 2023. The locations in this article were last updated on January 9, 2023 and the map has not been updated since this story was originally published in March 2022.

R ussian billionaires have been in the spotlight since Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine on February 24. In his State of the Union address on March 1, President Joe Biden said his administration would work with European countries to target Russian oligarchs by seizing “their yachts, their luxury apartments, their private jets.”

The United Kingdom and the European Union imposed sanctions on three more Russian billionaires on March 9 and the U.K. sanctioned Roman Abramovich the next day; more sanctions were announced on March 15 and on March 24; new actions have since brought the total number of sanctioned Russian-born billionaires to 50. Several yachts owned by sanctioned billionaires or their family members and associates—Roman Abramovich, Farkhad Akhmedov, Vagit Alekperov, Andrei Guriev, Eduard Khudainatov, Andrei Kuzmichev, Igor Makarov, Andrey Melnichenko, Alexey Mordashov, Dmitry Pumpyansky, Arkady Rotenberg, Gennady Timchenko, Eugene Shvidler, Alisher Usmanov and Viktor Vekselberg—were last tracked in the U.S., EU or in the U.K. and their territories after the individuals were sanctioned, including France, Germany, Gibraltar, Italy, the Netherlands, Puerto Rico and Spain.

Their personal assets in the European Union, from private jets and superyachts to luxury real estate, may now be frozen. Italian authorities froze Mordashov’s Lady M yacht and Timchenko’s Lena yacht on March 4. On March 12, Italian police froze Melnichenko’s Sailing Yacht A in Trieste. On March 21, authorities in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar detained Dmitry Pumpyansky’s Axioma yacht, the same day French authorities froze a yacht owned by Alezei Kuzmichev. On April 4, Spain’s Guardia Civil and the FBI seized Vekselberg’s Tango yacht in Palma de Mallorca . On April 13, German authorities froze Dilbar , a yacht that was owned by Alisher Usmanov until he transferred ownership to his sister Gulbakhor Ismailova in 2020. On May 5, Fiji seized Suleiman Kerimov’s yacht Amadea at the request of U.S. authorities.

It’s still unclear whether the EU, the U.S. or the U.K. will declare additional sanctions on other individuals. As recently as February 28, Forbes tracked the wealth of more than 100 Russian billionaires. Using data from yacht valuation experts VesselsValue, Forbes has compiled a list of every yacht owned by Russian-born billionaires and recent dropoffs—both those that have been sanctioned and those that have not. At least 12 Russian billionaires fell out of the three-comma-club on March 1.

According to VesselsValue’s head of superyachts, Sam Tucker, yacht “ownership is notoriously private.” The firm has 90% confidence in its data on these yachts, which are generally owned through offshore companies registered everywhere from the Isle of Man to the Cayman Islands. Collectively, the 63 yachts are worth at least $6.3 billion. The 53 yachts owned by sanctioned Russian billionaires are worth at least $4.7 billion.

“Technically speaking, these yachts are owned by a special purpose vehicle, often being in a different jurisdiction to the beneficial owner,” Tucker said. “There are also lease systems, which further distance the [owner] from the asset.” Lease systems are legal structures commonly used to purchase yachts, allowing individuals to own a yacht through a separate company—often registered in places such as Malta and Cyprus—that then leases the yacht to the individual.

While the Russian economy crashes under the weight of sanctions, yachts owned by the country’s billionaires have anchored in much sunnier climes: everywhere from Monaco and Barcelona to Dubai and the Seychelles.

Here is a list of all of the yachts owned by Russian billionaires and billionaires born in Russia tracked by Forbes and VesselsValue (Location data from VesselsValue, MarineTraffic and VesselFinder):

Alexander Abramov

Sanctioned by australia, u.k., yacht name: titan, length: 257 feet, last recorded location: dubai, united arab emirates on january 9, 2023, registered in: bermuda, value: $82 million.

Alexander Abramov's Titan yacht.

Roman Abramovich

Sanctioned by u.k., eu, canada, australia, switzerland, yacht name: eclipse*, length: 533 feet, last recorded location: bodrum, turkey on january 9, 2023, value: $438 million.

*Abramovich also owns eight small vessels “used to support the operations” of Eclipse, named Eclipse 1 through Eclipse 8.

Yacht name: Solaris

Length: 458 feet, last recorded location: marmaris, turkey on january 9, 2023, value: $474 million, yacht name: halo, length: 180 feet, last recorded location: göcek, turkey on december 16, 2022, registered in: cook islands, value: $38 million, yacht name: garcon, length: 220 feet, last recorded location: fethiye, turkey on august 8, 2022, value: $20 million, yacht name: kewpie, length: 80 feet, last recorded location: saint barthélemy on january 6, 2023, value: $3 million, yacht name: sussurro, length: 162 feet, last recorded location: la ciotat, france on january 9, 2023, value: $17 million, yacht name: umbra a, length: 40 feet, last recorded location: not available, registered in: not available, value: $1 million, yacht name: aquamarine*, length: 164 feet, last recorded location: vlissingen, netherlands on april 5, 2022, registered in: russia, value: $29.9 million.

* Aquamarine is owned by Jersey-based MHC Jersey Limited, which is owned by British Virgin Islands-based Norma Investments Limited. Prior to February 24, 2022, Norma’s beneficial owner was Abramovich; Norma’s ownership was transferred to David Davidovich, a business associate of Abramovich, on the same day, according to public filings. Davidovich was sanctioned by the U.K. on April 14 .

Roman Abramovich's Eclipse yacht.

Farkhad Akhmedov

Sanctioned by eu, u.k., canada, switzerland, yacht name: luna, length: 375 feet, last recorded location: hamburg, germany on july 4, 2022 ( frozen by german authorities on may 12, 2022), registered in: marshall islands, value: $196 million.

Farkhad Akhmedov's Luna yacht.

Vagit Alekperov

Sanctioned by u.k., australia, canada, yacht name: galactica super nova, length: 230 feet, last recorded location: off the coast of budva, montenegro on march 2, 2022 (departed tivat, montenegro on march 2), registered in: sierra leone, value: $67 million, yacht name: space, length: 114 feet, last recorded location: sevastopol, crimea on august 23, 2022, value: $8 million, yacht name: galactica, length: 263 feet, last recorded location: vladivostok, russia on october 1, 2022, value: not available.

Vagit Alekperov's Galactica Super Nova yacht.

Oleg Deripaska

Sanctioned by u.s., u.k., eu, canada, switzerland, australia, yacht name: clio, length: 238 feet, last recorded location: adler, russia on october 27, 2022, registered in: cayman islands, value: $58 million, yacht name: sputnik, length: 197 feet, last recorded location: göcek, turkey on november 9, 2022, registered in: antigua and barbuda, value: $19.75 million, yacht name: elden, length: 95 feet, last recorded location: volga river near sknyatino, russia on october 8, 2022, value: $1.9 million.

Oleg Deripaska.

Sergey Galitsky

Yacht name: quantum blue, length: 341 feet, last recorded location: off the coast of salalah, oman on march 22, 2022, value: $213 million.

Sergei Galitsky's Quantum Blue yacht.

Andrei Guriev

Sanctioned by u.s., u.k., yacht name: alfa nero, length: 267 feet, last recorded location: falmouth harbour, antigua and barbuda on november 3, 2022 ( blocked by the u.s. on august 2), value: $81 million.

Andrei Guriev's Alfa Nero yacht.

Dmitry Kamenshchik

Yacht name: flying fox, length: 446 feet, last recorded location: göcek, turkey on december 27, 2022 ( blocked by the u.s. on june 2), value: $455 million.

Dmitry Kamenshchik's Flying Fox yacht.

Suleiman Kerimov

Sanctioned by u.s., eu, u.k., canada, switzerland, australia, japan, yacht name: amadea, length: 348 feet, last recorded location: san diego, california on june 6 ( seized by u.s. authorities on may 5, 2022), registered in: united states, value: $300 million.

Suleiman Kerimov's Amadea yacht.

Igor Kesaev

Yacht name: my sky, length: 168 feet, last recorded location: crossroads superyacht marina, maldives on june 16, 2022, value: $30 million, yacht name: sky, length: 166 feet, last recorded location: limón bay, panama on january 9, 2023, value: $23 million.

Igor Kesaev.

Eduard Khudainatov

Sanctioned by eu, yacht name: divina barbara, length: 115 feet, last recorded location: rendsburg, germany on november 17, 2016, registered in: united kingdom, value: $9 million, alexey kuzmichev, sanctioned by u.s., eu, u.k., canada, switzerland, australia, yacht name: la petite ourse, length: 79 feet, last recorded location: antibes, france on august 11, 2022 ( frozen by french authorities on march 16, 2022; released after court decision on october 5, 2022), registered in: malta, value: $4.5 million, yacht name: la petite ourse ii, length: 54 feet, last recorded location: cannes, france on june 6, 2022 ( frozen by french authorities on march 21, 2022; released after court decision on december 9, 2022), value: $1.2 million, anatoly lomakin, yacht name: sea & us, length: 205 feet, igor makarov, sanctioned by canada, australia, yacht name: areti i, length: 128 feet, last recorded location: st. augustine, florida on october 24, 2022, value: $7 million.

Igor Makarov.

Iskander Makhmudov

Sanctioned by: u.s., u.k., yacht name: predator, length: 239 feet, last recorded location: kuşadası, turkey on january 4, 2023, registered in: st. kitts and nevis, value: $55 million, dmitry mazepin, sanctioned by: u.k., eu, switzerland, canada, australia, yacht name: aldabra, length: 97 feet, last recorded location: bodrum, turkey on october 7, 2022 (frozen by italian authorities), registered in: isle of man, length: 72 feet, last recorded location: n/a (frozen by italian authorities), registered in: n/a, andrey melnichenko, sanctioned by eu, u.k., u.s., switzerland, australia, yacht name: my a, length: 390 feet, last recorded location: ras al khaimah, united arab emirates on may 28, 2022, registered in: isle of man ( deregistered on march 16, 2022), value: $204 million, yacht name: sy a, length: 469 feet, last recorded location: trieste, italy on january 9, 2023 ( frozen by italian authorities on march 12, 2022), value: $578 million (valued by italian government).

Andrey Melnichenko's SY A sailing yacht.

Leonid Mikhelson

Sanctioned by U.K., Canada, Australia

Yacht name: pacific, length: 280 feet, last recorded location: abu dhabi, united arab emirates on december 25, 2022, registered in: malaysia, value: $115 million, yuri milner, yacht name: andromeda, length: 352 feet, last recorded location: off the coast of nassau, bahamas on january 9, 2023, value: $129 million, andrei molchanov, yacht name: aurora, length: 243 feet, last recorded location: istanbul, turkey on august 21, 2022, value: $110 million, alexey mordashov, sanctioned by eu, u.k., u.s., switzerland, australia, japan, yacht name: lady m, length: 213 feet, last recorded location: imperia, italy on june 6, 2022 ( frozen by italian authorities on march 4, 2022), registered in : cayman islands, value: $27 million, yacht name: nord, length: 464 feet, last recorded location: malacca strait near kuala selangor, malaysia on october 24, 2022.

Alexey Mordashov's Nord yacht.

Alexander Nesis

Yacht name: romea, length: 268 feet, last recorded location: malé, maldives on january 9, 2023.

Alexander Nesis.

Vladimir Potanin

Sanctioned by u.s., u.k., canada, australia, yacht name: nirvana, length: 290 feet, last recorded location: dubai, united arab emirates on january 9, 2023 ( blocked by the u.s. on december 15), value: $120 million.

Vladimir Potanin's Nirvana yacht.

Mikhail Prokhorov

Yacht name: av (formerly palladium), length: 312 feet, last recorded location: fort lauderdale, florida on january 9, 2023, value: $157 million.

Mikhail Prokhorov's Palladium yacht.

Dmitry Pumpyansky

Sanctioned by eu, u.k., u.s., switzerland, canada, australia, yacht name: axioma, length: 236 feet, last recorded location: gibraltar on january 9, 2023 ( detained by gibraltarian authorities on march 21, 2022)*, value: $42 million.

*Axioma was auctioned in August 2022 and is no longer owned by Pumpyansky.

Dmitry Pumpyansky's Axioma yacht.

Viktor Rashnikov

Sanctioned by eu, u.k., u.s., canada, switzerland, australia, yacht name: ocean victory, length: 459 feet, last recorded location: malé, maldives on march 1, 2022, value: $294 million.

Viktor Rashnikov's Ocean Victory yacht.

Arkady Rotenberg

Sanctioned by eu, u.s., u.k., australia, canada, japan, switzerland, yacht name: rahil, last recorded location: sochi, russia on december 1, 2022.

Arkady Rotenberg's Russian-registered Rahil yacht.

Boris Rotenberg

Length: 157 feet, last recorded location: marseille, france on january 9, 2023, registered in: luxembourg ( deregistered in april 2022, frozen by french authorities), value: $15 million, dmitry rybolovlev, yacht name: anna, length: 361 feet, value: $250 million.

Dmitry Rybolovlev.

Anatoly Sedykh

Yacht name: hermitage, length: 225 feet, last recorded location: dubai, united arab emirates on december 16, 2022, value: $73 million.

Anatoly Sedykh's Hermitage yacht.

Eugene Shvidler

Sanctioned by u.k., australia (shvidler was born in the u.s.s.r. and is a citizen of the u.s. and the u.k.), yacht name: le grand bleu, length: 354 feet, last recorded location: ponce, puerto rico on june 6, 2022, registered in: palau, value: $109 million.

Eugene Shvidler's Le Grand Bleu yacht.

Andrei Skoch

Sanctioned by u.s., eu, u.k., australia, canada, japan, switzerland, yacht name: madame gu, length: 325 feet, last recorded location: dubai, united arab emirates on march 6, 2022 ( blocked by the u.s. on june 2), value: $156 million.

Andrei Skoch's Madame Gu yacht.

Alexander Svetakov

Yacht name: cloudbreak, length: 246 feet, last recorded location: singapore on january 9, 2023, value: $98 million.

Alexander Svetakov's Cloudbreak yacht.

Gennady Timchenko

Sanctioned by: eu, u.s., u.k., australia, canada, japan, switzerland, yacht name: lena, length: 126 feet, last recorded location: sanremo, italy on september 24, 2022 ( frozen by italian authorities on march 4, 2022), registered in: british virgin islands.

Gennady Timchenko.

Oleg Tinkov

Sanctioned by u.k., australia ( dropped off forbes real-time billionaires on march 1), yacht name: la datcha, length: 252 feet, last recorded location: cabo san lucas, mexico on january 9, 2023, registered in: panama, value: $121 million, yacht name: ycm 90, length: 90 feet, value: $2 million.

Oleg Tinkov's La Datcha yacht.

Alisher Usmanov

Sanctioned by eu, u.k., u.s., australia, canada, japan, switzerland, yacht name: dilbar*, length: 512 feet, last recorded location: hamburg, germany on may 6, 2022 ( blocked by the u.s. on march 3, 2022 and frozen by german authorities on april 13, 2022), value: $588 million, yacht name: begham*, length: 131 feet, last recorded location: olbia, italy on october 25, 2021, value: $10.5 million.

* Dilbar is owned by Caymans-based Navis Marine Ltd. and Begham is owned by Caymans-based Highseas Yachting Ltd. Both Navis Marine Ltd. and Highseas Yachting Ltd. are owned by Cyprus-based Almenor Holdings Ltd. Almenor is in turn owned by Switzerland-based Pomerol Capital SA, which holds the shares "in trust for the benefit of" the Sister Trust, which a German Federal Police investigation found is held by Gulbakhor Ismailova, Usmanov’s sister. Ownership of Navis Marine Ltd. and Highseas Yachting Ltd. was transferred to Almenor in 2020.

Alisher Usmanov's Dilbar yacht.

Viktor Vekselberg

Sanctioned by: u.s., u.k., japan, canada, australia, yacht name: tango, length: 255 feet, last recorded location: palma de mallorca, spain on january 9, 2023 ( blocked by the u.s. on march 13, 2022 and seized by u.s. and spanish authorities on april 4, 2022), value: $90 million.

Viktor Vekselberg's Tango yacht.

MORE FROM FORBES

• Editorial Standards
• Reprints & Permissions

Russian billionaire and former owner of the Brooklyn Nets has sold his 312 feet long superyacht to an anonymous billionaire for $150 million. The vessel comes with a wave generating swimming pool, a dance floor with lasers and cabins with self washing windows.

You may also like

Take a look at the world’s first superyacht powered by hydrogen, which is produced onboard from seawater. This eco-friendly vessel, at 279 feet long, boasts avant-garde features and is perfect for the climate-conscious billionaire.

Ferrari may be moving to the high seas and could soon debut a high-performance multi-million dollar racing yacht with hydrofoils

Ukraine’s richest man is all set to take delivery of his ultra-luxurious $500 million megayacht. As long as three Olympic-sized swimming pools, the secretive ‘Project Luminance’ is spread across four decks, has two helipads, a large swimming pool and beach club.

The Sultan of Oman is selling his magnificent 509-foot yacht. The vessel flaunts a palatial owner’s suite, saloon, and cinema. To keep the royal in the best of health it has a medical room, dental care room, and even a fully equipped operating room.

Vicem’s latest offering in Vision line is a sleek 46 meter super yacht

The ambitious superyacht project Deep 51 by Mondo Marine and Giugiaro unveiled

Christmas has come early for Jeff Bezos – His humungous $500 million sailing superyacht is complete and ready for the centibillionaire to take delivery

Superyacht Imagine is the first Limited Editions Amels 212

Superyachts are in such high demand that this shipyard has already started work on a $180 million vessel scheduled for delivery in November 2024, even though no owner has been finalized

The Stunning Ritz Carlton EVRIMA Yacht

Gliding Across Tokyo’s Sumida River: The Mesmerizing Zipper Boat

CROCUS Yacht: An 48 Meter Beauty by Admiral

PHI Yacht – Royal Huisman’s $45 Million Superyacht

• Zuretti Interior Design
• Zuretti Interior
• Zuccon International Project
• Ziyad al Manaseer
• Zaniz Interiors. Kutayba Alghanim
• Yuriy Kosiuk
• Yuri Milner
• Yersin Yacht

• Superyachts

PALLADIUM Yacht – Impressive $200M Superyacht

PALLADIUM yacht is a multi-award-winning 95.1m/312′ motor yacht built by The Blohm + Voss shipyard in Hamburg, Germany.

Her luxurious interior and elegant exterior were both penned by the renowned Michael Leach Design and she was delivered to her new owner in September 2010. 

PALLADIUM yacht interior

PALLADIUM was designed by Michael Leach, an award-winning superyacht designer with a combined 60 years of experience and has worked with the best shipyards in the world such as Feadship , Blohm & Voss, Amels, Damen Yachting , and Pendennis , just to name a few.

She can comfortably accommodate up to 24 guests in 12 cabins and a total of 34 crew in 16 cabins to provide guests with a relaxing luxury yacht experience.

She is equipped with a beauty salon, an elevator, a gym, and air conditioning among her many amenities.

This superyacht boasts a teak deck, a steel hull, and an aluminum superstructure that is constructed to last a lifetime.

Her aft deck has a big swimming pool, which is one of her most notable features. She also features a private theater, a jacuzzi jet pool, and custom-built yacht tenders. 

Specifications

PALLADIUM yacht has a steel hull, an aluminum superstructure, teak decks, and powerful twin MTU (16V 959 TE70L) 16-cylinder 4,600hp diesel engines operating at 1750rpm.

Her cruising speed is at 16 knots and she can achieve a top speed of 19 knots, providing a range of up to 5,000 nautical miles from her 480,000-liter fuel tanks at 16 knots.

Her freshwater tanks have a capacity of around 102,000 liters and she was constructed in accordance with the Lloyds Register classification society rules. 

This beauty is a 96.0-meter motor yacht with a total of 4440.0 GT of gross tonnage and a 16-meter beam.

She was built in Germany by Blohm & Voss, who is renowned for quality and reliability, delivering projects worldwide on time and on budget. 

PALLADIUM is ranked in the top 5% by LOA in the world and when compared to similarly-sized motor yachts, her cruise speed is 0.59 km faster than the average.

In addition to this, her peak speed is 0.87 km faster than the average, and her volume is 1421.62 GT faster than the average, just to name a few statistics.

PALLADIUM Yacht was reportedly bought for US$ 200 million by a Russian oligarch, a Russian businessman who wielded his wealth in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse by buying shares in formerly state-run corporations.

The yacht has an estimated annual running cost of US $10-20 million. 

Do you have anything to add to this listing?

• Blohm + Voss
• Michael Leach Design
• Mikhail Prokhorov

Love Yachts? Join us.

Related posts.

SOLARIS Yacht – Exquisite $600M Superyacht

VIVA Yacht – Incredible $175 Million Superyacht

SAMURAI Yacht – The Award Nominee $40M Superyacht

Los Angeles

• San Francisco
• Washington DC

Cover Story

Romero britto on transcending the world of fine art to expand his massive empire.

Mario Carbone Is Planning A Major NYC Domination With The Opening Of ZZ’s Club New York

Katie Couric’s Advocation For Cancer Screening Paid Off — And May Have Saved Her Life

Introducing The Official 2023 Haute 100 Miami List

Issa Rae Is Embarking On A Sparkling, New, Barbie-Worthy Venture

Haute yacht of the week: palladium.

by Haute Living

Mikhail Prokhorov’s 94-meter Palladium is one of the most exquisite yachts around today. The name of the yacht is particularily entertaining since Prokhorov was invovled with the company Norilsk Nickel, the world’s largest producer of nickel and palladium.

The yacht is made by the German ship company Yard Blohm + Voss is designed by Michael Leach Design Ltd. London, who is responsible for both the outside styling and the interior design.

Chef Todd English Heats Things Up At Macy’s

Photos: Councilman Ricki Barlow and the Las Vegas Rescue Mission

' . get_the_title() . ' ' ); >, related articles.

Racing Dreams Unleashed: The IRON DAMES Are Ready To Conquer

Breaking Barriers At Daytona: The IRON DAMES’ Trailblazing

ModaMiami’s Inaugural Automotive Show Unveils Culinary

Will.i.am + Mercedes-Benz Launch The Immersive MBUX Sound

Latest news.

Haute Scene

Sting performs for ralph pucci’s 8th annual jazz set.

On The Scene At Frieze LA 2024

A Sneak Peek Inside The 2024 Academy Awards Governor’s

Haute Cuisine

The james beard foundation announces the 2024, you might also like.

Sting Performs For Ralph Pucci’s 8th Annual Jazz Set In Support Of Jazz House Kids

The Hideaway LA Launches Its New Delivery Concept, Hernando’s To Go

Bal Harbour Welcomes A Taste Of Monte Carlo With Avenue 31 Café

Inside this issue.

STAY CONNECTED

DISCOVER THE BEST KEPT SECRETS IN YOUR CITY

* All fields are mandatory

• Work & Careers
• Life & Arts

Prokhorov: a (yacht) party man

• Prokhorov: a (yacht) party man on x (opens in a new window)
• Prokhorov: a (yacht) party man on facebook (opens in a new window)
• Prokhorov: a (yacht) party man on linkedin (opens in a new window)
• Prokhorov: a (yacht) party man on whatsapp (opens in a new window)

Courtney Weaver

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Sceptics of Mikhail Prokhorov and his sudden decision to run for president can now take comfort in one thing: the six-foot-eight Russian oligarch makes for exceptionally good television.

Appearing on the talk show NTVshniki last night , Prokhorov did little to allay concerns that he was a Kremlin project, intended to distract middle class voters from the recent protests. But he did give a glimpse of how entertaining it will be to watch a 46-year-old billionaire bachelor on the Russian campaign trail.

Though most presidential candidates would be forced to spend their one of their first TV appearances laying out their foreign policy strategy and attitude towards domestic issues like healthcare, Prokhorov was faced with grilling of a different sort.

Would he continue to throw his raucous parties inside the Kremlin? Whom would he pick as first lady?

While coy on his reluctance to criticise his opponent Vladimir Putin, the tycoon answered the personal questions gamely.

Just like New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Prokhorov said he would keep his current residence and turn the Kremlin into a 24-hour museum open to the public. His famous parties, which grace yachts and feature arrays of beautiful (young) girls, would be no longer.

“If I become president, there will be only official parties. A president is not allowed the same things that businessmen are,” the candidate said.

The candidate has said he would marry if it pleases the electorate. Yet through all the winks and jokes, it remains dubious whether Prokhorov’s campaign will actually succeed in attracting the disgruntled middle class voters he is supposed to be wooing.

Asked why he skipped out on the December 10 protest that saw an estimated 50,000 Muscovites demonstrate, Prokhorov said he had not wanted to ruin the surprise of his presidential candidacy, announced two days later.  Asked whether he would wear one of the demonstrators’ symbolic white ribbons ( equated by Putin to condoms ), Prokhorov replied: “I have my own clothes. I’ll go in that.”

In perhaps one of the biggest detriments to his candidacy, Prokhorov appeared unwilling to take on Putin, saying only 10 per cent of his campaign would be critical of the current leadership, and that this part would only begin after he was registered to run.

Ksenia Sobchak , the Russian socialite and a guest on the show, took this opportunity to point out that Prokhorov appeared to be using the registration question as an excuse for being soft, betting him $1m that the Kremlin would, of course, allow his candidacy.

(To this Prokhorov replied: “I want to ask Ksenia Anotolevna’s forgiveness again for the fact that in 2007 she offered me her heart and hand and I at that time refused.” He added: “I don’t bet with girls.”)

So will the owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team, stakes in Polyus Gold and Rusal, and the media holding RBK group be able to charm Russia’s voters?

According to polling agency Vtsiom, the oligarch is seen has having less than 1 per cent of the country’s vote.

NTVshniki’s studio audience on Sunday was a bit kinder: 41 per cent of the audience said Prokhorov could become president; 15 per cent said he would not; and 44 per cent said he could one day – just not in 2012.

Related reading: NTVshniki: Mikhail Prokhorov , NTV A pretender’s bid for power , FT Prokhorov: deal or no deal , beyondbrics Russian oligarch to challenge Putin , FT

Promoted Content

Follow the topics in this article.

• Courtney Weaver Add to myFT
• beyondbrics Add to myFT
• Financial Times Add to myFT
• Markets Add to myFT
• Emerging markets Add to myFT

International Edition

Cookie banner

We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. To learn more or opt-out, read our Cookie Policy . Please also read our Privacy Notice and Terms of Use , which became effective December 20, 2019.

By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies.

Follow NetsDaily online:

• Follow NetsDaily on Twitter
• Follow NetsDaily on Facebook

Site search

• Game Recaps
• Full Archive
• Social Networking
• Fantasy Basketball
• Community Guidelines

Filed under:

Page Six finds partying Prokhorov on his yacht Palladium

Share this story.

• Share this on Facebook
• Share this on Twitter
• Share this on Reddit
• Share All sharing options

Share All sharing options for: Page Six finds partying Prokhorov on his yacht Palladium

Remember back in 2010 when “60 Minutes” Steve Croft asked Mikhail Prokhorov the location of his $45 million yacht, Solemar, and he said he didn’t know?! He gets seasick, he told Croft. So he doesn’t use it much. ( We helped him find it)

It was a signature moment in his introduction to the NBA.

Since then, the Nets majority owner has moved up in the yachting world with Palladium, a $230 million number often found plying Mediterranean waters from Izmir to Ibiza. (He’s also moved up in the air, going from a Gulfstream V to an A319 Airbus... as one does.)

Now, Page Six reports the Russian oligarch and Palladium have been spotted “floating around” Palma on the Spanish island of Majorca checking out the King’s Cup sailing regatta.

The Post reports...

The mogul “arrived with a large entourage on his yacht,” said a source, adding, “Russian models were spotted getting off the ship’s dingy.” Prokhorov was seen enthusiastically cheering on the racers.

At the least.

Palladium features a pool, Jacuzzi and private theater. And you can lease the 315-footer and invite 15 of your closest friends to join you.

We didn’t ask about the price.

More From NetsDaily

• 3 Takeaways from Brooklyn Nets crushing loss vs Memphis Grizzlies
• Brooklyn Nets vs. Philadelphia 76ers preview: Nets try to bounce back
• Brooklyn Nets flush momentum down toilet, lose to Memphis Grizzlies 106-102
• NBA Live Thread: Memphis Grizzlies at Brooklyn Nets, 7:30 PM ET
• Deadlines and Commitments: Looking forward edition
• FILM STUDY: Noah Clowney is on the right path

The Incredible Life Of Russia's Newest Presidential Contender—Nets Owner Mikhail Prokhorov

Mikhail Prokhorov , owner of the New Jersey Nets and one of Russia's richest tycoons, has announced he will be running in Russia's presidential election , the Moscow Times reports.

Prokhorov will need to receive two million signatures in support of his candidacy to be included on ballots next March.

One thing's for sure—Prokhorov, Russia's third-richest man with an estimated fortune of $18 billion according to Forbes —has the financial wherewithal for a presidential run challenging Prime Minister Vladimir Putin .

The self-made billionaire, a bachelor, is an adventurer who loves to spend money. Americans got to know him last year, when he purchased an 80% stake in the soon-to-be Brooklyn Nets.

He owns a yacht, though it makes him seasick , and once fi lmed daredevil stunts on a jet ski and hired a production company to set the spectacle to music.

This is Mikhail Prokhorov, the third richest man in Russia and 32nd richest man in the world.

His Moscow home has an indoor pool, party room, and massive gym.

Here's the party room.

And here is the gym, complete with virtual ski machine.

He's even got a Kalashnikov assault rifle -- it was made for special forces.

Prokhorov keeps a model of his yacht, Solemar, in his home. He says the boat makes him seasick.

Here's the real thing: it reportedly cost $45 million. Prokhorov uses it for jet skiing.

He also owns two private jets, a Gulfstream V that cost $45 million...

And a $30 million Falcon 990.

His watch, a Pierre Kunz Red Gold Tourbillon, cost $138,000.

He paid $150 million to launch Snob, a magazine aimed at Russia's global elite, in 2010.

And in March, he picked up North Island in Seychelles for around $35 million. It came with a small hotel.

He almost bought this $750 million French estate in 2008, but backed out. The failed deal set him back $55 million.

Of course the Nets, whom he bought for a reported $200 million, are his best toy of all.

He doesn't own an apartment in New York (yet), but we can't wait until he does (neither can the city's brokers).

Now read about another incredible life

The FABULOUS Homes, Planes, And Other Toys Of Oprah Winfrey >

• Main content

• Yachts for sale
• Yachts for charter
• Brokerage News

• Mikhail Prokhorov's superyacht Solemar sold
• Yacht Harbour

Latest News

To revisit this article, select My Account, then   View saved stories

Find anything you save across the site in your account

Keith Gessen: Meet Mikhail Prokhorov

By Keith Gessen

Being a Russian oligarch these days isn’t easy. The best and brightest of them are in exile or in jail; others, after feasting on leverage during the commodities boom, now have tummies full of debt. Of those still in the game, Mikhail Prokhorov is the richest, with an estimated net worth, according to Forbes , of $9.5 billion. At six-foot-seven, he is also the tallest, though this alone cannot explain the complicated process whereby he appears ready to buy the New Jersey Nets and build a stadium for them in Brooklyn.

Prokhorov is a new name to SportsCenter viewers, but in Russia he is well known as the last of the freewheeling, yacht-riding, model-escorting oligarchs. (Prokhorov is single.) He made his fortune when he and a partner, Vladimir Potanin, won control of Norilsk Nickel, the world’s largest producer of nickel and palladium, in one of the infamous “loans-for-shares” auctions of 1995. (They were infamous because they were rigged.) Prokhorov, however, managed to keep himself out of the news until early 2007, when local authorities arrested him at his favorite French ski resort on charges of procurement of prostitutes. He spent four days in jail before being released without charge, but the repercussions in Russia were serious. Potanin apparently used the opportunity to try to push Prokhorov out of Norilsk Nickel. After a year of increasingly hostile negotiations, Prokhorov sold his share in Norilsk to a third oligarch for a stake in an aluminum giant and about $7 billion in cash. This buyout seemed like the end of Prokhorov’s days as a serious player, until world equity and commodity prices crashed a few months later and he woke up as the richest man in Russia.

But what to do with $9.5 billion? He would be wise to spend it all inside Russia; other oligarchs who have not invested in the motherland have incurred the wrath of the Kremlin. So Prokhorov has funded two expensively produced magazines ( one of them is edited by my sister, Masha Gessen); has continued to support the Mikhail Prokhorov Fund , perhaps Russia’s most innovative cultural foundation (run by his sister, Irina); and has thrown a party in St. Petersburg, aboard the old battleship Aurora, at which, as the English-language edition of Pravda put it, “strong beverages made the guests lose control over themselves. Some of them decided to jump overboard to swim in the Neva River.” Moscow has a popular coffee chain that serves a ten-dollar cappuccino—but even a big man like Prokhorov cannot drink nine hundred and fifty million cappuccinos. So he has begun to look abroad.

This week’s news about Prokhorov and the Nets began circulating as a rumor in Russia in July. How he managed to clear the proposed deal with Putin is unknown. The Moscow-based business journalist John Helmer has somewhat ingeniously speculated that an earlier rumor from the summer, about Prokhorov buying the Italian soccer team Roma, is connected to this: that Silvio Berlusconi asked his friend Putin to find someone to bail out Roma, and that Prokhorov is in fact buying Roma as a condition for being allowed to buy the Nets. Helmer counts up the damage :

$330 million in cash down and pledged money—more than twice what a reasonable man would pay for a football club in a faraway place—in exchange for a permit to spend $700 million on a loss-making basketball team in another faraway place.

Well, perhaps. The ordinarily hyper-sarcastic Russian press, for its part, has been unnervingly straitlaced about the news.

As for Prohkorov, he recently took to his blog to explain the situation to his online fans (and perhaps to some, in higher places, who are not his fans). Earlier this month, the embattled oligarch Oleg Deripaska (who bought Prokhorov out of Norilsk Nickel, and used to be Russia’s richest man), was asked to explain why, as the owner of a failing Russian automaker (GAZ), he was buying a failing German automaker (Opel) from a failing American automaker (G.M.). He suggested in his own defense that GAZ would be able to learn Opel’s engineering secrets. Similarly, Prokhorov argued that, by taking over an N.B.A. franchise, he would be able to help Russian coaches and players study the N.B.A. and bring their knowledge back home, and rejuvenate Russian basketball! Pay no attention, Prokhorov concluded, to the carping of the “pseudo-patriots.”

Prokhorov’s ordinarily docile commenters (“Great post, Mikhail Dmitrovich! Incidentally, I have a business plan I’d like to run by you…”) weren’t buying it.

Why what do you mean, Mikhail, what pseudo-patriots, why pay attention to the opinion of your fellow citizens, who cares, just keep going. You’re a strong, smart person, later on you’ll be able to tell your children or your foreign friends that there was once a country, it was called Russia.

We’ll see. In Norilsk—a city constructed by labor camp prisoners and now so polluted that no vegetation grows within twenty miles of the city center—Prokhorov and his partner had first to remove a stubborn sitting factory director, Anatoly Filatov, before taking over the plant. This took a long time. In the downtown Brooklyn area known as Atlantic Yards, a neighborhood almost equally devoid of vegetation due to the “development projects” of current Nets owner Bruce Ratner, Prokhorov will have to get past the no less stubborn Daniel Goldstein, the man who almost single-handedly has been holding up the construction of the stadium for the past five years . The obvious joke here would be that Prokhorov will make Goldstein an offer he can’t refuse, but, in fact, according to one government official I spoke to recently, back in the mid-nineteen-nineties Prokhorov and his partner couldn’t figure out how to remove Filatov and had to appeal to the government for help. This is unlikely to impress Goldstein. On the other hand, a gift to Brooklyn of the world’s largest trampoline, plus Malevich’s “ Black Square ,” would go a long way.

Update: According to ESPN, it’s a deal .

By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

By Masha Gessen

By John Cassidy

By Ali Solomon

• Collections
• AI Generator

Premium Access

Custom content, media manager.

Grow your brand authentically by sharing brand content with the internet’s creators.

711 Mikhail Prokhorov In Moscow Stock Photos & High-Res Pictures

Browse 711 mikhail prokhorov in moscow photos and images available, or start a new search to explore more photos and images..

trending now

'Monster' Jonathan Van Ness' 'rage issues' caused 'fear' on...

Taylor Swift fans concerned after pop star appears sick during...

Taylor Swift fans think Travis Kelce’s shirt is a ‘Tortured...

Kate Middleton to attend Trooping the Colour parade after...

Dakota Johnson makes rare comments on being stepmom figure to...

Kate Middleton seen for first time in 2 months after undergoing...

Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise's daughter, Suri, goes for a solo...

Get a glimpse inside David and Victoria Beckham's $40M London...

• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
• Click to copy URL

Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov hangs with models in Majorca

• View Author Archive
• Email the Author
• Follow on Twitter
• Get author RSS feed

Contact The Author

Thanks for contacting us. We've received your submission.

Russian tycoon and Brooklyn Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov , who usually spends August aboard his $230 million yacht, the Palladium, in Ibiza, has been spotted floating around in Palma in Majorca checking out the King’s Cup sailing regatta.

The mogul “arrived with a large entourage on his yacht,” said a source, adding, “Russian models were spotted getting off the ship’s dingy.”

Prokhorov was seen enthusiastically cheering on the racers.

The futuristic Palladium features a pool, Jacuzzi and private theater. Spanish King Felipe and Queen Letizia, along with Princesses Leonor and Sofia, are also on the island.

Prokhorov’s net worth is estimated at $9.8 billion. He last year sold a 49 percent stake in the Nets to Joe Tsai.

But though records showed that his yacht was in Majorca, his rep later got back to us and insisted her boss was in Moscow.

Share this article:

Klub Prokhorov

The Russian Samovar, a recent evening, 10 p.m. Green-shaded lamps throw unappetizing light on platefuls of chicken Kiev; the theater across the street has just disgorged the Jersey Boys crowd. The first of the restaurant’s two floors is hosting a “writers’ cabaret” sponsored by a Moscow-based magazine called Snob. At the white grand piano gifted by Mikhail Baryshnikov, writer Ludmilla Petrushevskaya is belting out a Russian rendition of “Blue Canary.” Venture capitalist Alex Fridlyand, novelist Lara Vapnyar, and software mogul Stepan Pachikov look on between bites. On the second floor, in an unrelated celebration, half the masthead of Moscow’s anti-Putin newspaper Novaya Gazeta (in town for an award) is getting soused with the daughter of the late émigré novelist Sergei Dovlatov. At the upstairs bar, Moscow publisher Andrew Paulson is schmoozing with PR man Ilya Merenzon. A few feet away, n+1 editor Kostya Gessen—you may know him as Keith—and his girlfriend, Emily Gould, are chatting with Very Short List editor Alex Abramovich. Samovar’s owner, Roman Kaplan, bisects the crowd with a carafe of cranberry vodka. By the end of the night he will have drunk a dozen shots of it himself.

The total conflicts of interest I have counted in the above scene: nine. I have worked for three of these people, tried to curry promotional favor with two, publicly feuded with three more, and competed for a woman with one, and that’s not counting all the free vodka from Roman. Such is the very essence of the Russian experience in New York: high-end striving mixed with Appalachian incest.

Then again, it all pales before the main, unspoken bias permeating both floors of the restaurant. Almost everyone at the Samovar tonight owes a little something—from a steady salary to a bite of the chicken to something more abstract—to a man who isn’t here. He is the one footing the night’s bill through Snob —a relatively new entity, set to launch its first New York marketing campaign this fall, that is both a private club uniting some of New York’s most ambitious Russian arrivistes and, in its magazine iteration, one of the world’s most lavishly funded editorial projects. He’s bought us all, to some extent, and a chunk of New York to go with us. At this point, I suspect, you even know his name.

When Mikhail Prokhorov—gangly, boyish, 45, and a billionaire seventeen times over—announced his purchase of the New Jersey Nets and a majority stake of their yet-unbuilt arena at the Atlantic Yards, he leaped into the city’s collective consciousness with a speed unusual for any foreigner, let alone a Russian. The Nets are not a trophy skyscraper, whose ownership ultimately matters only to the kind of people who keep track of trophy skyscrapers. They are a ticket to instant popular-culture importance. By becoming the first foreign owner of an NBA team, Prokhorov simultaneously established himself as a major figure in one of the world’s most glamorous businesses (in the world capital of the sport, no less) and a central player in New York’s biggest real-estate drama after ground zero. The scale of his trick didn’t really hit home until a May 19 breakfast photo op with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Jay-Z: a perfectly orchestrated tableau of New York relevance. The only other Russian I can think of who has managed to slip into the city’s cast of notable characters as effortlessly is Mikhail Baryshnikov. But that’s where the comparison ends. Prokhorov is the face of an altogether new kind of Russian—newer, even, than the so-called New Russians of the late nineties—that’s recently been proliferating in town. Through Snob, he’s also the group’s chief benefactor and facilitator, both a member of the tribe and, in a critical sense, its creator.

The Russian community in New York used to come in four distinct varieties, arrangeable, like single malts, by casking date. There were heirs of exiled Czarist-era blue bloods, paper-skinned, cradling their titles; you’ve probably met one if you ever took a ballet class. Next up were Soviet immigrants of the seventies, the generation of Joseph Brodsky that would never let you forget their plight. Then came the “sausage immigration” of the nineties, mostly Jewish, mostly provincial, seduced less by freedom than by comfort yet squeaking in on political-refugee papers: More than 60,000 came to the U.S. in 1992 alone. Finally, there were the latest arrivals, treating New York as a prize for having made it in Moscow: the cocky, scowling post-Soviet oligarchs and Fifth Avenue shoppers with their endlessly mockable excesses.

The Global Russians, as Snob calls the group, are crystallized from all of the above. Broadly speaking, the term indicates a combination of Russian culture and language with Western education, a well-stamped passport, and liberal Western views. The category is big enough to encompass a second-generation novelist, a fashion designer who arrived here at the age of 5, a businessman swinging by for a conference, and an NBA team owner. They’re not interested in the Russian ghetto of Brighton Beach or the Russian assimilated culture in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. They’re dismissive of the nouveau riche shoppers and clubbers. They think they’re better than those others are. They’re consumed by cosmopolitanism and all it entails. They strive, they snub; they are, by any definition, snobs. By the way, I am kidding no one with this “they” business. I’ve been here since 1998, English is my second language, and simple honesty prevents me from pretending I don’t want some small version of the same.

The Global Russian influence is all over contemporary New York, in motley variations. In real estate, diamond mogul Lev Leviev, a reputed friend of Putin’s, owns the lion’s share of the old New York Times Building, the citadel-like Apthorp apartment complex, and the MetLife clock tower. Vassily Anisimov leased dormitories to NYU. Tamir Sapir, who was born Temur Sepiashvili in Georgia and made his first fortune in New York selling VCRs and other electronics (and also securing oil contracts from former Soviet diplomats), has $2 billion in active development projects; his hard-partying son, Alex Sapir, and daughter, Zina Sapir-Rosen, have bankrolled a few of Donald Trump’s latest ventures, including the Trump SoHo condo-hotel. Hotels seem to be especially appealing: The Gansevoort and 60 Thompson, as well as some of André Balazs’s properties, are rumored to have Russian backing. Muscovites have made their homes or pieds-à-terre at the Plaza, the Time Warner Center, and 15 Central Park West. Edward Mermelstein, a Ukrainian-born real-estate lawyer specializing in massive deals for Eastern European clientele, handled about 120 Russian closings in New York over the last three years. Before the financial crisis, the average price was between $7 million and $10 million, with the top end in the stratospheric $30 million to $40 million range. Then, of course, there’s airport mogul Valery Kogan, whose ultimately aborted attempt to build one of the largest mansions in Greenwich (complete with 26 toilets) fueled the Connecticut enclave’s gossip mill for years. As for the Russian contributions to Wall Street, they tend to be low-profile: There’s an enormous number of people with Soviet math educations who work on the analytical side at places like Goldman Sachs. Some, like Ruvim Breydo, parlay their skills into hedge-fund fortunes. Others toil anonymously, and when we do hear about them—like computer programmer Sergey Aleynikov, who allegedly swiped Goldman’s proprietary trading software—it’s rarely good news.

In the world of art, the main seat of Russian influence is the Guggenheim. Moscow-based oligarch Vladimir Potanin sits on its board of trustees. So did socialite and developer Janna Bullock, until recently. Phillips de Pury, the world’s third-largest contemporary-art auction house, is now owned by the Russian luxury retailer Mercury Group. It is currently getting ready to move into a 25,500-square-foot space at 450 Park Avenue, to compete more directly with Sotheby’s and Christie’s—both of which have dedicated Russian-art divisions. So does Larry Gagosian’s empire, which has recently added a sophisticated operation devoted to Russian outreach.

‘Snob’ is “a multistep strategic game by Prokhorov, who wants to feed and domesticate a certain kind of Establishment to lean on it for support later.”

With the exception of the modernist Ilya Kabakov, the Russians in the gallery game tend to crowd on the buyers’ side; in the performing arts, however, they’re the product. The American Ballet Theatre company is 25 percent Russian (four out of sixteen). Russian names dot the program notes at the New York Philharmonic, where conductor Valery Gergiev has been a regular presence. In pop, there are Regina Spektor and Gogol Bordello’s Eugene Hütz, of the Bronx and the Lower East Side respectively, both plying very different but very Russian good-girl and bad-boy personas.

The literary scene is a fiefdom ruled by novelist Gary Shteyngart, 37, probably the most successful New York novelist in the under-40 bracket. (His main rival for that title, Jonathan Safran Foer, can be seen as an interesting case of a wannabe Russian, an Updike to his Roth.) Shteyngart came to Queens from what was then Leningrad at the age of 7 and, by his own recollection, lost the last trace of his accent by 14. He could have easily disappeared into the American workforce, he says, and nearly did. “Once we figure out the dress code, we look like everyone else,” he tells me over a vodka-and-tonic, the ultimate Russian-American drink if you think about it. “Plus most of us are Jewish anyway.” He parlayed this identity tension into two best-selling novels, The Russian Debutante’s Handbook and Absurdistan. His upcoming third, the futuristic satire Super Sad True Love Story, marks a tentative step away from the Russianness (although the protagonist’s name still ends in -ov).

Shteyngart’s ascent opened the floodgates for Russian-identified New York writers of every possible pedigree, age, and talent level. In a literary climate that puts a premium on authentic immigrant experience, they had the best of both worlds. They were sufficiently exotic but easily relatable. Russia gave them mystery, New York (and Jewishness) gave them a place on the Roth-Malamud-Lethem continuum. The flood of Russian names recently released into American letters includes Gessen and his sister Masha, Vapnyar, Olga Grushin, Anya Ulinich, Irina Reyn, Mark Budman, Sana Krasikov, Sofka Zinovieff, Elena Gorokhova, Ilana Ozernoy, Alina Simone—and the book deals keep coming. At the same time, Russian-born writers began popping up on the other side of the equation, as book reporters and reviewers (Alexander Nazaryan, Leon Neyfakh, this magazine’s Boris Kachka), lit-mag publishers (Keith Gessen again), and agents (Jim Rutman of Sterling Lord). It’s as if there were a whole colony of Russian writers biding their time until the industry deemed them worthy. I’m going to switch from “them” to “us” once again, because I am myself a beneficiary of this development. I published a novel last year. It was blurbed—like Ulinich’s and Vapnyar’s—by Shteyngart.

Each of these groups has found its own watering hole. The art collectors roost at Sant Ambroeus on Madison. The finance crowd took a liking to Mari Vanna on 20th, near Park (the only restaurant in New York that’s actually a franchise of a Russian eatery). The barely-of-drinking-age set descends on Keith McNally’s Pravda, the only Russian-themed spot in town they deem unembarrassing (the nearby KGB Bar and the theater district’s FireBird are inexplicably regarded as “fake”). And assorted oligarchs have discovered the Waverly Inn: On a recent evening, former mining magnate Oleg Baibakov (with a young date) and Alexander Lebedev, the Aeroflot mogul who owns London’s Evening Standard and the Independent, were seen there independent of each other. (Ten years ago, this would have been a clear sign that the spot is toxic. It’s a testament to the Global Russians’ status that it’s not.) Online, groups of Global Russians are forever forming semi-secret societies. A few recent attempts included Nash Krug (Our Circle); CluMBA, catering to Russian banker types (its name means “flower bed” but also puns on both club and MBA); and Baby v Zakone, a female-lawyer group with a name roughly translatable as “Broads in Law.” The Samovar is as close to a clubhouse as this disparate, roving band has, but lately the role of the virtual clubhouse is being assumed by Snob. All sorts of people named in the last several paragraphs either belong to the club, contribute to the magazine, or have been profiled by it.

It was the girls, in a way, that made Mikhail Prokhorov into Russia’s second- richest man. Back home, his reputation as a playboy had been sealed in the mid-aughts. He was known for descending on Moscow’s wildest nightclubs with Gosha Kutsenko, a bald-headed, mildly freakish Russian film star he had befriended, with packs of coltish young things in tow. “It used to be that you go to certain clubs,” recalls one Muscovite, “and if at some moment about fifteen barely legal girls show up all at once, you could tell that Prokhorov is about to stop by.”

In January 2007, partying in Courchevel, he was briefly detained by the French police on suspicion of having flown in a planeful of alleged prostitutes for the party’s guests. Prokhorov was cleared of any wrongdoing, but the incident apparently upset Vladimir Potanin, Prokhorov’s longtime partner in his primary cash cow, Norilsk Nickel. In April 2008, the now-former friends split, and Prokhorov sold his Norilsk shares to another oligarch, Oleg Deripaska. His timing was downright charmed. Less than three months later, the financial crisis hit Russia. When the dust cleared, Norilsk’s stock had dropped 80 percent, Deripaska was $24.6 billion poorer, and Potanin lost a fortune, too. Prokhorov, meanwhile, was sitting on billions in uninvested cash—the best kind of investment in the chaos of late 2008.

Since then, Prokhorov’s interests have varied wildly. He has invested in low-cost hybrid cars, nanotechnology, and banks. He seemingly flirted with the governorship of a far-flung Russian province (Russian governors are appointed by the Kremlin, not elected), establishing tax residence in a tiny Siberian village. In 2009, Russia’s then-richest man paid his income tax—16 billion rubles, or roughly $550 million—out of snowy Yeruda, population 2,300.

Prokhorov’s interest in the Nets appears sincere enough. His father was a Soviet sports official, and Prokhorov is the head of the Russian Biathlon Union (he attended the Vancouver Olympics in that capacity). He played basketball himself in high school—because he was six-eight, it was practically an imperative—and invested in Moscow’s CSKA professional team before turning his attention westward. Prokhorov has already floated a $12 million to $15 million offer to Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, openly plans to court LeBron James and other top free agents, and during his recent visit to the city promised to bring the team a “championship in five years.” He also hopes to raise the sport’s profile back in Russia and perhaps groom future stars there.

And yet buying the Nets and their arena was clearly a real-estate play as well. Prokhorov had already established himself as a major figure in the New York property market before the Atlantic Yards deal. In 2008, after developer Harry Macklowe defaulted on a $513 million loan from Deutsche Bank AG, the super-liquid Prokhorov swooped in and offered to buy the Park Avenue site in question for $250 million. “Guys like Prokhorov,” says a source who’s seen the bid, “are always looking to get in at opportunistic prices. They make extremely low offers that also happen to be all cash, which locals don’t do.” By the time Prokhorov turned his attention to Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards, the project was in almost as much trouble as Macklowe’s. Only the infusion of Russian cash raised it from a coma.

Not all of Prokhorov’s investments can be explained by rational self-interest. Another set of projects invariably bears the hallmark of his older sister, Irina, a patron of arts and literature. In private life, Mikhail and Irina form an unusual, closed-off unit. Until recently, they lived together in a relatively small Moscow apartment, well after Mikhail had become a billionaire. “He’s got one overriding complex,” says a person familiar with both. “He’s not as smart as his sister, and he wants her approval.” Most likely at Irina’s urging, Mikhail has endowed a lavish literary award, a publishing house, an arts festival, and, finally, Snob. “WHAT CAN RUSSIANS do for the rest of the world?”

Gregory Kegeles, Snob ’s director of U.S. business development, wearing wire-rim glasses and a brown corduroy blazer, sips chamomile tea and lets the phrase sink in. We’re at Think Coffee on Mercer, his favorite place in his favorite city.

The pithy question is Kegeles’s idea for the centerpiece of Snob ’s New York marketing campaign, set to hit the city in September. In London, the only place outside Russia where Snob has attempted such a promotional effort, the push was a bit of a disaster. Snob simply bought up billboards in the Underground and elsewhere and slapped Russian-language ads on them, perplexing Brits and embarrassing local Russians. It looked exactly like something a dizzy nouveau riche would do. For New York, Kegeles imagines something that New Yorkers could actually use, something that speaks to Snob’ s globalist brand, and something that shows that the Russians actually understand contemporary New York (and in English this time). A giant video chat, set up right on the street, that lets New Yorkers, Londoners, and Muscovites speak to one another? Sponsoring some benches in the High Line park? Free Nets tickets?

Even by the pre-crash standards of magazine publishing, Snob is an extravagantly well-funded undertaking. Prokhorov financed its launch with $150 million. By comparison, Condé Nast’s Portfolio, the splashiest magazine launch of the last decade, had about $120 million to play with. Snob employs about 120 people and keeps offices in Moscow and London as well as a so-far more modest New York outpost, in a “green” rent-an-office building in Dumbo. The magazine itself might as well be printed on dollar bills: The stock is luscious, the photo stories ripped from the walls of the prestigious Yossi Milo and Yancey Richardson galleries, the editorial purse big enough for pre-U.S.-publication exclusives like a chunk of Nabokov’s The Original of Laura or of Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story, for that matter. Each issue has three covers and comes locked inside a cardboard shell readers are supposed to rip off in a process the magazine’s staff calls “defloration.” U.S. club members get it hand-delivered by DHL.

When Snob ’s creation was announced in 2008, the world assumed it would be a glossy paean to the world’s longest yachts or something, a Slavic striver’s version of the Robb Report with the barest hint of self-awareness in the title. In reality, it was more of a Monocle : a thoughtful, moderately smug house organ of the Global Russian community. snob was actually an acronym of sostoyavshiisya, nezavisimyi, obrazovannyi, blagopoluchnyi (accomplished, independent, educated, thriving). Only the last word of the four hinted at wealth. Lately, under deputy editor Masha Gessen, the project even made a turn toward social activism, battling, for instance, the Putin administration’s revisionist sugarcoating of Joseph Stalin.

The Global Russian “aggressively adopts traits of other cultures without betraying his own. He cooks like a Frenchman, entertains like an American, and forms friendships like a Russian.”

The magazine’s idea was not Prokhorov’s. To hammer it out, he tapped Vladimir Yakovlev, the legendary former editor of the business daily Kommersant and, back in the early nineties, the coiner of the term New Russians, which, Yakovlev tells me, was meant as a compliment, before it came to signify a boor in a burgundy club jacket demanding colder vodka in St. Barts. Yakovlev was fresh off a multiyear stint seeking enlightenment in various exotic locations. His travels seem to have helped him come up with the idea to target the worldwide Russian diaspora as a sophisticated, interconnected demographic. The Global Russian is “a particular breed shaped over the last fifteen years,” says Masha Gessen, from a treadmill, in flawless English (she is the author of four American nonfiction books). “It used to be that when you left Russia, you left forever—to become a proper American, a proper Englishman, etc. The Global Russian aggressively adopts traits of other cultures without betraying his own. Two years ago, when I was writing up a portrait of our imaginary ideal audience member, I wrote that he ‘cooks like a Frenchman, entertains like an American, and forms friendships like a Russian.’ ”

The masterstroke of the original concept was that Snob would simply create this audience as it went along, by pumping money into club members’ own projects: exhibits, films, even mild political activism. Among Russians, even those connected with the project, this largesse bred instant suspicion. Stepan Pachikov, creator of the popular idea- and photo-archiving app Evernote and a member of the club’s New York chapter, sums up the prevailing conspiracy theories: “It’s either a Kremlin initiative designed to get all the liberal opposition types in one place and have them let off steam in controlled conditions, or else it is a multistep strategic game by Prokhorov, who wants to feed and domesticate a certain kind of Establishment to lean on it for support later.”

It’s unclear whether Prokhorov wants to be a media mogul per se; he’s emphatically not interested in competing with any of his Western counterparts or entering the English-language publishing fray. If he wanted to, he’d probably do what Lebedev, the owner of the London Evening Standard and The Independent, did. There are certainly enough distressed media properties to choose from.

But turning a profit—something Snob isn’t likely to do anytime soon—seems far from Prokhorov’s mind (the money expended on Snob, as one New York club member acidly points out, is “just a rounding error” for him). But profit isn’t everything. Prokhorov’s endgame is to buy himself cultural and intellectual credibility on a massive scale and to will into existence, and lead, a group of the globalized world’s Russian-speaking elites.

My own involvement with Snob began in the summer of 2008. The phone rang at an ungodly hour, as it always seems to when Moscow is on the line. “We’re starting a club for distinguished Russians around the world,” said a chipper young woman, “and we immediately thought of contacting you.”

“Oh, wow,” I said, taken aback. “I am really flattered. Wow. No, really.”

The woman held a pause. “Because you seem to know a lot of them,” she concluded. “So we thought you’d make a good New York scout.”

I said something horribly snooty and hung up. Only this seems to have intrigued someone, not put them off, because two months later I was offered membership in the club. In another year, my wife was on the magazine’s staff. By then, Snob had become an inescapable conversation topic in my world. They seemed to have contacted everyone around me at once. Photographers, reporters, fashion designers, advertising people, poets. The weird thing was that they knew everyone. For the first time in who knows how long, Russian New York felt like a legitimate outpost of Moscow, not some sort of fun-house mirror of it. Before long, I had a column on snob.ru , waxing New York–y about things like the High Line and Woody Allen’s latest.

Have I sold out to Prokhorov? Sure I have. And not just by joining his club or working for his magazine. Simply by writing these lines, I’m helping him accomplish his trick by promoting the group he’s so bent on creating. But then I think of that picture of Prokhorov with Mayor Bloomberg and Jay-Z, and it brings to mind a similar photo, one that I apparently committed to memory. It’s a seventies shot of Baryshnikov lolling on a Studio 54 couch, sandwiched between Steve Rubell and Mick Jagger. In most respects, Prokhorov and Baryshnikov couldn’t be more different. But seeing the two Russians flanked by such iconic New York figures had the same effect on me. It’s a bit embarrassing to admit—maybe even a little snobby. But both pictures helped make me feel like I belong in New York, like my life, and those of my countrymen, is bigger somehow than it was back home. Isn’t that why we all seem to end up here?

See Also: A Selective Survey of Russians in New York

Most viewed

• Guess Who Taylor Swift Is Endorsing in the 2024 Election
• Cinematrix No. 7: March 5, 2024
• The Return of the Clintons  
• ‘My New Boss Treats Me Like I’m His Assistant. I’m Not.’
• Saturday Night Live Recap: Sydney Sweeney’s Saturday Night Yikes
• The 100 Fights That Shaped Action Cinema
• Who TF Is Reesa Teesa Now?

What is your email?

This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive email correspondence from us.

Sign In To Continue Reading

Create your free account.

Password must be at least 8 characters and contain:

• Lower case letters (a-z)
• Upper case letters (A-Z)
• Numbers (0-9)
• Special Characters (!@#$%^&*)

As part of your account, you’ll receive occasional updates and offers from New York , which you can opt out of anytime.