From the oil business behind the scenes of the Kremlin, from London to Ukraine, Roman Abramovich embodies the changes in post-Soviet Russia and the Putin years
Attentive but fleeing from attention, such would be the paradox of the billionaire. A key figure in modern Russia, preferring behind-the-scenes discretion to front and center, he has established himself as the most famous and secretive of the “oligarchs” – those entrepreneurs who profited from privatizations by consorting with the Kremlin at the time of the collapse of the Eastern bloc. Famous, Roman Abramovich has become so through his extraordinary career, which marries the upheavals of Russia, from perestroika to the authoritarian drift of Vladimir Putin. Orphan at the age of 3 from a Soviet Jewish family, patron of the cultural avant-garde or of the Jewish community and even, since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, a shadow diplomat, he knows how to make himself indispensable.
Secret, the man would be by nature, assure those who frequented him. Described at the same time as reserved, calculating, efficient or devoid of emotions and values, his character contrasts with that of most oligarchs, otherwise arrogant and presumptuous. Often dressed in simple jeans, with a three-day beard, the shy fifty-year-old rarely looks his interlocutors in the eye. “His genius was to behave like a good dog: while the other businessmen barked, he remained with his head down, loyal”describes Bill Browder, the former manager of the largest foreign investment fund in Russia, Hermitage Capital Management, who first met him over coffee in the mid-1990s.
An attitude that would make Roman Abramovich the archetype of“honest broker”. In international relations, this term refers to the person accepted by all parties as impartial but never forgetting his personal interest. From the 1990s, he forged the reputation of being “one who resolves disputes”, according to Bill Browder. Could it be these talents of elusive and influential conciliator that would hold the mystery in which he is enveloped?