We earlier informed you about the annual Forbes list that reported a major drop in the number of billionaires that secured a place on the list - from 1,125 last year to 793 this year. The world’s rich have lost $10 trillion in this economic meltdown, but the worst affected in “richistan” (a term coined by Robert Frank at WSJ) are the Russian oligarchs, reports Anastasia Ustinova at Bloomberg. According to the Russian business magazine Finans, “The global financial crisis has slashed the total wealth of Russia’s top 10 billionaires by two-thirds to USD 75.9 billion in the last 12 months and the total number of Russia’s billionaires have halved to 49 from 101.” And, according to Forbes, Moscow had 74 billionaires a year ago, now it has only 27.

The economic downturn has dampened the Russian enthusiasm for gold, caviar, oysters, private jets and everything that it takes to live life king size. The country’s luxury clothes and accessories industry is expecting profits to drop by as much as a third. “A new lifestyle mentality is taking shape,” said Roman Trotsenko, 38, the millionaire founder of airport builder Novaport. “People aren’t really in the mood to party.” Russian billionaires are selling off their yachts and private jets to conserve cash. “You just can’t party when others are starving,” said Boris Teterev, president of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, Moscow. While this new spending has a lot to do with the financial crisis, politics is playing a role too, said Alexander Dobrovinsky, a corporate and divorce lawyer whose clientele includes elite names like the ex-wife of billionaire Alexei Mordashov. Rich people don’t want to come in the public eye as many of them are looking to seek protection from Western creditors, as well as the government’s resolve to focus on social spending. Russia’s stock markets lost 70% of their value while the national currency has lost 35% since the summer alone.

However, the pain is not evenly spread out and high-net-worth individuals around the world are still spending millions on materialistic luxuries. Take for example the German billionaire who bought a $100M yacht after implementing a pay cut for his workers; Russian tycoon Alexander Ivanov spent about 10 million euros on 50 cars from America and Europe over the past year; an undisclosed client bought a pearl-studded carpet in an auction for an outlandish $5.5 million at Sotheby’s first-ever auction in Doha, Qatars. Only time will tell if “richistan” will bear a deserted look in the future to come or will thrive the crunch!

Via: Bloomberg
ImageCredit: Welt439328