Russia's richest man with a fortune made in the aluminium wars

Until recently, the word oligarch invariably conjured up the name of one rather rich Russian businessman, Roman Abramovich. The owner of Chelsea FC had become virtually synonymous with Russia's elite, embodying its foibles, excesses and passions. But in recent weeks Oleg Deripaska, a 40-year-old metals tycoon and a friend of Abramovich, has dominated the headlines. This year Deripaska overtook Abramovich as Russia's richest man. In May Forbes Russia magazine estimated his fortune at $28.6bn (?17bn). Deripaska's wealth derives from ownership of the world's largest aluminium producer, UC Rusal. In an interview with the Guardian last year, he shrugged off the suggestion he was Russia's leading tycoon. Asked how much he was worth, he replied: "I don't know." But Deripaska's rise has not been without controversy. There have been claims - denied by the oligarch - of links to organised crime. In 2006 the US state department revoked his American visa. Deripaska has also been involved in a series of legal cases in the US and London, where a former partner, Michael Cherney, is suing him for $4bn in the high court. These acrimonious disputes date back to the 1990s when, as Deripaska puts it: "The country was in a sort of decay." The Soviet Union had just collapsed. A new class of businessman - the oligarchs - ruthlessly carved up Russia's freshly privatised state industries. These included oil, gas and aluminium. Deripaska became embroiled in the struggle for control of an aluminium smelter in Sayanogorsk in Siberia. The battle was so vicious, and so corpse-strewn, it became part of privatisation legend, and dubbed the "aluminium wars". He dismisses claims that at one point his enemies tried to blow him up on a mountain road using a grenade launcher. "It's a joke," he remarked. But his reputation for ruthlessness dates from this period when - it's not entirely clear how - he managed to overcome the local mafia. Like many super-wealthy Russians, Deripaska is a keen Anglophile. He has a ?20m house in Belgravia. He speaks fluent idiomatic English, learned while he studied theoretical physics at Moscow's state university. Deripaska's young son and daughter have also mastered the language, thanks to their English nanny. Asked about his view of the British, Deripaska said: "They are very honest and decent people, very well educated." His also has interests in the UK: in 2006 his investment company Basic Element bought the ailing British van-maker LDV. Like many oligarchs, Deripaska has humble origins, growing up in a village in southern Russia with his widowed mother, an engineer. As a boy, he milked his family's cows and fed the ducks. He graduated just as science funding in post-communist Russia collapsed. Instead of physics, he went into business. In 1993-4 he accumulated a 20% stake in a Siberian aluminium factory. In 2000 Abramovich bought most of the holdings in Russia's aluminium industry and merged them with Deripaska's company. They created Rusal - Russian aluminium. Abramovich later sold his stake to Deripaska, leaving Deripaska the undisputed tsar of one of the world's most lucrative industries. Along the way, he has demonstrated a knack for cultivating the rich, powerful and important. In 2001 he married Polina Yumasheva - daughter of Boris Yeltsin's chief of staff Valentin Yumashev. Deripaska is also close to Vladimir Putin. At home Deripaska has keenly obeyed the key rule of the authoritarian Putin era: don't meddle in politics. As a result, his fortunes have prospered. ---by The Guardian