Elena Baturina: Probably not the best looking oligarch in a bikini, but still one of the few women in the global billionaire’s club--of course, it helps your bottom line when you’re the wife of Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, especially when your buildings collapse and you can avoid those pesky lawsuits.

In Europe, Russia's mostly young, self-made tycoons are catching up to Germany's often-aging heirs and heiresses. Russia now has 53 billionaires (2 shy of Germany's total), but they are worth $282 billion ($37 billion more than Germany's richest).

The Forbes billionaires list is out and not only is the Gulag Archipeligo ranked third in absolute number of billionaires worldwide, but 14% of the top hundred hold a Russian passport. Furthermore, of the 178 newcomers to the list this year, ten percent of them are Russian nationals. It is also interesting to note that the average age on the Forbes list is 62 while the average Russian billionaire is 46. This makes them the fifth youngest group of billionaires in the world--Lebanon (with four billionaires) has the youngest group, followed by Czechia (1), Kazakhstan (5), and Ukraine (7). (It is worth noting that had Ukraine's Orange Coalition kept their promise to arrest some their oligarchs, Russia would be in fourth place.)

The list is of course not exhaustive as other wealthy Russian billionaires like M. [censored] escaped the double-edged sword of being identified. Moreover, in the highly competitive race for richest Moskal, the Forbes ranking is already out of date. If we disregard the coming fallout from his recent divorce from wife Irina, Roman Abramovich (the richest man of Russia) was already second to Oleg Deripaska (the richest man in Russia), being just $200 million short--evidently $170 million eBay yachts and $150 million luxury hospitals just don’t depreciate very well. The Guardian (UK) also pegs Deripaska’s (US$21.2 billion) and Abramovich’s (US$21 billion) net worth as slightly higher and their figures would make them 12th and 13th on the Forbes list (though last year Abramovich ranked 11th).