A Roman Retreat?

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It's a tale of two tycoons, and it tells you everything about the state of Russia today. Earlier this year, Roman Abramovich, the Russian oil magnate and Governor of the desolate Arctic region of Chukotka, was worth an estimated $5.7 billion — second only to Yukos oil baron Mikhail Khodorkovsky's $8 billion. Both men leapt from rags to riches in the giddy, shady privatization era of the early 1990s — and their companies agreed to merge last April — but their lives have since diverged. Khodorkovsky, 40, is now in jail, charged with embezzlement and tax evasion in what many call a politically motivated attack by President Vladimir Putin (Khodorkovsky denies the charges). And Abramovich, 37, can often be found at London's 42,000-seat Stamford Bridge stadium, watching his Chelsea Football Club play in the Premiership. Abramovich has inherited the crown of Russia's wealthiest man — but he seems to be making a move West.

While the flamboyant Khodorkovsky was protesting the state's growing authoritarianism, high-handedness and corruption, and lavishly funding opposition parties — leading many to suspect he had presidential ambitions — the taciturn Abramovich took a quieter approach. Known as a gray eminence and "the purse" of the Yeltsin Kremlin, Abramovich threw his weight behind the new regime, buying into major businesses. More recently, Abramovich has started ditching assets. Since last spring, Abramovich has sold his stake in oil giant Sibneft to Yukos for $3 billion (while taking a 26% stake in the new company), half of his 50% stake in the RusAl aluminum monopoly and his stake in Aeroflot airlines. Last July, he bought Chelsea for $230 million and spent another $190 million on new players. Four months later Abramovich paid $48 million for a six-story house in Belgravia, London, to complement his $20 million estate in West Sussex in southern England and his home in St. Tropez, France. While Khodorkovsky watched from behind bars as Yukos lost 40% of its worth (taking his own net worth down with it), Abramovich topped the Sunday Times Annual Pay List as Britain's top earner, having made $960 million in 2003. In fact, says his senior aide, "He has cleared $5 billion this year just selling his assets in Russia." Abramovich was recently overheard at a party saying: "I would not find it too hard to make myself love life in Britain."

Who could blame him for wanting to try? Last week, Russian authorities announced a tax probe into Sibneft. Then a Moscow court agreed to hear a suit against the Yukos-Sibneft merger. The Duma passed new rules to grant the state free rein to raise oil export duties and to strike tax amnesty from the criminal code. Finally, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin pushed through a new bill to revoke regional tax breaks as of the New Year. Even though auditors later concluded that Sibneft's tax violations were "ethically not very pretty but legal," the impact of a court inquiry, new duties and new tax rules could cost the company more than $650 million next year, and even lead to its breakup.

No wonder Abramovich likes London. He had ample reason to think he'd won the Kremlin's favor. In 2001, he bought the ort TV channel for $150 million from Boris Berezovsky, once Putin's ally, then his bitter foe, and turned it over to the state. He also invested several hundred million of his own money to improve living conditions in depressed Chukotka province. For the first time ever, the population of Chukotka started receiving national TV and acquired modern supermarkets, cinemas, a concert hall and an indoor skating rink. Still, last week, Kudrin tersely told Abramovich that such donations must come from "the state budget" rather than his tax breaks.

Whatever his reasons, Abramovich looks as if he wants to keep selling. He recently ditched another 37.5% stake in the Ruspromavto auto company. So will the richest Russian swap his Chukotka governorship for the title of Sir Roman? That might depend on how much money Putin will let him withdraw from Russia. And the extent of Putin's generosity may tell other oligarchs how much of today's riches they might get to keep