Roman Abramovich

His father, Aaron Abramovich Leibovich (1937−1969), who was of Jewish descent, worked in the economic council of the Komi ASSR, and died when Roman was three.

Roman's maternal grandparents were Vasily Mikhailenko and Faina Borisovna Grutman, both born in Ukraine.

It was to Saratov in the early days of World War II that Roman's maternal grandmother fled from Ukraine.

Irina was then three years old.

Roman's paternal grandparents, Nachman Leibovich and Toybe (Tatyana) Stepanovna Abramovich, were Belarusian Jews.

They lived in Belarus and, after the revolution, moved to Tauragė, Lithuania, with the Lithuanian spelling of the family name being Abramavičius.

His mother, Irina (1939−1967), was a music teacher who died when Abramovich was one year old.

In 1940, the Soviet Union (USSR) annexed Lithuania.

Just before the Nazi German invasion of the USSR, the Soviets "cleared the anti-Soviet, criminal and socially dangerous element" with whole families being sent to Siberia.

Abramovich's grandparents were separated when deported.

The father, mother and children – Leib, Abram and Aron (Arkady) – were in different camps.

Many of the deportees died in the camps.

Among them was the grandfather of Abramovich.

Nachman Leibovich died in 1942 in the NKVD camp in the settlement of Resheti, Krasnoyarsk Territory.

Having lost both parents before the age of 4, Abramovich was raised by relatives and spent much of his youth in the Komi Republic in northern Russia.

Abramovich is the Chairman of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, and a trustee of the Moscow Jewish Museum.

Abramovich decided to establish a forest of some 25,000 new and rehabilitated trees, in memory of Lithuania's Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust, plus a virtual memorial and tribute to Lithuanian Jewry (Seed a Memory) enabling people from all over the world to commemorate their ancestors' personal stories by naming a tree and including their name in the memorial.

Abramovich entered the business world during his army service.

He first worked as a street-trader, and then as a mechanic at a local factory.

Abramovich attended the Gubkin Institute of Oil and Gas in Moscow, then traded commodities for the Swiss trading firm Runicom.

Roman Arkadyevich Abramovich (Роман Аркадьевич Абрамович, ; רומן ארקדיביץ' אברמוביץ'; born 24 October 1966) is a Russian oligarch and politician.

He is the former owner of Chelsea, a Premier League football club in London, England, and is the primary owner of the private investment company Millhouse LLC.

He has Russian, Israeli and Portuguese citizenship.

Roman Arkadyevich Abramovich was born on 24 October 1966 in Saratov, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union (present-day Saratov, Russia).

In 1988, as perestroika created opportunities for privatization in the Soviet Union, Abramovich gained a chance to legitimise his old business.

He and his first wife, Olga, set up a company making dolls.

Within a few years his wealth spread from oil conglomerates to pig farms.

He has traded in timber, sugar, food stuffs and other products.

Abramovich enriched himself in the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, obtaining Russian state-owned assets at prices far below market value in Russia's controversial loans-for-shares privatisation program.

Abramovich is considered to have a good relationship with Russian president Vladimir Putin, an allegation Abramovich denied.

In 1992, he was arrested and sent to prison in a case of theft of government property.

According to two different sources, Abramovich first met Berezovsky either at a meeting with the Russian businessmen in 1993 or in the summer of 1995.

Berezovsky and Abramovich registered an offshore company, Runicom Ltd., with five subsidiaries.

Abramovich headed the Moscow affiliate of the Swiss firm, Runicom S.A. In August 1995, Boris Yeltsin decreed the creation of Sibneft, of which Abramovich and Berezovsky were thought to be top executives.

In 1995, Abramovich and Berezovsky acquired a controlling interest in the large oil company Sibneft in a rigged auction.

The deal took place within the controversial loans-for-shares program and each partner paid US$100 million for half of the company, above the stake's stock market value of US$150 million at the time, and rapidly turned it up into billions.

The fast-rising value of the company led many observers, in hindsight, to suggest that the real cost of the company should have been in the billions of dollars (it was worth US$2.7 billion at that time).

He was formerly Governor of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug from 2000 to 2008.

According to Forbes, Abramovich's net worth was US$14.5 billion in 2021.

making him the second-richest person in Israel, Since then, his wealth decreased to $6.9 billion (in 2022), and recovered up to $9.2 billion in 2023.