THE number of dollar billionaires in Russia leapt to 50 from 39 last year thanks to an oildriven consumer boom, according to a new Russian rich list.

But it is not just the number of billionaires that is causing a stir this year; it is the type of businessmen who are on the list compiled by the business magazine Finans.

As last year, it is topped by Roman Abramovich, the former oil tycoon who owns Chelsea Football Club and governs the remote eastern region of Chukotka. And, as before, most of the mega-rich — 39 of the top 50 — made their fortunes in oil, gas or metals.

However, the list now includes the first dollar billionaires to have built retail businesses from scratch rather than seizing state assets in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. They are being hailed as the poster boys of a new generation of business leaders who are rising to prominence as fast as the oligarchs of the 1990s are falling from grace.

Top among them is Andrei Rogachev, 41, the founder of Pyaterochka, one of the largest discount grocery chains in Russia. Set up in 1999, Pyaterochka sold its first shares to public investors in London last year, which boosted Mr Rogachev’s fortune to an estimated $1.2 billion (£700 million), according to Finans.

Next comes Rustam Tariko, the flamboyant 44-year-old owner of Russky Standart, which combines banking and insurance with a popular premium vodka brand. Mr Tariko started out importing Italian chocolates in the 1990s and is now renowned for throwing lavish parties in Sardinia in the company of his pet dog, Dow Jones. Finans estimated his fortune at $1.16 billion.

Third among the newcomers is Sergei Galitsky, 38, who owns Magnit, another budget grocery chain. He began by selling cosmetics and cleaning products in the southern region of Krasnodar but now has more than 1,500 Magnit stores across Russia and an estimated fortune of $1.05 billion.

Finans said that another dozen or so similar businessmen were likely to make it into the top 50 next year. It also predicted that Mr Abramovich would be knocked off the top of the list, having sold his oil company, Sibneft, to the state gas giant, Gazprom, last year.

Altogether there were 720 people — 50 per cent more than last year — on the list of Russians with fortunes of one billion roubles ($35 million) or more. The youngest was Georgi Semenenko, 23, who replaced his father as head of a converted tank factory in St Petersburg after his father died in a fall from a fifteenth-storey window at a Russian beach resort. The oldest was Semen Svirsky, 81, the head of the Moscow construction company Mosinzhstroi.

The most-eligible was Mikhail Prokhorov, the 40-year-old chief executive of Norilsk Nickel, the world’s largest producer of nickel and palladium. With a fortune estimated at $6.7 billion, he is the richest bachelor in Russia and known for hosting extravagant parties at the French ski resort of Courchevel.

He has promised to put an end to his playboy lifestyle and to marry — when he is 42.

Times Recommends

• No apology for Germany’s own Nazi victims
• Intricate web of fear and hope tying down deal
• Victims remembered a year after Mumbai attacks