Russia’s Oligarchs Got Hurt Badly by the 2008 Recession

I decided to take upon the Forbes method of reckoning the economic consequences of the 2008 recession. According to the Forbes, total net worth of Russia's billionaires dropped from $471.4 billion in 2008 to $92.6 billion in 2009, as shown in Table 1. In other words, the fortunes of the Russian riches shrank five times or by 80%. So on average the Russian billionaires lost almost half of their wealth. If the average "Abramovich" had $5.4 billion in his pocket in 2008, then he had only around $3 billion a year later. The Forbes' World's Billionaire List featured almost 90 Russians in 2008. Now the Forbes' list has only 28 of them.

Btw, according to the Economist, Russia's GDP shrank by almost 11% in the Q2 of 2009 as compared to the Q2 of 2008. Russia's GDP was $2,266 trillion in 2008. So Russia's economy lost around $250 billion, while Russia's oligarchs lost about $378.8 billion. Thus, Russia's oligarchs lost more than Russia's economy, ha?

Table 1. The Forbes' List of Russia's Billionaires, 2008-2009.

Year	2008	2009	Abs. ∆	% ∆
Total Net Worth ($ bil)	471.4	92.6	5.1	80.4
Number of billionaires
Russian citizen	87	31	2.81	64.4
Russian resident	81	28	2.89	65.4
Foreign resident	6	3	2	50