What are some of the words that spring to mind when you hear the expression ‘Russian oligarch’?

‘Law-abiding’, ‘easy-going’, ‘intellectual’, ‘profound’ are probably not—I’m guessing—among them. Much, it would seem, has been written and said over the years about these cheeky entrepreneurs who first came to prominence during the early days of glasnost and perestroika, these self-made oil baron multi-billionaires who courted the likes of Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin and who weren’t afraid of enlisting the services of the Russian mafia or of spending a little time in jail if they felt it might help their cause.

No, I’m not going to tell you what you already know. What I’d like to concentrate on are some of their lesser-known qualities, qualities that might surprise you, qualities you probably didn’t even think they possessed. What about, for instance: ‘down-to-earth’? Let’s start with that one. Can a Russian oligarch ever be described as ‘down-to-earth’?

Well let’s have a look. Let’s take—oh, I don’t know—Roman Abramovich as an example. Now this unassuming, remarkably unaffected man not only has his own army (forty ex-special services body guards), but also his own air force (two private airliners, three private jets, three helicopters), and his own navy (two mega-yachts, two super-yachts, one yacht). His most recent acquisition, the mega-yacht Eclipse, cost roughly 1.2 billion pounds to make, measures in excess of 170 metres in length, and features such basic onboard necessities as an anti-paparazzi photo-shield, an Armour-plated master bedroom, bullet-proof windows, two swimming pools, two helipads, a missile detection system, and a submarine which also doubles up as an escape pod.

So, in answer to the first question—can a Russian oligarch ever be described as down-to-earth?—I think the answer is quite clearly: yes he can. But what impresses me even more than this almost monastic shunning of all non-essential earthly possessions is the sheer practicality that lies behind it. I mean, what do you do if you’re a Russian oligarch and you have to keep moving your helicopter from your helipad whenever one of your friends wants to arrive on your boat in another helicopter? In Abramovich’s case, the answer was simple: you build another helipad (common sense, really, when you think about it). I can’t help admiring Abramovich’s practical approach to some of the other boats in his navy, either; 115 metre long Pelorus is used only for entertaining, 90-meter long Ecstasea is used only for cruising, and 50-meter long Sussurro is used only for short journeys and for lending to friends. It’s simple, down-to-earth pragmatism at its best. That’s all it is.

So we’ve learned that Russian oligarchs can be down-to-earth and practical at the same time.

Good. 

How about ‘adventurous’? Are Russian oligarchs known as being particularly adventurous people?

Well no they’re not, sadly. The truth is that most Russian oligarchs are famously intrepid travellers who have been known to venture as far afield as the treacherous alpine settlement of Verbier or the remote jungle island of Sardinia, both primitive colonial outposts where for many of the local children, the Russian oligarchs and their hardy entourages are the only white people they have ever seen.

For me, it’s the way the oligarchs travel that really fires the imagination. They all seem to embody a kind old-world, pioneering spirit mixed in with a sense of ethnic fascination. They’re well-mannered, too. In fact, you could say that what defines the oligarchs and their extended entourages more than anything, perhaps, is their innate ability to immerse themselves quietly into local cultures whilst at the same time whole-heartedly embracing local traditions. In Sardinia, the natives welcome them with open arms, pouring down the beach in their hundreds to offer up gifts of fruit, livestock, coconuts, and beautiful hand-carved souvenirs. The oligarchs, in return, regularly invite many of these simple folk onto their yachts where they entertain them for days, sometimes weeks.

Here’s another one for you: ‘sense of humor’. Russian oligarchs, as it turns out, have an excellent sense of humor. One of the servants in an oligarch’s French Riviera chateau said she was working at a party once and saw the guests “.....throwing burning 500 Euro notes in the air while everyone split their sides laughing.”

I must say, that does sound quite funny! But remember that the oligarchs can get away with it because they give so much money to charity. They really do. It’s heart-warming to see just how many of them are prepared to invest significant portions of their fortunes back into the Russian economy, into the country whose people have suffered so much for so long and to which, after all, they themselves owe so much in return. Building bigger and better schools, improving hospitals, creating jobs; these are but a few of the areas targeted by these ruthless modern day saints.

And it’s just as well—really—when you think about it: can you imagine if they didn’t do any of these things? Can you imagine if they didn’t put something back? What would they be then?

I’ll tell you what they’d be: they’d be MONSTERS.

What about this one: ‘religious’? Are Russian oligarchs religious people?

Well yes they are, as a matter of fact. Very much so. Religion seems to be something of an obsession for many of them. In addition to the two swimming pools and the two helipads on Abramovich’s mega-yacht, you’ll also find two chapels (one fore and one aft) and one resident priest. It’s true! And unlike the resident submarine Captain who, unfortunately for him, spends most of his time sunbathing on deck and as a consequence is apparently bored out of his skull, the resident priest is rushed off his feet day-in-day-out making sure that Abramovich and his guests adhere to a rigorous program of abstinence, religious study, choir practice, and prayer.

One last question: do Russian oligarchs go to heaven after they die?

Are you kidding me?

Of course they do. I’m surprised you even needed to ask.

I always used to give a snort of derision every time I heard football being referred to—on TV and only when I had stumbled briefly upon the wrong channel—as ‘The Beautiful Game.’ 

“Beautiful….???!!!” I used to ask the television set with a look of abject revulsion on my face after whatever had happened to be in my mouth at the time had gone splattering all over the kitchen table. For what could possibly be less beautiful than twenty two ugly, vicious, ludicrously overpaid, and crazily uneducated louts thumping a bladder around a football pitch in an ultimately scoreless game presided over by another twenty-two thousand ugly, vicious, ludicrously underpaid (this time), and crazily uneducated louts before being summarized unintelligibly by two more ugly, vicious, ludicrously overpaid (once again) and crazily uneducated louts?  

Any ideas? No, I didn’t think so somehow.

But a funny thing started to happen to me as I trawled my way pornographically through the tabloid newspapers this week in preparation for writing this article. I began to see—slowly but surely, hardly daring to believe the strange shift I was miraculously undergoing—just what a truly beautiful team of young ambassadors we have representing our great nation in South Africa this summer in the 2010 World Cup. 

Beautiful on the outside, sure, that more or less goes without saying. Just look at players like Rio Ferdinand or Wayne Rooney if you don’t believe me. And as for the W.A.G.S (that stands for Wives and Girlfriends in case you’re from America and therefore not familiar with the abbreviation), well I’d have to say you’d be hard-pushed to find a more classically beautiful, uncompromisingly erudite and almost horribly sophisticated group of young women anywhere in the world today. I mean it.

OK, so we’ve established that the English football team is beautiful on the outside—fine—but how about on the inside? How about the minds of the players—can they be beautiful too?

The simple answer is, yes, they can. And here’s why.

I happen to have it on good authority that Captain Rio Ferdinand has, in the weeks and (who knows?) months leading up to The World Cup, imposed a series of draconian, almost Fransiscan measures to ensure his team is properly equipped for the task ahead. Sadly, our beloved captain injured his left knee Friday and won’t be playing in South Africa next week. But his imprint will still be seen in the actions he took leading up to the games, such as insisting on a complete shunning of all material possessions, a requirement to have a working knowledge of at least one of the black South African languages (ideally two) and—listen to this—a strict obligation to read no less than one book every week. And not just any old book, either.

A certain investigative journalist of my acquaintance (who can’t be named) recently gained access to the locker room at the England training camp in Austria and told me he was astonished to discover the kinds of books that were scattered about the place. Inside each of them he found an exhaustive reading list compiled by Ferdinand himself that featured Shakespeare, Nietzsche, some Dickens, some Goethe, and what else? Oh yes, the early works of Marcel Proust, to name but a few. Ferdinand has apparently been quizzing his team on the books at the end of each week and is said to become furious if he thinks anybody has been remiss in their literary studies. (Wayne Rooney, incidentally, loves reading and is said to have taken particularly well to the new regime.) In an attempt to cover up this new secret weapon of theirs, the players have been instructed by their captain to deny vehemently any knowledge of its existence. Oh, they’ll deny it alright. In a recent post-match television interview, mid-fielder Frank Lampard became visibly flustered when approached on the subject and started angrily protesting that he had no idea what the interviewer was talking about (yeah, right).

So now do you see? These are not ordinary men we’re talking about here. These are men of culture, men of breeding, men who know the difference between right and wrong. Men of honour, for crying out loud. Yes, that’s right, men of beauty—beautiful men!

Oh, and here’s another one for you: the way they talk isn’t exactly ugly either. 

“Well I’ll be damned,” I found myself saying in a faraway voice as I listened to Steven Gerrard being interviewed on TV recently, almost all trace of a Liverpudlian accent inexplicably banished from his lips. “Has Rio Ferdinand been making his team have secret elocution lessons as well??”

As for the English football supporters, well, you don’t need me to tell you how beautiful they are. 20,000 of them are set to travel to South Africa during the World Cup. It’ll be like The Summer of Love all over again. 20,000 beautiful people with flowers in their hair—trust me, that is a shit-load of beauty by anyone’s standards. My only worry is that the host nation won’t have adequate resources to cope with so much beauty during such a short period of time. Oh, well. I wish them luck.

And of course, finally, it helps to have a manager with a fluent grasp of the English language, and we are extremely fortunate—in Fabio Capello—to have such a manager. Although, quite why he is SO good at English remains something of a mystery and not least, one suspects, to Capello himself. OK, so he may not be beautiful to look at necessarily—he’d be the first to admit it—but he can consider himself something of a biological freak when it comes to his absolute mastery of a second language. What was it, two years ago? He couldn’t even speak a word of English but now listen to him! Watch his face very carefully next time you see him interviewed. Look at his eyes—there’s a certain magical twinkle in them that seems to say: “Yeah, yeah. I know. I am brilliant at English and yet I can’t believe how brilliant I am.” He’s riding high on a wave of linguistic genius, and he knows it. 

Ah…..beautiful. Just beautiful. Ferdinand or no Ferdinand, I tell you, with so much beauty pouring in and out of the England camp over the last two months, I would be flabbergasted—I repeat, FLABBERGASTED—if England didn’t end up winning the World Cup.