30 Fascinating Facts About Roman Abramovich That You Probably Didn't Know

Roman Abramovich, world renowned as the owner of Chelsea F.C., a Premier League football club, is the primary owner of the private investment company Millhouse LLC, as well as the richest person in Israel. He is famous for his contributions to schools, hospitals and infrastructure in Chukotka. Here are some really unique things to know about the Russian billionaire businessman:

1.  He is known to have donated more money than any other living Russian, with over $2.5 billion between the years 1999 and 2013, for various philanthropic causes.
2.  He is said to have donated another $164 million for social projects between 2010 through 2012, through his company Evraz Plc (EVR), the steelmaker partly owned by Abramovich. The said amount is excluded in Abramovich's $310 million donations during this period.
3.  He reportedly set up a charity Pole of Hope, with approximately GB£1.5 billion, in an effort to help those in the Arctic region of Chukotka, where he was governor from 2000 to 2008.
4.  In the year 2005, he funded the exhibition "Quiet Resistance: Russian Pictorial Photography 1900s–1930s" at the Somerset House in London, organized by the Moscow House of Photography.
5.  A year later, on November 29, he sponsored an exhibition of photographs of Uzbekistan by renowned Soviet photographer Max Penson at the Gilbert Collection at the same gallery.
6.  He reportedly bought Francis Bacon's Triptych 1976 for €61.4 million, which is till date considered to be record price for a post-war work of art. He also bought Lucian Freud's Benefits Supervisor Sleeping for €23.9 million, which is also a record price for a work by a living artist.
7.  He is said to have helped his partner Dasha Zhukova in managing a Garage Center for Contemporary Culture - gallery of contemporary art in Moscow, which after being neglected for decades, was restored in 2007–2008 and reopened to the public in September 2008. The restoration expense is credited to sponsorship by Abramovich.
8.  He bought the Varsano boutique hotel in Tel Aviv's Neve Tzedek neighborhood for 100 million NIS in 2015 from Gal Gadot's husband Yaron Varsano and Varsano's brother Guy, and has been converting it into his Israeli home.
9.  He is the proud owner for what the media dubbed to be "Abramovich's Navy," a fleet of yachts. In fact, he is known to be the world's greatest spender on luxury yachts.
10.  He currently owns "Eclipse," the yacht of 162.5 metres (533 ft), built in Germany, which is believed to have cost him around $400 million. It was reported to be the world's largest privately owned yacht until it was eclipsed in 2013 by the 180 metres (590 ft) Azzam.
11.  He was also the owner of Le Grand Bleu of 112 metres (367 ft), which was formerly owned by John McCaw. Abromovich bought her in 2003 and had Blohm + Voss completely refit her with a 16 ft (4.9 m) swim platform and sports dock. He gave the yacht as a gift to his associate and friend Eugene Shvidler in June 2006.
12.  Abramovich was considered to be the second richest person living within the United Kingdom, prior to the 2008 financial crisis, and is estimated to have lost £3 billion from his £11.7 billion wealth in the global economic crisis.
13.  He became an Israeli citizen in May 2018, when the UK delayed to renewing his visa in April 2018, following the Poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, amid tensions between UK and Russia.
14.  For years, he had been travelling in and out of the UKon a Tier-1 investor visa, designed for wealthy foreigners who invest at least £2 million in Britain.
15.  He reportedly exercised his right under Israel's Law of Return, which states that Jews from anywhere in the world can become citizens of Israel, and now as an Israeli, he can visit Britian visa-free.
16.  In January 2005, he was facing legal issues with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), which claimed that he owed $17.5 million by Runicom, a Switzerland-based oil trading business controlled by Abramovich and Eugene Shvidler, and that it would be sueing him over a £9 million loan.
17.  He also owns a private Boeing 767-33A/ER, registered in Aruba as P4-MES, known by the name Bandit, which is estimated to have cost $300 million. The said aircraft reportedly includes a 30-seat dining room, a boardroom, master bedrooms, luxury bathrooms with showers, and a spacious living room.
18.  He had Beyoncé, Gwen Stefani and Prince perform at his New Year's Eve event at his estate on the Caribbean island of St Bart's in the year 2009.
19.  Abramovich is known to have invested in more than a dozen Israeli startups including rapid-battery charger technology developer Storedot.
20.  It was reported by Russia's antitrust body, the Federal Antimonopoly Service that his company Evraz Holding, had breached Russian competition law by offering unfavorable terms for contractors and discriminating against domestic consumers for coking coal, a key material used in steel production.
21.  He was arrested in a case of theft of government property, in the year 1992, when he met the train containing 55 cisterns (tankers) of diesel fuel, worth Р3.8 million (Roubles) sent by AVEKS-Komi, and resent the shipment to the Kaliningrad military base under a fake agreement, but the fuel arrived in Riga.
22.  Abramovich is said to have totally co-operated with the investigation, and the charges were dropped after the oil production factory was compensated by the diesel's buyer, the Latvian-U.S. concern Chikora International.
23.  He is said to have hired the Red Hot Chili Peppers to perform for a reported £5m, including a special appearance from Toots Hibbert of Toots and the Maytals in 2011. He also spent £5 million on a total of 300 guests, including George Lucas, Martha Stewart, Marc Jacobs and Jimmy Buffett.
24.  At the age of 30, he become close to President Boris Yeltsin and even moved into an apartment inside the Kremlin at the invitation of the Yeltsin family.
25.  He was elected governor of the Russian province of Chukotka, at the age of 33, in the year 1999. He was appointed for a second term as the governor on October 21, 2005.
26.  It is said that Abramovich was the first person to originally recommend to the then- President of Russia Boris Yeltsin that Vladimir Putin be his successor as the Russian president.
27.  In the year 2018, he reportedly donated 70 million NIS to the Sheba Hospital in Tel HaShomer, in Ramat Gan, Israel, in an effort to fund their nuclear medicine research program.
28.  He reportedly hired British singer Robbie Williams to headline a New Year's dinner for President Putin's "inner circle," in Moscow, in the year 2014, which seems to have been the inspiration for Williams' song "Party Like a Russian."
29.  He was denied residency in Switzerland in the year 2016, with the conclusion that he was under "suspicion of money laundering and presumed contacts with criminal organisations." He had intended to move to the ski resort of Verbier.
30.  Abramovich was awarded the Order of Honour for his "huge contribution to the economic development of the autonomous district," by a decree signed by the President of Russia.
31.  Roman Abromovich Net Worth: $13.4 Billion