Russians are making 'Londongrad' the centre of a new worldwide empire

[T_i_B]

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article337242.ece

White festive lights still hang from the trees outside 15a Kensington Palace Gardens, burning bright. The house is worth £41m but looks ordinary among the embassies in this wide, leafy avenue with roadblocks at both ends. No car enters without the correct pass, no pedestrian comes near without being watched.

The owner is one of a dozen Russian oil billionaires who have set up base here, bringing with them lawyers, accountants and advisers; and in their wake thousands of other less rich but highly skilled Russians with specialist knowledge to sell in the city they now call "Londongrad". But they celebrated the Russian Orthodox Christmas yesterday knowing what the rest of Europe has just found out: that even here, the Russian President could put their lights out any time he likes.

The Russians are not coming. Not any more; that is the language of the Cold War. The Russians are here already, living in Georgian town houses, shopping for jewellery in Bond Street, watching football. Roman Abramovich is the most famous, since he took over Chelsea FC and bought the Premiership title. But football is only a game. The real prize for the super-rich of Moscow is a safe place to keep their families and all the money they made when their country sold off its greatest assets on the cheap during the Nineties. They made enemies at a time when Russia was like the Wild West, so frequently did business disputes end in death. While the oligarchs may have all the cash and the bodyguards now, their President still has the power.

Vladimir Putin has put one of their friends, formerly the richest man in Russia, in a prison in Siberia. And even as the Russian leader was inheriting the presidency of the G8 group of world economic leaders last week, he was also using the state power company Gazprom to flex his muscles on the world stage.