Business in the Republic of Belarus has developed rapidly over the past 25 years. Of course, the richest people in Belarus prefer not to advertise their income, so most of them choose to live outside their homeland. In this state with a population of 9.5 million people there are more than 10 thousand millionaires.
Andrey Melnichenko
The ranking of the wealthiest people in Belarus is headed by Andrei Melnichenko. Despite his Russian citizenship, Forbes magazine classifies Andrei Igorevich as a Belarusian businessman because he was born in the city of Gomel. His capital is $10.1 billion as of 2016.
Mr. Melnichenko began his career in 1991, as a student at Moscow State University, Faculty of Physics and Mathematics. Then he created the travel company Sputnik. Now Andrei Igorevich has 90% of the shares of the Eurochem company, the same percentage of shares of the Siberian Coal Energy Company and the Siberian Generating Company. All 3 enterprises have enormous influence in Russia and the world.
Over the past year, the businessman has slightly lost his position in the Forbes world ranking. Andrey Melnichenko is ranked 139th in the world compared to 137th last year.
Dmitry Mazepin ranks second in the ranking of the richest people in Belarus with a capital of $1.4 billion. A native of Minsk also has Russian citizenship. In addition, he was a deputy of the Kirov Regional Assembly for 2 years (2012-2014).
Dmitry Mazepin
Dmitry Arkadyevich has 2 higher educations: Minsk Suvorov Military School, MGIMO and Faculty of Management of St. Petersburg University. Mr. Mazepin began his business career in 1992 with the insurance company Infinstrakh. Today he owns 95% of the shares of Uralkhima, 20% of Uralkali and 20% of Onexim. The businessman is also known for being included in the top list of Russian billionaire philanthropists, taking 7th place.
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Breakthrough to financial success
The peak of Dmitry Mazepin's financial power came in 2013. At that time he owned $3.2 billion. However, due to Uralchem's debts, the businessman suffered significant losses. Therefore, Dmitry Andreevich left the ranking of the 100 richest people in the CIS.
Andrey Klyamko is the most non-public billionaire on the list. A native of the city of Novogrudok in the Grodno region of Belarus, he has a fortune of $1.24 billion as of 2016.
Andrey Klyamko
Andrei Stanislavovich does not have a higher education, but this did not become an obstacle to the opening of the Smart Holding business group in the mid-90s. At this time, he is a citizen of Ukraine and has a variety of assets throughout the CIS countries.
According to 2018 data, Mr. Klyamko took 683rd place in the world ranking. By this time, he had suffered losses of $1 billion.
Other billionaires
A native Minsk resident, Viktor Kisly, is known to the world community as the president of the Wargaming.net company. Without changing his Belarusian citizenship, he moved to Cyprus, from where he conducts his business. A childhood passion for computer games brought the businessman a fortune of $1.5 billion.
Today, Victor is the youngest billionaire in Belarus, he is 39 years old. A physicist by training, Kislyi began doing business in 1998, when he founded the company Wargaming.net. The company's most successful product was the game "World of tanks". By 2012, the company had acquired shares in many other American and European gaming firms. In the world list of Forbes magazine, Viktor Kisly occupies 701st place.Mikhail Abyzov, a native of the Belarusian capital, entered the ranking of the richest people in Belarus, being a prominent politician of the Russian Federation and at the same time a US citizen. His fortune is estimated at $1.2 billion.
Mikhail Abyzov
Mikhail Anatolyevich organized his first company when he was still a freshman at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Moscow State University in 1990. Then he was engaged in the trade of Turkish consumer goods. Today, Mr. Abyzov has assets in large companies in the energy sector (Elsib, Sibeco), agriculture (Kopitanie) and construction (Dalmostostroy).
Having analyzed the data of the first thirty businessmen of the Top 200, journalists compiled a portrait of the average Belarusian rich man.
in the photo (from left to right): Pavel Topuzidis, Alexander Tsenter, Arkady Dobkin
Let us remind you that the portal’s editors have been preparing a list of wealthy people in the country since 2007.
The leader of the latest rating is 47-year-old Alexander Moshensky, the “dairy king” from Brest, owner of Savushkin Product and Santa Impex Brest. He moved the country's main "tanker" Viktor Kisly, who led the rating for the last two years, from first place. Now Viktor Kisly is only fourth.
It is not known whether there are dollar billionaires like Bill Gates or, at worst, Roman Abramovich in Belarus. In 2010, the Ukrainian economic magazine Delo named Vladimir Peftiev the richest man in Belarus - according to the magazine, he had a billion dollars.
There is no longer a “weapons king” in the current rating, but there is Viktor Kisly - in 2016, the authoritative agency Bloomberg named the 39-year-old IT specialist a dollar millionaire - he is the one at the helm of the Wargaming company - the same one that created computer “tanks”. In this year's ranking, Kisly takes fourth place.
After analyzing the data of the first thirty Top 200 businessmen, Komsomolskaya Pravda calculated what a typical Belarusian billionaire looks like. This is a 51-year-old Minsk resident who is mainly involved in real estate, retail or IT, married, two children.
Gender: male
Age: 51 years
We calculated the average age of a Belarusian top entrepreneur simply: we added up the lived years of all businessmen and divided them by their number, 30.
The youngest participant in the top 30 is 34-year-old IT specialist Viktor Prokopenya (12th place). His company is developing artificial intelligence and augmented reality technologies, and together with Russian billionaire Mikhail Gutseriev, he is engaged in venture investments.
The oldest participant in the top thirty was 62-year-old IT specialist Sergei Levteev (23rd place) - he runs the IBA company, which develops and promotes IT services and products.
Marital status: married, two children
20 of the 30 richest businessmen are married, for another ten there is no exact information. The average number of children per businessman is 2.4. The record holder is Oleg Khusaenov (19th place), who has four sons and a daughter. Alexander Tsenter (8th place), Alexey Zhukov (20th place) and Sergei Gvardeytsev (29th place) have four children.
Place of birth: Minsk
Not all businessmen have information about their place of birth. But in cases where this is known, the majority turned out to be from Minsk, and many from the regions. Although in general the geography is quite wide. For example, Pavel Topuzidis (3rd place) was born in Abkhazia, Alexey Zhukov (20th place) and Sergey Levteev (23rd place) were born in Russia, Nikolay Vorobey (17th place) in Ukraine. Oleg Khusaenov (19th place) is a native of Kazakhstan.
Current place of residence: Minsk
The vast majority of businessmen from the top thirty live in the Belarusian capital. Three live and work in Cyprus, two more each in Grodno and Monaco, one businessman each in Luxembourg, Brest, Mogilev, Novopolotsk, Moscow, Prague and Riga.
Education: higher technical
It is known that four businessmen from the top thirty graduated from Minsk Polytechnic University, now the Belarusian National Technical University. Six graduated from BSU - usually from the Faculty of Physics or Mechanics and Mathematics. The education of four more is related to aviation; they studied in Leningrad, Riga and Moscow.
Thus, the education of the majority of Belarusian rich people is higher technical. Of course, there are exceptions. For example, Alexander Shakutin (15th place) is a general practitioner, he graduated from the Minsk Medical Institute. Nikolai Martynov (21st place), majoring in political science, studied at the Institute of Political Science and Social Management of the Communist Party of the BSSR.
Nikolai Vorobey (17th place) is a historian, and the owner of the Conte Spa plant, Valentin Bayko, is a primary school teacher.
Date of business start: 1993
Most Belarusian top businessmen began their careers during the collapse of the USSR and in the “roaring nineties”. Sergei Levteev (23rd place) was the first to get his bearings from the top thirty. The then 30-year-old electronics engineer started his business in 1985, that is, back in Soviet times. Two decades later, his company IBA has become one of the most successful software development and distribution businesses in the world.
The Daily Diary website has been compiling top lists of successful and influential Belarusian businessmen since 2007, and today they published another one.
For the first time, an IT businessman came in first place - 39-year-old Viktor Kisly, founder of Wargaming.net. Last year, Yuri Chizh took first place.
When compiling the rating, not only Kisly’s share in the value of the business, which exceeded $3 billion, was taken into account, but also local nuances. For example, the compilers of the rating separately indicated that one of the most devoted fans of Wargaming is the youngest son of the president. Together with Viktor Kisly, at the top of the list are his classmate partners, owners of 17% of the gaming business each, Nikolai Katselapov and Ivan Mikhnevich.
The compilers of the rating also point out: “The Top 200 project at this stage does not set out to estimate how much money this or that businessman has. Given the closed nature of the Belarusian economy, this is difficult, controversial and unsafe. The project, first of all, pursues an educational goal. On the one hand, it promotes personal recognition and increases the population’s loyalty to private business in general; on the other hand, it serves as a source of information for potential partners and investors who are going to implement projects in Belarus.”
A little envy: the youngest participant in the rating is 28 years old. This is Andrey Shimanovich, who became famous thanks to the mSpy mobile application (monitors telephone traffic). There are only six women in the top 200: Lyudmila Antonovskaya from Polimaster Instruments, Tatyana Krepchuk (Emir Motors, distribution and Toyota car service), Ksenia Shuravko (Online), Alma Yauntsemene (Tropinka, Sosedi chain stores ", distribution of vegetables and fruits, establishments "Tempo" and "Vasilki"), Svetlana Siparova ("Mark Formel") and Diana Kurilo-Shigalova (co-owner of the trading house "Zhdanovichi").
We will only list the top 30 businessmen; if they don’t have a photo, it means there really aren’t any photos of these people on the Internet. Not everyone has time to update Instagram; someone should be on the list of the most influential entrepreneurs! The entire rating can be viewed in the “Daily Book” - believe me, this is one of the best materials of the year in Belarusian journalism: they report some interesting facts about each businessman, indicate family ties and write quotes from interviews.
1. Victor Kisly
Founder and CEO of Wargaming net
2. Vitaly Arbuzov
Chairman of the Board of Directors of Fenox Global Group
3. Alexander Moshensky
General Director of JV LLC "Santa Bremor"
4. Pavel Topouzidis
Chairman of the Board of Tabak-Invest LLC
5. Alexander Shakutin
Chairman of the Board of Directors of OJSC Amkodor Holding Management Company, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of CJSC Absolutbank
6. Evgeniy Baskin
General Director of SJSC Servolux
7. Sergey Litvin
8. Vladimir Vasilko
Member of the supervisory board of Eurotorg LLC
9. Alexey Oleksin
Director of SJSC Energo Oil, member of the supervisory board of CJSC MTBank
10. Alexey Zhukov
General Director of Alutech Group of Companies
11. Vladimir Peftiev
In the past, he was a majority shareholder of CJSC Management Company of the Holding Beltech Holding, ex-chairman of the general meeting of shareholders of CJSC Beltechexport.
12. Yuri Chizh
General Director of Triple LLC, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of FC Dynamo-Minsk
13. Viktor Petrovich
Director of Tabak-invest LLC
14. Arkady Dobkin
Co-owner, president and chairman of the board of directors of EPAM Systems Inc.
15. Nikolay Katselapov
16. Ivan Mikhnevich
Co-owner of Wargaming Group Ltd.
17. Nikolay Vorobiev
Co-owner of Interservice LLC, member of the supervisory board of Absolutbank CJSC
18. Nikolay Martynov
General Director of LLC Management Company of the Holding Belarusian Leather and Shoe Company Marco, member of the supervisory board of OJSC Belinvestbank
19. Valentin Bayko
Chairman of the general meeting of participants of JLLC Conte Spa
20. Dmitry Bayko
Deputy General Director of JLLC Conte Spa
21. Valery Shumsky
Chairman of the Board of Directors of Yukola Group of Companies
22. Sergey Savitsky
General Director of LLC International Automotive Holding Atlant-M
23. Oleg Khusaenov
General Director of Zubr Capital LLC, Chairman of the Board of Directors of International Automobile Holding Atlant-M LLC
24. Sergey Levteev
Chairman of the Board of IBA Group
25. Alexey Vaganov
Co-owner of the Lada OMS Group of Companies, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of JSC Unison, Member of the General Meeting of Shareholders of the TDF Ecotech Consortium, Chairman of the Board of JSC Channel Eight
26. Andrey Pavlovsky
Chairman of the general meeting of participants of Biocom LLC, director of Biocom Invest LLC, member of the supervisory board of Belinvestbank OJSC
27. Sergey Borok
Co-owner of JLLC Plant Bulbash
28. Anatoly Ternavsky
President of CJSC Transnational Corporation Russian-Ukrainian Oil Society, general representative of the Univest group of companies in the CIS
29. Andrey Balabin
Chairman of the general meeting of shareholders of the founders of JSC Patio
30. Alexander Center
Chairman of the Board of Group of Companies A-100
Photo: pixabay.com, news.tut.by, by.tribuna.com, peoples.ru, ej.by, bel.biz, tech.onliner.by, newspeak.by, zautra.by
Over the last quarter of a century, business has been actively developing in the Republic of Belarus. Many have managed to make a good fortune through entrepreneurial activity. The richest people in Belarus do not try to advertise their own profits, but despite this, it is not difficult to make a rating of people who have a high level of income.
His main profit comes from the tobacco factory Tabak-Invest LLC. In addition to the tobacco factory, Topouzidis is interested in the construction and real estate industries. Pavel Georgievich owns several shopping centers in the country, a chain of pharmacies and health centers. Near Minsk there is an elite country club, which also belongs to a businessman. Topouzidis's fortune is estimated to be $100 million.
Viktor Shevtsov is the chairman of Belzarubezhstroy CJSC. He also heads the supervisory board of CJSC Trustbank.
Shevtsov began his entrepreneurial activities in 1991. During this time, he managed to earn a decent fortune, estimated at $100 million. By the way, Shevtsov spares no expense on the construction of churches.
In 1993, Moshensky founded his own business supplying frozen fish from European countries. The activity turned out to be very successful, thanks to which the businessman quickly expanded the list of offers for his clients. Today, the small fish retailing company has grown into a food manufacturing business. Among other things, Moshensky has a transport company and a chain of restaurants in the country.
The total fortune of Alexander Moshensky is equal to 100 million dollars.
Arbuzov founded his business back in 1989 - LenSpetsSMU CJSC. Today he holds the position of Chairman of the Board of the Fenox Global Group holding, which manufactures and sells automotive components. Arbuzov also has a construction business, a company that offers international transport services, and a company that deals with innovative medical developments.
Estimation of the businessman's wealth is 200 million USD. Arbuzov is known as a great connoisseur of expensive cars.
Heads the board of directors of the Etalon group of companies. The businessman opened his first company in 1987. Before that time, he worked at Glavzapstroy, where in 13 years he went through a long career from a fitter and completed it as a department head. Now Zarenkov’s field of activity is the construction of industrial and shopping complexes, residential buildings. The businessman has academic degrees, and even patented several of his own inventions.
According to the latest data, the businessman has about $0.5 billion in his accounts. At the same time, Vyacheslav Adamovich transfers significant amounts of money to help orphanages.
This man is called the youngest millionaire in Belarus. His name is familiar to many network users, since it was Kisly who founded the Wargaming company, which brought World of Tanks to the attention of players. The company's office is located in Cyprus. In addition to the famous game, the company produces many other products.
Victor's fortune is more than 1.5 billion dollars.
Katselapov Nikolay
One of the co-founders of Wargaming. It was he who promoted the game on the world market. The businessman's total fortune is more than a billion dollars. Katselapov, like the other founders of the company, spends a lot of time in Cyprus, where the office of the creators of World of Tanks is located. But a few years ago, a businessman bought an apartment in the center of Minsk. Housing worth 675 thousand dollars was included in the list of the largest real estate transactions on the Belarusian market. And if we take into account only transactions executed by citizens of the country, then Katselapov became the first to make such an expensive purchase on the real estate market.
At the dawn of the existence of the Republic of Belarus as an independent state, Peftiev organized his own business. In 1993, he was involved in the sale of weapons that remained in the country after the collapse of the Union. The business grew into larger-scale projects. Today Peftiev owns a lottery company and also owns an aircraft factory. In addition, he actively invests money in the development of mobile communications and actively supports the development of Internet technologies.
The businessman's fortune is $1 billion.
Melnichenko started working in banking. But soon he sells a completely successful business and refocuses on the industrial sector. His assets are an electric power company, a coal company. He also owns Elektrokhim OJSC, a plant that is recognized as the largest producer of mineral fertilizers in Europe.
Despite his Russian citizenship, Melnichenko is classified among Belarusian millionaires in ratings. His net worth is $11.4 billion. Melnichenko often donates funds to support sports and education. True, lately the businessman has somewhat lost his position. In the world ranking he moved from 137th to 139th place.
Minsk resident Abyzov has a reputation as an excellent anti-crisis manager. He managed to successfully manage non-payment crises in the energy industry. Currently, Abyzov holds the position of head of the board of directors of the engineering company E4 Group. The company includes 13 holdings and is currently the leading company in this industry.
Mazepin is called one of the richest people in the country. But there is very little information about his personality, since the businessman is not a public person at all.
He is offered his first significant position at the Tyumen Oil Company. He becomes vice-president, and at the time of taking office, Mazepin is only 28 years old. After this, he becomes the general director of Kuzbassugol, then the president of AK Sibur. And after leaving the post of president of Sibur, Mazepin refocused on business in the chemical industry.
Klyamko Andrey
Another completely non-public person among Belarusian millionaires. Klyamko organized the Smart-Holding business group in the mid-90s. Moreover, even the lack of higher education did not prevent him from running a successful business.
Today Klimko has Ukrainian citizenship. Its assets are located in different CIS countries.
Yuri Mikhailovich's entrepreneurial activity began with the sale of cows. He began to do this immediately after graduating from college. A little later, in 1992, Chizh reoriented and launched the production of building materials.
In 2012, the businessman fell under EU sanctions, the reason being “support for the Lukashenko regime.” Now Chizh is suspected of fraud.
The businessman's fortune, according to the latest data, is $90 million.
200 successful and influential businessmen of Belarus is a project of the Internet portal “Daily”, which the publication has been preparing and publishing since 2007.
The project, first of all, has an educational goal. On the one hand, it promotes personal recognition and increases the population’s loyalty to private business in general; on the other hand, it serves as a source of information for potential partners and investors who are going to implement projects in Belarus.
Getting into and being included in the top 200 successful and influential businessmen of Belarus is determined by two criteria:
1. Success is the actual share of a particular person in the price of the business that belongs to him.
Ownership and share are calculated based on data from the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Belarus (Unified Register of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs), registration authorities of other countries where the main business is located or the entrepreneur conducts business, as well as on the basis of other open sources and insider information. The value of a business, in the presence of financial indicators, is calculated using traditional methods for assessing value (cost, income, comparable sales). Depending on the volume of financial information and its sources, it is chosen which approach is appropriate in assessing a specific business and, accordingly, the current capital of the person involved in the top 200 successful and influential businessmen of Belarus.
2. Influentiality is an additional criterion, given by us due to the specific conditions of doing business in Belarus and the impossibility at the moment to publish monetary indicators.
It is based on the concept of business sustainability in the economic conditions that have developed over 25 years in the Belarusian economy. First of all, this is an assessment of the level of communication of a particular business owner with the state regulator, as well as his role (influence) in the region and the economy as a whole. A group of experts (at least 10 people), which is directly related to one of the markets whose participants are represented in the top 200 (IT, finance, woodworking, mechanical engineering, food industry, etc.), uses a point system to determine the degree of influence of that or another person for a given period of time.
The Top 200 successful and influential businessmen of Belarus are used as a source of information on private business in Belarus not only by Belarusian companies and government agencies, but also by the European Commission, the EAEU and departments of other countries of the world.
Several features of the 2016 rating are the sharp decline of the previous leader, Yuri Chizh. From first place he jumped to 12th. And his arrested comrade Vladimir Yaprintsev was completely ignored by experts. Meanwhile, the rating was topped by the founder of World of Tanks, Viktor Kisly.
1. Victor Kisly
39 years (1976)
Nicosia (Cyprus)
General Director of Wargaming Group Ltd., Deputy Director for Development of Game Stream JLLC
2. Vitaly Arbuzov
51 years old (1964)
Minsk
Chairman of the Board of Directors of Fenox Global Group, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Fenox Venture Capital
Interests: auto components, auto production, venture capital investments, retail
3. Alexander Moshensky
45 years (1970)
Brest
General Director of JV LLC "Santa Impex Brest", member of the supervisory board of OJSC "Development Bank of the Republic of Belarus"
Interests: food, retail, leisure and entertainment, real estate
4. Pavel Topouzidis
59 years (1956)
Minsk
Chairman of the Board of Tabak-Invest LLC
5. Alexander Shakutin
56 years (1959)
Minsk
Chairman of the Board of Directors of OJSC Amkodor - Holding Management Company, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of CJSC Absolutbank
Interests: mechanical engineering, fuel and energy complex, investments, finance
6. Evgeniy Baskin
50 years (1965)
Mogilev
General Director of SJSC Servolux
Interests: food, agriculture, retail
7. Sergey Litvin
49 years (1966)
Monaco (Monaco)
8. Vladimir Vasilko
49 years (1966)
Monaco (Monaco)
Member of the supervisory board of Eurotorg LLC
Interests: retail, trade, alcohol, real estate, food, finance
9. Alexey Oleksin
Director of SJSC Energo Oil, member of the supervisory board of CJSC MTBank
Interests: fuel and energy complex, finance, real estate, food
10. Alexey Zhukov
48 years (1967)
Minsk
General Director of the Alutech Group of Companies
Interests: building materials
11. Vladimir Peftiev
58 years (1957)
Minsk
Ex-chairman of the general meeting of shareholders of Beltechexport CJSC, ex-co-owner of Beltech Holding Management Company CJSC
Interests: investments
12. Yuri Chizh
52 years old (1963)
Minsk
Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Triple Group of Companies, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of CJSC FC Dynamo-Minsk
Interests: construction and real estate, building materials, retail, food, agriculture, recreation and entertainment, pharmaceuticals
13. Viktor Petrovich
Director of Tabak-invest LLC
Interests: tobacco, retail, real estate, recreation and entertainment
14. Arkady Dobkin
55 years (1960)
Newtown (Pennsylvania, USA)
Co-owner, president and chairman of the board of directors of EPAM Systems Inc.
Interests: IT
15. Nikolay Katselapov
Nicosia (Cyprus)
Interests: IT, finance, real estate
16. Ivan Mikhnevich
Nicosia (Cyprus)
Co-owner of Wargaming Group Ltd.
Interests: IT, finance, real estate.
17. Nikolai Vorobey
Novopolotsk
Co-owner of Interservice LLC, member of the supervisory board of Absolutbank CJSC
Interests: fuel and energy complex, recreation and entertainment, woodworking, real estate, investments
18. Nikolay Martynov
59 years (1956)
Vitebsk
General Director of LLC "Management Company of the Holding "Belarusian Leather and Shoe Company "Marko", member of the Supervisory Board of OJSC "Belinvestbank"
Interests: shoes, retail, real estate
19. Valentin Bayko
45 years (1970)
Grodno
Chairman of the general meeting of participants of JLLC "Conte Spa"
Interests: textiles, real estate, retail, leisure and entertainment
20. Dmitry Bayko
Grodno
Deputy General Director of Conte Spa JLLC
Interests: Textiles, real estate, retail, leisure and entertainment
21. Valery Shumsky
55 years (1960)
Moscow, Russia)
Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Yukola Group of Companies
Interests: fuel and energy complex, recreation and entertainment
22. Sergey Savitsky
49 years (1966)
Minsk
General Director of LLC "International Automotive Holding "Atlant-M"
Interests: retail
23. Oleg Khusaenov
51 years old (1964)
Minsk
General Director of Zubr Capital LLC, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Atlant-M International Automobile Holding LLC
