Billionaires from the Former USSR: Young and Rich
We present the top ten youngest billionaires whose fortunes were made in countries that were formerly part of the USSR. Among them are the creators of popular mobile games, a messaging app, two fintech empires, and a taxi service. The list also includes heirs who inherited their wealth from their fathers. It is noteworthy that most of them do not live in the countries where they made their first money. The youngest of them started his business at nineteen, with a loan of 5,000 euros from his parents.
**List of Young Billionaires:**
| Name | Country | Net Worth |
| :------------- | :------------------ | :----------- |
| Dmitry Bukhman | Russia / UK | $13.6 billion |
| Igor Bukhman | Russia / UK | $13.6 billion |
| Nikolay Storonsky | Russia / UK | $7.9 billion |
| Pavel Durov | Russia / UAE | $6.6 billion |
| Timur Turlov | Kazakhstan | $5.2 billion |
| Vlad Yatsenko | Ukraine / UK | $2.2 billion |
| Said Gutseriev | Russia / UK | $1.8 billion |
| Ekaterina Fedun | Russia / UK | $1.1 billion |
| Anton Fedun | Russia / UK | $1.1 billion |
| Markus Villig | Estonia | $1 billion |
**More about each:**
**Dmitry Bukhman (Russia) · 40 years old · $13.6 billion**
The absolute leader of the list. Dmitry Bukhman got his start in computer games in high school, selling simple games online with his older brother, Igor. Today, their company, Playrix, is one of the top ten mobile game developers in the world. His net worth has increased by $3.8 billion over the past year. He is married and has four children. He currently resides in London and is also an Israeli citizen.
**Igor Bukhman (Russia) · 44 years old · $13.6 billion**
The older brother and co-founder of Playrix, with a similar net worth. He and Dmitry began creating games in 2001, and the family's main asset was registered in 2004. The brothers also founded the family fund, Rix Capital. In 2021, the gaming company Nexters, in which they were early investors, went public on the Nasdaq with a valuation of $1.9 billion. Igor, like his brother Dmitry, lives in London.
**Nikolay Storonsky (Russia) · 42 years old · $7.9 billion**
A graduate of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, the son of a Gazprom top manager, and the founder of Revolut. The idea for a multicurrency card, allowing for favorable exchange rates while traveling, came to him in 2014. He became the first investor, investing approximately £300,000 of his own savings. Storonsky first entered the Forbes Billionaires list in 2020 with a net worth of $1.1 billion, and his wealth has grown more than sevenfold in six years. In 2022, he renounced his Russian citizenship, retaining his British citizenship. In the fall of 2025, he left the UK after tax breaks were abolished and now resides in the UAE as a tax resident.
**Pavel Durov (Russia) · 41 years old · $6.6 billion**
The most famous member of the list and one of the few who amassed his fortune entirely independently, without family capital. The founder of VKontakte and now the owner of Telegram, he ranks 30th among 155 Russian billionaires. In March 2026, Durov announced the full redemption of Telegram's five-year bonds, made possible by a new $1.7 billion issue. He is listed as a representative of the UAE in the Forbes global ranking, as he resides in Dubai.
Timur Turlov (Kazakhstan) · 38 years old · $5.2 billion**
The only billionaire on Kazakhstan's list of young rich people and sixth among the country's 75 richest businessmen. He is the founder of Freedom Holding Corp, whose shares are traded on the US stock exchange. In recent years, the holding has significantly expanded beyond brokerage to include insurance, telecommunications, travel services, online stores, media, and even a football club. He has lived in Almaty since 2011 and has been a citizen of Kazakhstan since 2022.
**Vlad Yatsenko (Ukraine) · 42 years old · $2.2 billion**
The second co-founder of Revolut and the company's CTO, whom Storonsky recruited from Deutsche Bank. He began programming at around fifteen years old and, by his own admission, initially wrote code on paper due to a shortage of computers. He began his career in the Krakow office of the Polish company Comarch, then worked in London, UBS, and Credit Suisse. Over the past year, his fortune has grown faster than that of any other Ukrainian on the Forbes list. Today, he manages nearly a thousand developers.
**Said Gutseriev (Russia) · 38 years old · $1.8 billion**
The son of oil billionaire Mikhail Gutseriev and one of the most talked-about heirs in the post-Soviet space. His wedding was once considered one of the most expensive in Russian history. Although his wealth comes from his family, Said is actively involved in asset management.
**Ekaterina Fedun (Russia) · 37 · $1.1 billion**
The youngest female billionaire on the list. Her fortune comes from Lukoil shares passed down by her father, Leonid Fedun. A graduate of MGIMO, she is not involved in the operational activities of the family business and has dedicated herself to her family and children. This is an example of how a billionaire is earned not through work, but by inheritance.
**Anton Fedun (Russia) · 41 · $1.1 billion**
Ekaterina's brother has an identical fortune and the same origin story. However, unlike his sister, he has started his own business: he owns and manages two five-star hotels in London – Vintry & Mercer and The Ampersand Hotel. He also resides there.
**Markus Villig (Estonia) · 32 · over $1 billion**
The youngest person on the list and the youngest self-made billionaire in Europe. The creator of the Bolt taxi app. At 19, with a €5,000 loan from his parents, he wrote the first version of the app himself and personally recruited the first fifty drivers on the streets of Tallinn. He dropped out of university after a semester to devote himself to the company. Today, Bolt operates in more than 50 countries and 600 cities, serves over 200 million customers, and has been valued at up to 15 billion dollars. Villig still lives in Tallinn and doesn't own a car. It's difficult to pinpoint his exact net worth, as Bolt remains a private company, and estimates vary.
**Who else is in Kazakhstan and Central Asia**
Of all of Central Asia, only Kazakhstan appears in global rankings, and the only billionaire there under 45 is Turlov. However, just below the billion-dollar mark is a whole group of young Kazakhs. Among the country's 75 richest businessmen, eight meet the age criteria: 44-year-old Galimzhan Yesenov, former owner of Alatau City Bank and now an agribusiness entrepreneur, with a net worth of $564 million; 35-year-old Shakhmurat Mutalip, beneficiary of Integra Construction KZ and president of the boxing federation, with a net worth of $482 million; the grandson of the first president, Nurali Aliyev, with a net worth of $280 million; Aizhan Yesim with $207 million; and restaurateur Askar Baitasov with $112 million.
Uzbekistan has only one representative on the Forbes global list: Alisher Usmanov, with a net worth of approximately $16.7 billion, but he is over 70, so he doesn't fall into the young billionaire category. Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan have no billionaires on the list at all.
**What do the young rich have in common**
1. **Age.** Only one person on the list is under thirty-five, while the Forbes global ranking already features 35 billionaires under thirty, and the youngest self-made billionaire on the planet is in his early twenties. In the post-Soviet space, the path to the first billion remains significantly longer.
2. **Source of Wealth.** The entire top of the list is technology: games, a messenger, two fintech companies, and a taxi service. Moreover, people who started without family capital occupy the first six out of ten spots. Heirs appear only in the second half of the ranking.
3. **Geography.** Almost no one lives where they made their money: Durov lives in Dubai, Said Gutseriev and Anton Fedun live in London, and Storonsky has already moved to two different countries. There are only two exceptions, and both are significant: Timur Turlov, with his $5.2 billion, lives in Almaty, despite growing up in Moscow, and Markus Villig lives in Tallinn, without a car.