Portrait of Evgeny Chichvarkin for Time Magazine.
Evgeny Chichvarkin isn’t your typical wine merchant, writes Charlie Campbell. In fact, with his Salvador Dalí mustache, billowing pantaloons, gold tooth earring, and pink leather winkle pickers, the very idea of typical seems anathema to the 47-year-old entrepreneur, who has lived in London since fleeing his native Russia face down in the back of a car in 2008.
Chichvarkin was born in St. Petersburg, back when it was still Leningrad. He rose to become one of his nation’s youngest billionaires, by founding cellphone retailer Evroset in 1997. But he fell afoul of local officials who accused Chichvarkin of kidnapping and extortion—charges he has always called bogus. Chichvarkin and his business partner sold Evroset for a reported cut price $400 million, and after successfully fighting extradition proceedings, he now lives in exile.
In London, he has enjoyed a coda as businessman, restaurateur, and thorn in the side of Russian President Vladimir Putin, supporting democratic causes in Russia and its periphery by funding opposition parties and issuing scathing critiques.
“Russians are not Putin,” he says. “He doesn’t represent us. We didn’t elect him. We don’t support him.”
