Russia offers classes in unbridled capitalism

MOSCOW - Russia's love-hate relationship with the rich and powerful of its business world is to scale new heights with the opening of the world's first school for aspiring oligarchs.

The management school with a twist will give students wealthy enough to afford the £27,000 ($77,380) entrance fee the chance to receive master-classes from bona fide oligarchs.

Some of Russia's richest men are funding the project including Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea Football Club, who is worth an estimated £10 billion.

School dean Andrei Volkov says the oligarchs have agreed to share their knowledge as well as their wealth and will give a few classes each year.

The Skolkovo Moscow School of Management will have a campus "visible from space" when finished in 2009 and will take students aged between 26 and 28.

- INDEPENDENT