The great Roman empire.

(From Irish Independent)

Already the richest man in Britain, the personal fortune of Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich increased by almost 11bn this week. John Meagher reports

It was a moment that may have given Roman Abramovich sleepless nights. In May, compatriot and fellow oil tycoon, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was jailed for eight years and had his company forcibly renationalised.

This week, the super-sharp Russian billionaire and owner of Chelsea FC avoided such a fate by selling the bulk of his firm, Sibneft, to the state gas company, Gazprom, for 10.8bn. It is, by some distance, the biggest deal in Russian history and greatly strengthens Abramovich's position as the UK's wealthiest resident.

It was an extraordinary windfall for a man who bought the company for 150m in one of the many shady privatisations overseen by former president Boris Yeltsin after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

When Abramovich bought ailing, under-achieving Chelsea Football Club in 2003, only those with a specialist knowledge of Moscow financial affairs had heard of him. Despite his high profile today, Abramovich remains something of a shadowy figure, very wary about talking to the media - he allegedly prohibits his wife from doing so - and who likes to keep his past out of the public eye.

Rarely has the 'rags to riches' cliche been more apt. Abramovich was born into humble stock in 1966. His mother died from a back-street abortion when he was a year old and his father was killed in an industrial accident within six months. Young Roman was brought up by his Jewish uncle and aunt in a town that was home to a Gulag during the Stalin-era.