Tatyana Kim: Russia’s online retail queen

Summary

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Good Bad Billionaire — Tatyana Kim: Russia’s Online Retail Queen

Podcast: Good Bad Billionaire (BBC World Service)
Date: October 13, 2025
Hosts: Simon Jack (BBC Business Editor) & Zing Tsjeng (Journalist & Author)

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the dramatic and complex story of Tatyana Kim, founder of Wildberries—the company often dubbed “Russia’s Amazon” and the nation's largest online retailer. Once a language teacher, Kim reinvented herself as Russia’s first self-made female billionaire, building a retail empire amidst economic turmoil, political intrigue, and violent personal conflict. Simon Jack and Zing Tsjeng unravel Kim’s journey from modest beginnings through business innovation and into the heart of a fraught merger and violent boardroom feud, inviting listeners to consider: is Tatyana Kim “good, bad, or just another billionaire”?

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Key Discussion Points & Segment Timestamps

1. Opening Scene — The Gunfire in the Boardroom

[01:19 - 02:30]

• The episode launches with a cinematic account:
  “A woman sits in her office... a group of armed men storming the building... It’s someone she knows only too well. Her recently estranged husband.”
  — Zing Tsjeng
• This tense event, resulting in two deaths and several wounded, is exposed as not only a personal tragedy but as symbolic of broader power battles within Russia (Kremlin vs. Chechen interests).

2. Who is Tatyana Kim?

[02:30 - 03:44]

• Tatyana (also “Tatyana Vladimirovna Kim”) is a private figure, with a public rags-to-riches narrative: “Russia’s first self-made female billionaire.” But the hosts immediately note doubts:
  “Some say it’s a PR construction.” — Zing Tsjeng
• The episode promises a deep dive behind the crafted image.

3. Origins: Childhood to Early Adulthood

[03:44 - 06:47]

• Born 1975, Grozny, Chechnya; of Korea Saram descent (Soviet Koreans).
• Parents: Mother (kindergarten teacher, born in Uzbekistan), Father (engineer, born in Kazakhstan, worked for Gazprom).
• Moved to Moscow Oblast at age 1; described as a happy but restricted child:
  “Her mother was quite strict, wouldn’t allow her to go to discos,” — Simon Jack
• Dreamed of journalism, but was steered into languages after the Soviet collapse.
• Taught English after graduating; post-1998 ruble crisis, struggled financially and personally.
• 2000: Existential crisis —
  “Obedient children who excel at school... realize meaning of life is not about rising to somebody else’s expectations.” — Tatyana Kim interview (as quoted)
• Meets and marries Vladislav Bakalchuk, a philosophy-loving former physics student turned IT entrepreneur.

4. From Teacher’s Salary to Tech Startup

[06:47 - 10:46]

• Kim’s struggle after maternity leave leads her to the early idea of an online store, inspired by difficulties with clothes shopping in Russia (pushy staff; limited choice).
• Online reselling of western catalog clothes (often from Germany) was emerging as a trend.
• Kim’s innovation:
  • Lower commission (10% vs 15%), no advance payments.
  • Named her startup “Wildberries,” which colleagues found odd but she insisted was memorable.

  “She delivered all the first parcels herself, using public transport across Moscow.” — Zing Tsjeng [08:52]

  “I just needed something to replace my teacher’s salary. I felt like I had to find something quickly to make myself feel like a fully-fledged member of society again.” — Tatyana Kim, Financial Times interview [09:10]
• BUT, independent outlet The Bell claims her husband’s successful internet business, and his web design studio, provided crucial resources, complicating the "self-made" narrative.

5. The Real Launch & the Early E-Commerce Hurdles

[10:46 - 14:36]

• Wildberries launches in 2004, when Russian e-commerce is just starting.

  “Selling clothes online was a new frontier, even in the West.” — Zing Tsjeng [11:18]
• Kim juggles deliveries, unreliable postal systems, and cash-flow challenges.
• Her husband recommends hiring help.
• Early customers exploit her “no money upfront” policy by never paying.

6. Breakthroughs and Scaling Up

[14:36 - 17:01]

• Key supplier Otto launches its own rival store, forcing Kim to diversify and emphasize original product photos.
• Family is enlisted; Kim’s uncle urges her to “scale up as soon as possible.”
• Funding origins disputed:
  • Kim claims they used proceeds from her husband’s internet startup;
  • Bloomberg & others cite outside investment (Sergei Anufreyev, with “grey market” ties, secures cheap Adidas stock).
  “This high margin deal was a key catalyst in the company’s early growth.” — Simon Jack [15:17]
• By 2010, Wildberries turns down big outside investment; Kim is likely a millionaire.

7. Building a Billion-Dollar Empire

[18:08 - 27:55]

Customer Service Innovations

• Wildberries opens pick-up points with fitting rooms—unprecedented in Russian online retail.
• “Free fitting may not be profitable, but you can’t do without it.” — Tatyana Kim [18:40]
• The network of pick-up points becomes a flexible logistics infrastructure.

Surviving the Downturn

• 2014 financial crisis hits Russia (sanctions, oil price collapse).
• Wildberries pivots to a marketplace model, allowing third-party sellers.
• Beats the odds with the “lipstick effect”:
  “Customers spend money on small, indulgent… items to make themselves feel better during hard times.” — Simon Jack [22:42]
• By 2016, Wildberries is Russia’s #1 online retailer.

Emerging Rumors & Supplier Friction

• 2017: Lawsuits from suppliers (alleged underpayments and coercion of discounts).
• “Rows with suppliers… can be a telltale sign a company is in financial distress.” — Simon Jack [24:38]

• Kim responds with increased PR, crafting her image as a frugal “woman of the people.”

  “Kim gave interviews where she claimed she only wore clothes from Wildberries and laughed at the idea of splashing out on designer labels.” — Sing Sing [25:39]
• Ownership structure changes: by 2017 Kim reportedly holds 99%, Vladislav just 1%, though many see him as “co-founder and God and tsar of the company.”
• 2019: Wildberries valued at $1.2 billion; Kim appears on Forbes billionaires list.

8. Supercharged Growth, Political Interference & Catastrophe

[27:55 - 37:34]

• Wildberries expands to Europe, the US; acquires a bank, issues branded credit cards.
• Triggers a surge of government inspections.
• 2024: Massive warehouse fire ($100 million in losses); authorities open a negligence case.
  “In Russia, things like that… can signal the start of a hostile takeover.” — Simon Jack [29:57]
• Kim enters a controversial merger with Russ Outdoor, a much smaller signage company with rumored Kremlin ties.
• Kremlin approves deal; Wildberries cedes majority of assets but receives only 65% of merged company.
• “It feels like an old-fashioned shakedown to me.” — Simon Jack [32:41]

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9. Violent Boardroom Drama & Chechen-Kremlin Power Struggle

[33:53 - 37:34]

• After Kim and Vladislav’s separation, Vladislav claims Kim is letting “dodgy crowd” raid the business; Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov gets involved.

• Leads to the infamous armed office confrontation:

  “...Vladislav arrived at the office with armed men... Tatiana’s security from Ingushetia and Dagestan; two men shot dead.” — Simon Jack [34:40]
• Vladislav is briefly arrested but credited Kadyrov with ensuring release; regional feuds escalate.

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10. Aftermath, Reputational Fallout, & Expansion Plans

[37:34 - 38:25]

• April 2025: Moscow court grants Kim full ownership of Wildberries.
• By June 2025: Merged company (RVB) plans expansion into Africa; Wildberries now a subsidiary.
• “Interesting, that expansion into Africa, because Russia has enormous influence there…” — Simon Jack [37:58]

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11. The Good Bad Billionaire Scorecard

[38:25 - 44:13]

• Hosts rate Kim across four categories (0-10 each):

Wealth

• Modest upbringing, low-key lifestyle despite $4.6B valuation.
  “She is only the second Russian woman to be a billionaire.” — Simon Jack [39:44]
  • Scores: 6/10 (SJ), 6/10 (ZT)

Controversy

• Employee mistreatment complaints, aggressive supplier relations, violent office shooting, company as proxy for Kremlin-Chechen battle.

  “Your company has become a proxy battle… a nine for controversy for me.” — Simon Jack [41:07]
  • Scores: 9/10 (both)

Giving Back / Philanthropy

• Pandemic: Donated 1M masks; otherwise little evidence of charitable impact.

  “A million masks sounds impressive, but... population of Russia is 143 million.” — Simon Jack [41:56]
  • Scores: 1/10 (both)

Power & Legacy

• Called “Putin-friendly oligarch,” sanctioned by Ukraine and Poland, but denies connections.

  “Has probably changed the way people in Russia shop.” — Sing Sing [42:41]

  “She’s managed to carve out a real identity for her business… like Alibaba in China, Wildberries in Russia.” — Simon Jack [43:14]

  • Scores: 7/10 (SJ), 8/10 (ZT)

• The hosts’ verdict: an “object lesson” in Russia’s unique mix of entrepreneurship, politics, and danger—yet so much of Kim’s real story remains out of public view.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Rags to Riches PR Construction
  “Some say that her whole rags to riches narrative is actually just a PR construction.”
  — Zing Tsjeng [03:26]
• Founder's Hustle
  “She delivered all the first parcels herself, using public transport across Moscow.”
  — Zing Tsjeng [08:52]
• Supplier Deal Catalyst
  “This high margin deal [Adidas stock] was a key catalyst in the company’s early growth.”
  — Simon Jack [15:17]
• Innovating Customer Service
  “Free fitting may not be profitable, but you can’t do without it.”
  — Tatyana Kim [18:40]
• Boardroom Shootout’s Aftermath
  “Young guys died. Vladislav, what are you doing? How will you look your parents and our children in the eye?”
  — Tatyana Kim, video message after the Wildberries office shooting [35:48]
• Kremlin as Ultimate Protector
  “Putin, in a way, is credited with being a new sheriff in town. In some ways they all pay tribute to him and he’s the ultimate protector.”
  — Simon Jack [33:00]

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Host Tone & Dynamics

Simon Jack and Zing Tsjeng maintain an analytical yet conversational tone, alternately skeptical and empathetic as they navigate Kim’s contested rags-to-riches narrative, family drama, and entanglement in post-Soviet power games. They openly challenge the official narrative, repeatedly noting the opacity in Russian business and the perils of apparent success amid shifting political winds.

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For New Listeners — Why This Episode Matters

• The episode masterfully blends personal biography with systemic analysis of how business works in Russia—highlighting the interplay of gender, ethnicity, politics, innovation, and violence.
• Kim’s story isn’t simply one of entrepreneurship but of survival—thriving amid male-dominated boardrooms, economic collapse, and literal armed conflict.
• Her rise, and the existential threats to her business and life, offer a window into the volatile stakes of Russian capitalism under Putin.

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Further Information

Listeners are invited to share their verdict on Tatyana Kim—“good, bad, or just another billionaire”—by emailing [e-mail] or texting/WhatsApp at [phone].

Next episode: Evan Spiegel (Snapchat).

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Compiled with fidelity to the hosts’ style and quotes; timestamps correspond to the provided transcript for listener reference.

Transcript

[Simon Jack]

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[Simon Jack]

I didn't submit an expense report.

[Sing Sing]

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[Sing Sing]

You will?

[Simon Jack]

For what?

[SAP Concur Representative]

It's a big dog.

[Simon Jack]

SAP Concur helps your business move forward faster. Learn [e-mail] welcome to Good Bad Billionaire. Episodes are released weekly wherever you get your podcast, but if you're in the uk, you can listen to the latest episode a week early. First on BBC Sounds it's the 18th.

[Sing Sing]

Of September 2024, another day of a record breaking heat wave in Moscow. A woman sits in her office, February fanning herself. The sound of university students leaving their morning classes drifts in through the open window, reminding her of her first career as an English teacher. It seems a world away from her role now as the head of Russia's largest online retailer. She tries to focus on the steady stream of emails demanding her attention, but her mind keeps returning to the growing tensions in her personal life. For months, she's been wrangling a bitter separation from her husband of 22 years. Then the quiet is shattered, Doors slam open, heavy footsteps echo down the hall and shouts erupt from the reception downstairs. The woman's heart races. She runs out of her office to see a group of armed men storming the building. Sudden staccato noises fill the air. Gunshots. Two men fall to the floor. Terrified, she scans the group, trying to work out what's going on. A face she knows becomes clear in amongst the waving guns. It's someone she knows only too well. Her recently estranged husband. Foreign.

[Simon Jack]

Welcome to Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Each episode we pick a billionaire and find out how they made their money.

[Sing Sing]

We take them from zero to their first million, then from a million onto a billion.

[Simon Jack]

I'm Simon Jack, I'm the BBC's business editor.

[Sing Sing]

And I'm Sing Sing. I'm a journalist, author and podcaster.

[Simon Jack]

And that woman caught in the gunfire is Tatiana Kim, founder of Russian company Wildberries, often referred to as Russia's Amazon.

[Sing Sing]

That's right. Kim rose to fame as Russia's first self made female billionaire. She built wild berries from scratch while on maternity leave from her job as an English teacher.

[Simon Jack]

Now, that shootout which killed two men and wounded others, wasn't just a family dispute. It was the flashpoint of some deeper political and regional power struggles within Russia.

[Sing Sing]

And on one side there's Kremlin backed interests, on the other side you have allies of the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.

[Simon Jack]

Khadijah Kim is a private person who has revealed few insights about herself beyond the origin story of starting wild berries from the living room of her rented flat.

[Sing Sing]

But there's a twist because some people who are close to her say that her whole rags to riches narrative is actually just a PR construction.

[Simon Jack]

So who is Tatiana Kim really?

[Sing Sing]

There are details about her life that we still don't know, but we will dive as deep as we can to tell you about who she is and how she built her fortune.

[Simon Jack]

So let's go back right to the beginning to take Tatiana Kim from zero to her first million. Foreigna Vladimirovna Kim was born on 16th October 1975 in Grozny, the capital city of Chechnya, which was then part of the ussr. Kim comes from a Korea Saram family, that's Soviet Koreans, whose ancestors were among the 172,000 Koreans forcibly relocated by Stalin in 1937 from the Soviet Union's Far east to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan amid fears they might be Japanese spies.

[Sing Sing]

Kim's mother was born in Uzbekistan and became a kindergarten teacher, and her father was born in Kazakhstan and became an engineer. The family moved to Moscow Oblast, a rural region of the west of Moscow, when Kim was one year old, after her father got a job at a subsidiary of Gazprom, that is Russia's state energy company.

[Simon Jack]

Enormous company. Yes. Kim has described her childhood as a happy one, but she said she always had a desire to break out of the environment where I lived and that she had a goal to do something big, something great, like a lot of our entrepreneurs have that yearning.

[Sing Sing]

Exactly.

[Simon Jack]

She. She describes herself as a good student bordering on perfectionist, but says that her mother was quite Strict wouldn't allow her to go to discos.

[Sing Sing]

Well, age 16, Kim dreamed of being a journalist and studying at Moscow State University. But her mother actually dissuaded her.

[Simon Jack]

And this was around 1991?

[Sing Sing]

Yes, it was. So that is actually around the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union. And Kim's mother actually feared that the capital would just be too dangerous for her daughter. So instead, Kim studied languages at a state university in a small city close to home. And after she graduated in 97, she got a job working as an English teacher in a school before moving finally to Moscow to work as a part time language tutor.

[Simon Jack]

The plan was to study a master's in languages, but after the Ruble collapsed in 1998, you could no longer afford to. The ruble has had many collapses. One in 1998 almost brought down a couple of investment banks. Actually, I remember it really closely. The Russian debt crisis was a very big event on financial markets. And there was all sorts. It was kind of like the culmination of all this turmoil we'd seen over a decade since after the collapse. And there was a land GR going on. There was the rise of all the oligarchs, some of whom we've talked about on this program. So that was quite seismic on the international financial markets. By 2000, when she was 25, Kim has said she experienced a deep existential crisis. In an interview with tass, the Russian state news agency. Of course, she said very often obedient children who excel at school grow up and then realize that the meaning of life is not about rising to somebody else's expectations.

[Sing Sing]

So at some point during this time in the early 2000s, she met a guy called Vladislav Bacolchuk, a physics graduate a few years younger than Kim, who was running a business selling computers. And the pair bonded. They said they both experienced what Kim called a soul searching moment. And Bacalchuk had dropped out of university to lecture German philosophy and listening to classical music as you do before graduating. And just six weeks after the pair met, they got married.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah, a quarter life crisis or a crisis bonding trauma bonding. People say nowadays, I've got a 25 year old, I can't work out whether she's having a. A quarter life crisis bonding moment.

[Sing Sing]

Well, I hope she doesn't listen this far into the episode.

[Simon Jack]

Oh, she might well do. So I'm gonna keep that. Let's move along.

[Sing Sing]

I do think it's an odd detail for this to be part of the whole PR narrative.

[Simon Jack]

If it is, you know, it's the school Teacher. The guy who drops out to listen to teach German philosophy and listen to classical music. I'd like to drop out and lecture German philosophy and still end up making billions. And still end up rich. Yes. Anyway, by 2004, Kim was 29 years old. The couple were living in a rented apart new baby in a working class neighborhood in Moscow. Kim was struggling with postnatal depression and finding it hard to get back into teaching jobs. So she tried to think of other ways of earning money that would work around raising the kids. And like many of our billionaires, she cycled through what problems she thought she could solve. And soon her mind turned to the difficulties of clothes shopping in Russia. She said she'd always felt ill at ease. Buying from department stores. Staff could often be pushy. So she wondered about, guess what? An online clothing store.

[Sing Sing]

Well, in post Soviet Russia, reselling from German clothing catalogs like Otto or Quell was actually quite common. But the Russian catalog agents would translate the catalogs from German. They take 10% of the cost of the item as an advance payment, with the rest paid in cash on delivery. Their profit would therefore be a 15% commission on each sale.

[Simon Jack]

So Kim wanted to undercut them, offer a better deal, and set her commission at 10%. And she would also take no advance payment.

[Sing Sing]

And to fund building this website and to place some online adverts on women's forums. She says she asked her husb to give her $700.

[Simon Jack]

Kim's mission was to encourage Russian women to not just buy black clothes because they go with everything. And she wanted to give her company a name that was beautiful and unusual.

[Sing Sing]

So she chose a colorful name, Wildberries, meaning wild berries. And later colleagues complained it was hard to pronounce in Russian. But Kim held her ground.

[Simon Jack]

You did pretty well.

[Sing Sing]

Yeah, and it did pretty well. And to keep running costs low, Kim says she delivered all the first parcels of clothes herself, using public transport to travel across Moscow.

[Simon Jack]

That sounds. I mean, traveling yourself to stuff in Russia. If you look at the map, Russia is big. She's going to need to figure this out.

[Sing Sing]

A lot of hours on that subway.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah. She's told a version of this story to many news outlets, including to the financial times in 2020. She said, I just needed something to replace my teacher's salary. I felt like I had to find something to do quickly to make myself feel like a fully fledged member of society again, obviously battling that postnatal depression.

[Sing Sing]

But just months after this interview, independent Russian media outlet the Bell reported that this rags to riches origin story might have been created or at least embellished by a PR company in 2017. Because it omits that during this exact time, her husband was running an Internet provider startup he co founded with a friend, a provider called Utech. And her husband's Internet business was actually relatively successful.

[Simon Jack]

Now, according to data from 2005, UTech's revenue was almost 11 million rubles, with a net profit of 718,000. Now that profit is equivalent of about US$25,000 at the time, which wasn't a lot, may not sound like a lot, but the average annual salary in Russia at That was just $5,000. And the company income was growing. By 2007, profit was up to 5.5 million rubles, or $225,000. So enough money to start seeding another company.

[Sing Sing]

Yeah, and also more than enough money to replace a teacher salary in Russia. Now meanwhile, the Wildberry's website was designed by Kim's husband's other business, which was a web studio called UT Design, which had created sites for other Russian e commerce stores. And a source told the Bell that the Bakalchuks had been selling second hand clothes from Europe in a Russian shopping since at least 2003, although Wildberry's claims that this particular store had no relation to the company itself.

[Simon Jack]

So the origin story might be disputed. But whatever the roots of it, at some point in 2004 the online clothing site Wildberry's launched and at the time in Russia, it was a pretty groundbreaking idea. Russian e commerce was a few years behind its western counterparts. For example, when Wildberry's launched, the entire Russian online retail market was worth about $3.2 billion, a fraction of what would be in the US and Europe. And that comprised about 1500 small sellers of mostly things like electronics, books and household goods.

[Sing Sing]

And you know, even selling clothes online was a relatively new frontier in the West. You know, ASOS had only just launched in 2000, Amazon started selling clothes in 2002, and there were some kind of early online fashion startups like Boo.com, i don't know, I don't even remember this one, which had failed already by this point. So customers still struggled with buying clothes online without trying them on. And you know, all these complicated delivery logistics really ate into the profits of anybody trying to get into that market.

[Simon Jack]

I remember this period, I remember thinking to myself, selling clothes online will never work.

[Sing Sing]

Really?

[Simon Jack]

Yes. And how wrong I was. I said it was never work because you want to try them on. And can you really be bothered getting all the way trying them on only for the massive faff whatever so that the logistics really interesting this, this is where the logistics industry kind of reshaped itself around a different industry to try and accommodate that. It created a problem and the entire logistics industry warped to try and solve that problem.

[Sing Sing]

It pivoted to returns and exchanges processes.

[Simon Jack]

Kim says her friends tried to dissuade her from selling clothes online for some of the reasons we've discussed. But she said, I decided to take the risk. I had no clear concept or any business plan. I was acting on my own intuition.

[Sing Sing]

And although she was excited that orders were coming in on the very same day she launched the site, Tatiana admits Wildberries got off to a very bumpy start. So she often tells the story that she initially tried to do as much as she could herself. But Russia's long distances, it is a very big country. Forced her to use the unreliable Russian postal system, which slowed her down. And soon her husband intervened saying, stop fiddling with the parcels until 3 o' clock in the morning. Hire some college students to help you. And many early customers also took advantage of Kim's attempt to undercut her competition with wild no money upfront offer by simply never paying.

[Simon Jack]

This reminds me a little bit of, you know, fiddling with the parcels till three in the morning. Remember Jeff Bezos, second or third richest man in the world right now? He would be there filling boxes himself when he started selling those books.

[Sing Sing]

Exactly. People who get their hands dirty when they start their own businesses.

[Simon Jack]

Anyway, in 2006, one of her key suppliers, the German catalog Otto we've already mentioned, launched their own online site in Russia. So while Barry's had to search for new clothing, new supplies to sell, they managed to strike some deal directly with smaller European clothing manufacturers. But this meant they just had the clothing. They didn't have the promotional materials you'd get with a bigger supplier. So Kim decided to take some of her few employees to be models. But the photos apparently looked unprofessional. Customers were put off, and she saw the DIY approach had its limits and so spent some of her growing profits to equip a photo studio with professional lighting in the office, not a million.

[Sing Sing]

Miles away from what ASOS does. I actually remember going for a job at ASOS and I in the 2000 and tens and they had a floor full of photo studios with little mini catwalks for the models to come in and come out wearing the clothes. So you know it does have its benefits building your photo studio in the office. Now, Wildberry's business was Growing. And soon, Tatiana was drafting in family members to help her younger sister joined Wildberry as her father came out of retirement. Her aunt became the company's accountant and Kim started reading business literature to learn on the job. But she cites her uncle as her mentor. He told her to scale up as soon as possible.

[Simon Jack]

That's interesting. Get big quickly. I think that was also Amazon's mantra back in the day. But while Berry's needed injection of cash to do that and to move to a larger warehouse, for example, improved delivery logistics. Kim told the Russian state news agency Tass that Wild Berry's did not receive money from outside investors, just 3 or 4 million rubles from the sale of her husband's Internet business. Or did she?

[Sing Sing]

Or did she? Because here again we have the conflicting narrative. Bloomberg reported that an acquaintance, Sergei Anufreyev, invested an unknown amount in wildberries in 2006. The bell says he was a bodybuilder and an employee at a gym in the same shopping center that claimed that Vladislav had a store selling second hand clothes.

[Simon Jack]

They also claim that Anne Ofriev had deep ties to Russians, what they call grey market imports. These are genuine goods sold through unofficial channels without the approval of the brand that owns them. In the late 2000s, he reportedly secured a large stock of Adidas products for Wild Berries, allowing them them to sell up to 50% below official prices. And this, this high margin deal was a key catalyst in the company's early growth.

[Sing Sing]

Well, Kim says that in 2009, Wildberry signed its first major direct contract with Adidas to sell their large stockpiles in its warehouses because there was falling demand during the 2008 financial crisis. She says they bought 3,000 pairs of one model of trainers at a good price and they soon sold out. How Wildberry's actually sourced this Adidas stock may be disputed, but all sources agree that Sal branded products boosted wild brews in the late 2000s.

[Simon Jack]

And also this would be a period of economic success for Russia. So you can see why a German sports manufacturer like Adidas would want to have a close relationship with a very fast growing retailer in Russia, because it could be a huge growth market for.

[Sing Sing]

Them, especially if other consumers outside of that country weren't really buying.

[Simon Jack]

Correct. So by 2010, Wild Berries was doing well enough to attract outside investment. A large investment fund asked the company to sell them a major stake in Wildberries. Tatiana refused. But soon afterwards, seemingly without outside funding, they expanded. So while Tatiana's financial situation remains, let's say, somewhat opaque, 2010 seems a reasonable point to say that Tatiana is a millionaire.

[Sing Sing]

America is changing, and so is the world.

[Simon Jack]

But what's happening in America isn't just the cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.

[Sing Sing]

I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. i'm.

[Simon Jack]

Tristan Redman in London, and this is the Global story.

[Sing Sing]

Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet.

[Simon Jack]

Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Simon Jack]

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[Simon Jack]

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[SAP Concur Representative]

No.

[Sing Sing]

Yes.

[Simon Jack]

SAP Concur helps your business move forward faster. Learn [e-mail].

[Sing Sing]

So let's take Tatiana Kim from her first million onto a billion.

[Simon Jack]

So in 2010, Wildberry's was still grappling with the big problems that plagued really all online clothing stores. The logistics of delivery alongside customers desire to try on clothes. So it began by opening small pickup points with fitting rooms attached to them in Moscow and some of the regions, customers could go pick up their item, try it on, and if they didn't like it, return it there and then. And by 2012, there are 128 of these sort of pickup and fitting points.

[Sing Sing]

Wildberries were the first online retailer to offer changing rooms at pickup points in Russia. And if you're thinking to yourself as a consumer, this sounds amazing, I'm going to buy so many clothes and only pick one of them and return the rest. You have have correctly identified the problem. Customers loved it. But wild berries were hit by extra costs. So in order to sell one Item With a 50% refusal rate, it had to be delivered to customers twice, which basically doubled the delivery costs. So Kim said in 2012, free fitting may not be profitable, but you can't do without it. Somehow, Wildberries managed to swallow these extra costs. And by 2020, they had 7,000 fitting rooms at pickup points across Russia, often located in unprepossessing retail spots in residential districts.

[Simon Jack]

It's so interesting this, because this is the kind of person I am. If I got something to the post and it fitted okay but not great. There's no way I'm going to go through the faff of returning it. However, if I'm in a fitting room and it doesn't fit quite well enough and I can hand it to them back right then and there, then I'll do it. I just think there must be millions of people like me who've got ill fitting clothes because they can't be bothered to send it back.

[Sing Sing]

Well, partly that is the reason why online retailers have done so well, right? If you go into a shop and you, you feel the material and you think this is not actually something I'd like to see on myself, you try it on and it doesn't fit quite right, you wouldn't really buy it. But how many times have any of us bought something in the post, looked at it and thought that'll do because I can't be bothered to make the trip to the post office.

[Simon Jack]

And there was another benefit to these pickup points because they weren't just useful for trying on clothes, they also work and this is the logistics part of it. As micro distribution centers themselves, other e commerce sites collect orders in one warehouse or several warehouses, pack them all into one box which is then sent to the buyer when they're returned. They have to go that journey in reverse. They have to go back to these large warehouses and to be sorted out again. Wildberry's delivers items to the pickup points and if they are returned they can be stored there for some time, transported to another pickup point or back to the warehouse, which reduces returns expenses. It gives you a much more flexible logistical network because you don't have things aren't, they don't have to go back immediately. They can sit there and then you can reshuffle it. To me that sounds like a sensible Solution.

[Sing Sing]

So by 2011, a couple of European funded players had entered the Russian online clothing market. So this was new competition. They also came with pretty hefty marketing budgets compared to Wildberry's. So in order to compete with these new guys on the scene, Wildberry started to offer free delivery to customers, a classic online retailing strategy. Now other online companies occasionally offered free delivery for promotions, but getting rid of that fee gave Wildbreeze a huge boost. Because nobody likes to buy something in and realise they've had to pay £4 or $4 extra on top for shipping.

[Simon Jack]

The truth is probably the shipping cost is now just bundled into the actual sale price of the item. There's no such thing as free anything in retail. But by the middle of 2014, Wildberry's revenue was 25 billion rubles, which is roughly $700 million. So a pretty substantial business. Soon they expanded beyond clothes and they surpassed something called Ozone, which is one of the first Russian online retailers, and then started becoming described as Russia's Amazon in terms of its popularity. But by the end of 2014 into 2015, another financial crisis came along. The Russian ruble fell very sharply. And this was due to the combination of Western sanctions which were imposed after Russia's annexation of Crimea. Remember that? And that saw a steep decline in oil prices. What happened in Russia, you had a very sharp recession. After that, Russian living standards dropped very substantially. So people were feeling much less well off, you'd think less inclined to spend money. But wasn't quite like that for Wildberries.

[Sing Sing]

No. During the 2014 crisis, wildberries pivoted to a marketplace model. So they let third party sellers list their own goods on the website, which is actually something that ASOS for a time did. Yeah.

[Simon Jack]

And Amazon has its marketplace as well now.

[Sing Sing]

Exactly. Most Russian e commerce firms still sold things directly. And for Wildberries, this actually turned out to be a good idea because online sales generally rose in Russia during the financial crisis.

[Simon Jack]

And it's interesting, this bit about expanding during a financial downturn because Wildberries was growing at this moment of Russian economic crisis. And Tatiana said the success was down to a slightly expanded version of something called the lipstick effect. And this is something that is an economic term, believe it or not, which is that customers spend money on small, indulgent pleasure providing items. They might hold off on big ticket items, but they might little pleasures to make themselves feel better during hard times. And if you can get that bit right, you're onto a winner.

[Sing Sing]

Yep. You're not going to get people splashing out on a new kitchen or a new car.

[Simon Jack]

Right.

[Sing Sing]

If you get enough of them to buy a lipstick, a nice pair of earrings, you're doing well for yourself.

[Simon Jack]

Pair of sunglasses, a nice belt, that kind of stuff.

[Sing Sing]

Exactly. So Kim explained that Wildberry's clientele started out predominantly female. It remained that way over the years. And she said these women wanted to, quote, afford some little joys in life. And Wildberry's offered just that. By the end of 2016, it ranked first in online sales in all of Russia.

[Simon Jack]

But Wild Berry's huge growth during this period masked some mounting problems in its supply chain. Just a year later, they were hit with over 20 lawsuits from suppliers. Now, these suppliers claimed they were being routinely underpaid. They were pressured into deep discounts. They faced blocked or delayed shipments if they didn't comply. Wildbros won all of these lawsuits. But because of the closed nature, the slightly opaque nature of the company, these cases fueled rumours that the company had financial problems. So suppliers became wary. Whenever a company starts having rows with its suppliers, sometimes that can mean financial distress. The telltale sign, if you want to, if a company might go bust sometimes, is the suppliers will start saying they're lengthening my payment terms from 60 to 90 or to 120 days. That means that financially there's stress building within the company. It's a well known indicator. So that's probably why people thought that things might not be all well.

[Sing Sing]

Right, because the longer it takes for someone to pay a supplier, the less money's coming in.

[Simon Jack]

Well, it means they're hoarding cash and they're trying to take as long as possible to pay their bills. And that means that they're trying to hoard what little money they have and eke it out. And that's not a good sign.

[Sing Sing]

Oh, that is interesting. So there were also other rumors beyond besides the suppliers. In fact, the business community were becoming quite suspicious of Wildberry's growth in Russia. And they speculated the company must be getting some form of help. So Wildberries decided they needed to give more interviews to wrestle back control of their public image.

[Simon Jack]

That's really interesting, isn't it? So this is the moment he says, we need to get something out there. We need to basically calm things down on a number of different fronts. So Wild Barry's hired a PR firm to help. Former staff claim that Vladislav didn't want to be the spokesman. So Tatiana stepped up. And this is the point that some claim, as we've already discussed, that Tatiana, Kim's whole rags to riches narrative, English teacher starting a company by herself while on maternity leave with postnatal depression, all of that was actually dreamt up.

[Sing Sing]

A former Wildberrys employee who's an ally of Vladislav has said, in terms of marketing, it was a genius idea. Kim gave interviews where she claimed she wore only clothes from Wildberries. And she laughed at the idea of splashing out on designer labels. You know, like, you can really see the public image being built here, right?

[Simon Jack]

Totally. But the bell, that's. The independent Russian news outlet claims that this is all part of rebranding of Kim as a businesswoman from the plough was the quote they used. Either way, it worked. It calmed the suppliers down and won back their loyalty.

[Sing Sing]

However, Vladislav and some former employees claim that this narrative erases his role in his ownership of Wildberries. One senior employee who's not allied with either spouse described Vladislav as the company's God and tsar. A former head of Russia's E Commerce trade association said, I don't think anyone had any doubts that both were the co founders who ran the business together. But after 2017, it was reported that Tatiana owned 99% of Wildberries and Vladislav owned 1%. And he was referred to as an IT technician who left his job that year to join her at Wildberries in some articles.

[Simon Jack]

I wonder why this is now. If the version that he's co founder, he's co runner, he's the golden czar of the company. Why would they put a shareholder register together which showed her as the 99% owner of wild berries whereas him just 1%. It could be like she's the mom and all that kind of Shashi attracts less attention than he white from other business associates. The truth is we don't know. But by 2019, Wild Berries was reported to be worth $1.2 billion, which made it the fourth most valuable Internet company in Russia. Tatiana Kim, as the declared now sole owner of Wild Berries, was included on the Forbes magazine's list of billionaires for the first time with an estimated net worth of 1 billion. That made Tatiana the second woman in Russia to become a billionaire.

[Sing Sing]

By this point, Kim had four children with her husband Vladislav, and they were living in a nicer part of Moscow, but still renting. She shunned luxury and glamorous events. You know, she told interviewers she spent most of her free time with her children reading books and watching Lord of the Rings. Any parent will know this story, but she's officially made it. She is a billionaire.

[Simon Jack]

So let's go beyond a billion. Tatiana did not waste much time celebrating her new billionaire status. The same year she was listed on the Forbes list, Wild Berries expanded into Europe. By 2021, it launched in the US then they make a big move into finance.

[Sing Sing]

Now this is quite odd to me because in February 2021 wildberries became the owner of Standard Credit bank and renamed it Wild Breeze bank. And by 2022, Wild Breeze was issuing its own bank card for buyers. In 2020, microcredit company VB Finance. And this is truly quite odd to me. You don't get Topshop bank, you know, or ASOS Bank.

[Simon Jack]

What you do get though is some big finance departments of like for example, Marks and Spencer's, their Marks and Spencer's card. They that is a quite a big finance operation. And A lot of people joke it's very common in the car industry. Of course, a lot. Most cars bought on finance. There used to be something called the General Motors Acceptance Corporation, and that was the financing arm of gm. And people used to joke that GM was bas a bank which sold a few cars on the side. So.

[Sing Sing]

So really, it's actually not that unusual.

[Simon Jack]

Well, it's. Yeah, but you know, I think it's quite unusual for an Internet company, unless you consider this the beginnings of a kind of klarna type push where you're finding, you know, you having a financing mechanism to pay for online deliveries. That could be what they were thinking.

[Sing Sing]

True. And you know, this was an interesting move for them, but it did give them some unwanted attention.

[Simon Jack]

Yes. Because between 2022 and 2023, Wild Berries was hit by a wave of government inspections. Health and safety offices visited their facilities 400 times in 2022. And in 2023, that number jumped to more than 1600.

[Sing Sing]

And then in January 2024, a fire destroyed a hundred million dollars worth of suppliers stock in a Wild Breeze warehouse. They had to pay the sellers 95% of the damages. And authorities open a negligence case against them, blaming the company for not having up to date fire safety paperwork, which denied.

[Simon Jack]

Now, in other countries, this case might have resulted in some sort of fine. But in Russia, things like that. Fire inspections can signal what is the start of a hostile takeover. And the economists suggest Wild Berries was under pressure to source Chrysler. Now, Chryshe is a kind of in, in China, you would probably call it Wanxi. Yeah. Which is like protection kind of political cover. In the old days it was, it would be just out and out gangster protection money, which is like, you know, we wouldn't want something terrible to happen to your store like burn down, would we?

[Sing Sing]

Now said wild glasses knocked off the table.

[Simon Jack]

Exactly. But it translates actually literally as roof. But in the 90s, it referred to business paying criminal gangster protection. And then it became more recently political. Influential people offer protection from regulators, for example, lawsuits, hostile takeovers. We covered some of this in the Rug Roman Abramovich episode that you need you basically, if you think you can run a successful business without any outside interference, you're mistaken. You're gonna need protection from someone. And it's the. From someone where this story gets really complicated.

[Sing Sing]

It is because shortly after the fire, Tatiana Kim began merger talks with a small firm called Russ Outdoor. Now, on the face of it, this merger did not make a lot of sense commercially because Russ Outdoor was a small company. It produced billboard ads and had no online experience. So this was quite a mystifying turn.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah, and this is David and Goliath. Wildberry's dwarfed them. In 2023, Wildberry's revenues were $2.7 billion. Rus Outdoors revenues were 300 million, so that's 1/9th, so, you know, just around 10%. And Vladislav's representative told the Economist magazine that Russ Outdoor had approached Tatiana with an offer to help ensure she didn't face criminal charges for the fire. Now, Tatiana's representatives have denied this, saying she was the one who initiated discussions with Russ Out Outdoor. And the Bell claimed that the head of Rus Outdoor, Mozoyan, had long been associated with Suleiman Kerimov, a billionaire senator in the Russian parliament. They say is known for entering into deals with businesses facing challenging circumstances. The Bell claimed Kerimov then set up a meeting between Tatiana and Moyan. Moyan denies these claims, however, so a murky one. Tatiana denies meeting Kerimov, but by June, this merger was done. While Berry's handed over most of its assets for just 65% of the new company, Russ Outdoor transferred no assets into the drug company, got a 35% stake. And Russian media later confirmed that Vladimir Putin himself had signed off on the deal. So basically, Wild Berry's has handed over most of its assets. It's nine times the size of the other one and gets 65% of the company. This feels like an old fashioned shakedown to me.

[Sing Sing]

Yeah. If you're looking at it as an objective bystander, you're thinking to yourself, this looks like business suicide for the bigger company anyway.

[Simon Jack]

It's very opaque and we don't know all the answers to that. We've got to be completely honest about what we don't know. In the analysis of this, is it.

[Sing Sing]

Quite hard to do business in Russia without, you know, the state at least signing up to it?

[Simon Jack]

For sure. And it is now. I mean, there was a period when it was like the Wild west, which was after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and you had basically state assets which were owned by the ussr, being divvied up by a bunch of oligarchs. Oligarchs and pals and. Yeah, so huge industries, steel, oil, aluminium, ending up in private hands. And the numbers were big and there were billions at stake. And so it got quite viol at times. It really was quite a lawless place. Vladimir Putin, in a way, is credited with being a new sheriff in town. And in some ways they all pay tribute to him and he's the ultimate protector. So they can go on, they can own their fancy houses all around the world until, of course, he invades Crimea and then again invades Ukraine, in which case all those fancy yachts and whatever get impounded around the world. But yes, but it is hard to.

[Sing Sing]

Do business in Russia without the Kremlin.

[Simon Jack]

Some kind of protection, for sure.

[Sing Sing]

But it also crucially doesn't mean that you, you know, excuse yourself from all this drama. Because in July 2024, a few months after Tatiana and Vladislav had separated and a month after the merger, Vladislav posted a video about it saying, my wife left me and got involved with a dodgy crowd who are raiding our business under the guise of a merger and funneling the assets. So the head of the Chechen Republic, a key Putin ally, Ramzan Khan Kadyrov, then commented on the video, he said he would help bring home Tatiana and protect Wild Breeze from the dodgy crowd. Alluding to Suleiman Karimov and the head of Russ Outdoor, a guy called Robert Mirzian. And friends of Vladislav were surprised to see this connection with Kadyrov. They all thought it was just part of a bitter divorce.

[Simon Jack]

And that brings us right back to that hot September day in Moscow, 18th September, 2024. Vladislav arrived at the Wild Berries office with a group of men from Church Chechnya and Ramzan Kadov himself. Tatiana said that Sergey Anufiev, the bodybuilder who you remember invested in wild berries in 2006, was also part of this group of men. Now inside Kim had some security of her own. It was made up of men from Ingushetia and Dagestan, two reasons with complex and at times pretty tense relations with neighboring Chechnya. And there are disputes about who shot first. But the two men shot dead were Wild Berry security guards from English Shetia.

[Sing Sing]

Now, Vladisov claimed he was at the offices for a pre arranged meeting to talk about the merger. Tatiana on her part said no talks were ever arranged and contacted the police, saying her husband had attempted to seize the company's offices. And just hours after the shooting, Kim posted a video on Telegram, the messaging site, addressing Vladislav directly. She said through tears, young guys died. Vladislav, what are you doing? How will you look your parents and our children in the eye? How could you let this situation get so insanely out of hand?

[Simon Jack]

And Vladislav was arrested and charged with murder a day later, but he was pretty soon released from jail and seemingly, as far as we can see, isn't facing charges. He credited Ramzan Kadyrov for his release, saying his team had offered help. Thanks to this, I believe I'm still alive and not in jail.

[Sing Sing]

Few weeks after that shooting, Kadyrov appeared on local TV and increased regional tensions by declaring a blood field on Keremon. Now, many worry that this would mean more violence connected to the shootout. But at the time of recording, no further escalation appears to have taken place.

[Simon Jack]

And Tatiana gave an interview about her marriage a month after the shooting, describing it as unhappy and emotionally abusive.

[Sing Sing]

She said she now lives a quiet life with her seven children from her marriage of Florislav and plans to remain single.

[Simon Jack]

Now, some political analysts understandably see the Wild Berries feud as part of a bigger pattern of feuding in wartime Russia. As sanctions in isolation bite as they are right now, potatoes are up 167%. Just a random fact compared to a year ago. Russia has begun reshuffling ownership of major businesses. It's transferred control of valuable assets to individuals with closer ties to the Kremlin. In April 2025, a Moscow court awarded Tetiana full ownership of Wild Berries, ruling that her ex husband Vladislav must transfer his remaining stake to her occur. So it's a question of who's on which side of some bitter regional conflicts within Russia at a time of financial hardship in Russia because of the sanctions. And actually what's happened lately is a falling oil price. Oil prices shot up after the invasion of Ukraine. But as the rest of the world has pumped more oil to replace Russian oil prices have gone down and that's been bad for the Russian economy.

[Sing Sing]

But this doesn't mean that wildberries are staying static. So in June 2025, the newly merged Wild Breeze and Russ Outdoor Company, which is called RV, announced plans to expand into Africa following recent launches in Georgia, Tajikistan and the uae. And Robert Merziyan is now reported as CEO of rvb, while Tatiana Kim remains CEO of wildbreeze, now a subsidiary within rvb.

[Simon Jack]

Interesting that expansion into Africa because Russia has enormous influence in Africa. If you go to East Africa, they have incredibly influential ties there. So if you are are a friend of Russia, you have an in to Africa in many places. So that's kind of interesting. So what a wild story that is.

[Sing Sing]

Yeah. And also a developing story because it's all pretty recent. The shooting happened in September 2024.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah. So what we do now is we go through a bunch of categories. Wealth, controversy, giving back, philanthropy, power and legacy and give them marks out of 0 to 10, 10. There's plenty of room for Debate on these ones. And then we're going to throw it to you, ask you all what you think, whether they're good, bad, or just another billionaire. So we're going to start with wealth worth $4.6 billion. But the story is a rags to riches. We don't know if we believe it.

[Sing Sing]

Well, you have to. Well, if you talk to independent media outlets like the Bell, you know, this is all kind of a fabrication.

[Simon Jack]

Well, I don't think the rag spit is. I don't think anyone suggests she was rich at the beginning.

[Sing Sing]

True.

[Simon Jack]

Right. So it was more a kind of qualitative kind of polish to like, you know, English teacher, struggling children, living whatever. I don't think they, I don't think anyone ever thought that they. She, she herself didn't come from a pretty modest background.

[Sing Sing]

Yeah. And you know, one of the things we try and judge our billionaires on in terms of wealth is whether they flash the cash. And she definitely doesn't. She keeps it quite low, low key. But I imagine also sometimes in Russia it might be more sensible to keep stum, keep stump. Exactly. Don't flash the wealth, actually, so you don't attract the attention of some unsavoury characters.

[Simon Jack]

I think that was one of the reasons why London became such a mecca for Russian billionaires during a certain period a few years ago. Because this is the place where you could buy a Ferrari, where you could go and buy your diamonds, where you.

[Sing Sing]

Could, you could go shopping for groceries.

[Simon Jack]

And Harrods without getting a raised eyebrow from, from the local law enforcement or indeed the local politicians in Russia anyway. But we should also recognize she is only the second Russian woman to be a billionaire and she is now Russia's richest woman. So I'm going to give her a solid six for wealth.

[Sing Sing]

I think a six out of ten is pretty okay. It's pretty doable for her, you know, being Russia's richest woman. That is a really, that's a good title to have.

[Simon Jack]

Sure, sure. Controversy. Well, there's no shortage of that.

[Sing Sing]

Well, in 2021, wildberry staff complained that their wages no longer match the speed and pressure of their delivery targets.

[Simon Jack]

By 2023, Wildberry's was fining delivery workers for damage returns that sparked some strikes. And of course, there's a small matter of two of her security men being shot dead at their offices. Tatiana is not implicated in those shootings. And although Vladislav was arrested, he was released. And at the time of recording, no one's been charged with the murder of the two men who died. And the status of that investigation, we think, is unclear.

[Sing Sing]

I still think that having a shooting even vaguely happening on your premises is going to drive that score up, I'm afraid.

[Simon Jack]

And your company has become a proxy battle for of Chechen versus Kremlin interest is kind of interesting, isn't it? I think this is a like a nine controversy for me.

[Sing Sing]

I think, I think it's a nine for me as well. It's not quite a ten. Ten, but I mean, what do you.

[Simon Jack]

Need for a ten, woman?

[Sing Sing]

I mean, we've. We've done gun runners and. Oh, that's right, drug traffickers. And this isn't quite it. But, you know, the shooting. Shootings come pretty close to it.

[Simon Jack]

Okay. I was nine as well, so, yeah, I think you're right. I think we need a bit of room, but not a solid nine on controversy. Giving back. This is about charitable work, philanthropy, stuff like that.

[Sing Sing]

So Kim's actually talked about her charitable work during COVID She says at the start of the pandemic, they bought a million masks in China, they chartered a flight, they brought them to Russia and distributed them to hospitals and charities for free. But other than that, there is actually not that much information about her philanthropy.

[Simon Jack]

Okay. So I think that's one to zero.

[Sing Sing]

I would also say a million masks sounds impressive, but when you think about.

[Simon Jack]

The population of Russia, 143 million. So that's only one. That's not even. That's not even 1% of the population. Okay. It's a zero for me.

[Sing Sing]

Yeah, I mean, a zero seems harsh, but I would give her just a one.

[Simon Jack]

Okay, zero is too harsh. I'll give her one for the effort. Okay. All right. Power and legacy. The British tabloids have called Tatiana Kim a Putin friendly oligarch.

[Sing Sing]

Now, she denies ever actually having met Putin, but there are reports linking her to top Russian officials, including the Prime Minister.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah, And Ukraine and Poland have both sanctioned her and Wild Berries for alleged propaganda and ties to sanctioned banks.

[Sing Sing]

So, you know, quite a politically divisive character. But, you know, she has probably changed the. The way people in Russia shop. Yeah.

[Simon Jack]

I mean, the point is, Internet commerce is such a global phenomenon that someone was going to do it in Russia eventually. Right. And it was just a question of who was going to get the keys to the kingdom. And that's why this is such an interesting one of political and regional power intrigue, because there's clearly a massive prize on offer there and that I don't think we can credit Tatiana Kim with single handedly inventing Internet revolution. Retail In Russia. If they hadn't done it, somebody from Germany would have done it. But what is an achievement is that she's managed to carve out a real identity for her business in one which is dominated by real global players. So your Amazons and what have you, in the same way that Alibaba has in China, you could argue that Wild Berries has done that in. In Russia.

[Sing Sing]

And also impressive that a woman could do this in Russia, which is still, to my understanding, quite a patriarchal place. I mean, you look at the other characters in this story and they are, you know, power brokers, businessmen, you know.

[Simon Jack]

They'Re all men, but power and legacy. I'm going to give her Russia's richest woman seven.

[Sing Sing]

I would say Russia's richest woman gets an eight out of ten for me.

[Simon Jack]

Okay, a seven for me. Eight for you.

[Sing Sing]

So she comes from a very modest background. You know, she's kind of built this website, if you believe her own PR story, out of nothing, doing something that caters for Russian women at a time where Western companies weren't stepping up to the plate. It is quite an interesting story.

[Simon Jack]

Married her sweetheart, who at the time, though, was running a fairly successful Internet business. And that may have been the source of some of the funds that were used to expand it. But what an interesting story. There's so much we don't know, but what comes out of it, I think is a really rich story in terms of the emergence of lots of trends. And that's when I find these episodes so interesting, is that they are drawn against the canvas of changing technology in terms of Internet commerce, changing political environments, changing consumer behavior, changing countries as well. Yeah. Borders being shifted and all that kind of stuff. So that's when I think this show is at its best. And I think she's a good example of that. So we're gonna have to now get your thoughts on asking whether Tatiana Kim is good, bad, or just another billionaire.

[Sing Sing]

Yes, that's right. We wanna hear from you as to why you think she's good, bad, or just another billionaire billionaire. Why not email goodbadbillionairebc.com or just drop us a text or WhatsApp to 001-917-686-1176.

[Simon Jack]

That's good. Bad, billionaire. All one [e-mail] or 001-917-6861176. We love getting your emails. Here's a couple that have come in. Hello. I joined so many people in thanking you for an outstanding podcast. Well, thank you. I've been a consumer of podcasts for years. Like many, starting with 6, my mum put me onto GBB good bad billionaire. She lives in Devon and I live in Dubai and we each listen then discuss the episode when we catch up on video calls. I particularly enjoyed the nuanced approach. Exactly as you promised. The good and the bad. Hungry for more Natalie, who's a Devon mum, and Leena, who's the daughter in Dubai. Thank you, Natalie and thank you, Leena.

[Sing Sing]

Hi. I'm enjoying the Good Bad Billionaire podcasts. The first one I heard was Ford and I have now started from the beginning and I've been loving them so much. Oh, that's great. I've been listening to two or three a day. Oh my gosh, that's lot so far. My favorite is Chuck Feeney in terms of both his ability to spot the opportunity to make money and then the amazing philanthropy. I agree Oprah was good, but Chuck still wins out. I am looking forward to hearing more episodes. Best wishes from Marco. Thanks, Marco. I think we're both agreed on Chuck Feeney. He really was a special guy. So who do we have on the next episode?

[Simon Jack]

We have a person who pioneered the idea of the disappearing message. Evan Spring Beagle, founder of Snapchat.

[Sing Sing]

That's right, a frat boy made good who became a billionaire in his early twenties.

[Simon Jack]

Good Bad Billionaire is a BBC World Service podcast produced by Tamsin Curry. The editor is Paul Smith and it's a BBC Studios audio production for the BBC World Service.

[Sing Sing]

The commissioning editor is John Minnell.