We expect oligarchs from the former Soviet Union to have names like Boris or Roman, to love football, and to sound like John Malkovich’s KGB character in the cult poker film Rounders. So it comes as a surprise to meet Pakistan-born Mohammad Zahoor in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, a cricket-loving oligarch with a weakness for spicy lamb korma.
An industrialist-turned-media mogul who made a fortune in the post-Soviet steel industry, the 57-year-old Zahoor is a white tiger — a foreigner in the oligarchs’ cabal. Like his rich compatriots, he has a home in the posh Hamptons neighborhood of London and divides his time between East and West. His wife is the glamorous blonde Ukrainian singer Kamaliya, a former Mrs. World, whose dance tracks have topped the UK charts. Their large mansion outside the city is shaped like Dubai’s Burj Al-Arab, lavishly decorated in an Asian-European fusion style with bright murals and gilt furnishings.
