Net Worth: $285 million

Age: 61

Marital status: Married, two sons

Last year: $1.7 billion

Industry: Coal mining, metallurgy

What’s it like to fly from heaven to earth? In other words, to drop from $1.66 billion to $285 million in one year? Ask Leonid Baisarov, former general director of the company Red Army-West Mine No.1, the largest miner of coking coal. But he’s not guilty for this “impoverishment.” The interest in mining shares driven by the economic boom was brought to a juddering halt by the global financial crisis. Nor are miners working any worse. In April 2009, Red Army-West Mine No.1 mined more than 500,000 tons of coal. That’s more than 56,000 tons more than last year, when Baisarov was still a billionaire. In just the first four months of this crisis year, his miners have extracted 627,000 tons of coal, 51 percent more than planned. At such a rate, the Stakhanovite Baisarov could very well become a billionaire again when the economy recovers.