When John (not his real name) first arrived in Moscow to begin work as a private English teacher for an oligarch’s family, he did not speak a word of Russian. “The farthest east of Britain I had been was Italy.”
John was, however, more familiar with the lifestyles of the post-Soviet super-rich. Back home in rural England, he attended an elite boarding school alongside a Ukrainian classmate, who was regularly flown in by helicopter and paid his enormous school fees in cash.