RUSSIA IS KNOWN for its trapeze artists. Few have mastered the art as well as Vladimir Potanin, Russia’s richest businessman, a stocky 61-year-old with a fortune of about $23bn. Born into the Soviet nomenklatura, he survived the fall of communism and then played a role in designing Boris Yeltsin’s “loans for shares” scheme, through which Russia’s late president hoped to put the country’s assets in private hands. Mr Potanin used this scheme to take ownership of natural resources. He is one of only a few Yeltsin-era oligarchs to have thrived under Vladimir Putin; the two are ice-hockey chums. He retains the biggest stake in Norilsk Nickel, one of the
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