Moscow - Russia's capital has lost its title as the billionaire capital of the world, according to the Forbes 2009 rich list.
Moscow's oligarchs were by far the worst hit by the global downturn, which has cut its list of notables by two-thirds.
The megalopolis sported 74 billionaires last year, but just 27 today.
'Those who remain in place are the businessmen who had time to sell before the crisis and now hold cash,' said Nikolai Mazurin, the deputy editor-and-chief of Forbes Russia.
New York, with 55 billionaires, now trumps Moscow as the No. 1 concentration of the ueber-wealthy.
The U-turn in global oil prices, the main locomotive of Russia's recent boom, stalled growth and accelerated the decent of Moscow's bourses to 70 per cent of the value they had attained during last May's peaks.
Russian oligarchs saw their bankrolls dwindle by a total of 369 billion dollars since Forbes published its 2008 ratings.
The Kremlin is burning through foreign reserves and handing out cash to help firms restructure foreign debt, but the losses among Russia's super-rich are a glaring indicator of the problem sectors.
Among the 55 Russian's to drop off the golden list, the real estate and metals and mining sectors saw the most severe losses.
Elena Baturina, Russia's richest woman and the wife of Moscow's long-time mayor, announced she was seeking a state bail-out after losing over 3.3 billion dollars in stocks and real estate holdings.
Two other big losers in the sector, Kirill Pisarev and Yuri Zhukov, lost 90 per cent of their wealth as shares in their real estate firm, PIK, plummeted.
Russia's richest man, aluminium magnate Oleg Deripaska, saw his worth drop from 28 billion dollars to 3.5 billion dollars.
credited to monstersandcritics.com
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