Aesthetically, Kharkiv is unprepossessing. Rows of Stalinist tower blocks line every approach road like upturned tombs, while its signature moment is a 60ft-tall statue of Lenin in Liberty Square. And yet, precisely one year from today, it will host its first group game at the 2012 European Championship.
But I invite you to join me, just briefly, in the office of Oleksandr Yaroslavskiy, whose construction company has invested in preparation for Euro 2012 and replies casually to the tune of £200 million. Shirt slashed open to the waist, feet resting in elegantly stitched moccasins, this billionaire is typically partial to flaunting his fortune in Ukraine’s north-eastern city of Kharkiv. On the wall hang pictures of himself alongside Bill Clinton and his “friend of 20 years”, Mr Abramovich.
Where Abramovich ghosts in and out of his gilded Belgravia residence with the type of security detail more befitting a KGB chief, Yaroslavskiy, a former policeman who keeps only the one bodyguard, likes to play the civic-minded oligarch.
“I am not political, bureaucratic — I am a free guy,” he explains. “It is social essence. I am a businessman. I could live in London, Paris or New York, but who would know me in London? I live here, I walk in the street, people say, ‘Hello, Alex’. I am very happy. My friend is Abramovich, but who knows Abramovich in London? Maybe the supporters of Chelsea don’t.”
DAILY TELEGRAPH (by Oliver Brown)
