Londongrad

 

Vocabulary

clientele	millionaire	globe/global
elite	wealthy	set up shop
client	include	mean/meant
gain	double	grow/grew/grown
list	completely	wealthy/wealthier/wealthiest
crazy	resident	big/bigger/biggest
impact	capital (2)	nickname
reality	series	reality series
super	rich	regime (2)
favorite	location	expatriate/expat
luxury	private	run/ran (2)
estate	agency	important
property	take away	buy/bought
asset	upheaval	bad/worse/worst
tax	slight	change (2)
while	suffer	estate agent
cost	enroll	private school
attract	stability	opportunity
invest	despite	large/larger/largest
float	one of	stock exchange
bull	at least	retailer
around	wave (3)	bullish
total	market (2)	hypermarket
fear	crucial	consequence
loan	worth	basically
any	sort of	according to
huge	loss	numbers (2)
focus	surprise	government
hard	anything	diplomacy
affect

 
 

Video

 
 

Transcript

Yevgeny Chichvarkin was only meant to come to London for ten days. He’s been here for five years now, and has even set up shop. This Russian millionaire now sells the finest wines to the global elite. And his clientele naturally includes the wealthiest Russians.

And its numbers are growing.

“When we came it was about 200,000. And now it’s nearly doubled. I think an even bigger wave will arrive soon because the Russian president is completely crazy,” said Chichvarkin.

Yevgeny is one of more than 45,000 Russian-born residents here that made such an impact that the capital’s nickname has become Londongrad. There’s even a reality series about the city’s super-rich Russian residents, while Mayfair is a favorite location for wealthy Russian expats.

Gary Hersham, who runs a private luxury estate agency tells me Russians are some of his most important clients.

“People come here and buy their properties knowing that their asset will never be taken away, knowing that there won’t be some political upheaval…and the worse that can happen in London is a slightly changed tax regime.”

According to an estate agent, Nigel Frank, Russians accounted for 9% of all London home sales that cost more than one-and-a-half million dollars last year. And in 2013, 23% more Russian children enrolled in private schools than the year before.

They are attracted to political stability, low taxes, and investment opportunities.

Just this morning, Lenta, Russia’s second largest hypermarket chain, floated on the London stock exchange. The company is one of at least three Russian retailers to open here, attracted to bullish IPOs.

“There are around thirty companies listed with a total market capitalization of $450 billion. So that is around 13% of the total market cap in the London Stock Exchange,” said Ashrf Laidi of City INDEX. “So that’s a lot of money.”

Despite talk about Russia facing economic consequences for its actions, there are fears that Russian money is too crucial for the British economy. And according to the Bank of Economic Settlements, British banks have more than $19 billion worth of loans in Russia.

And that basically means that if there were to be any sort of sanctions on Russian businesses, then British banks could suffer huge losses.

Well not surprisingly the British government may want to focus on hard diplomacy rather than anything that may affect jobs and growth.

 

 
 

 Questions

1. Yevgeny changed his mind and plans. True or false?

2. What is his job now?

3. Does Yevgeny make a prediction?

4. What is “Londongrad”? What does “Londongrad” mean?

5. Do rich Russians live all over London, or do they prefer certain districts?

6. Why do rich people come to London?

7. There are huge economic and business ties between the Russia and the UK. Is this correct or wrong?

8. What should the British government do? What shouldn’t the British government do?
 
 
A. I would like to live in London. Yes or no?

B. Have you ever been to London? Would you like to visit London?

C. What do you associate with London? What comes to mind when you think of London?
 
 

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