On the other side is Manafort, who spent much of the past decade working for pro-Putin eastern European oligarchs.
Peter Thompson, a broker at Monaco-based Thompson, Westwood and White Yachts, says eastern European oligarchs and Gulf royals dominate the 100-metre-plus superyacht market, also known as gigayachts.
And it's not just a matter of wealthy Russians and other Eastern European oligarchs parking some of their wealth there.
According to the Financial Times, well-to-do Russians – and Ukrainians too – "are trying to shift more cash into London property... amid indications that eastern European oligarchs are using the capital's housing market to conceal their assets from international sanctions".
The startup TriPlay, which sources told us acquired eMusic for less than $26 million, has to date raised $16 million from Eastern European oligarch Kenges Rakishev, Fortress Investment Group, and Koch himself.
Having already survived a no-confidence vote, the government appears confident that it retains enough support among Ukraine's powerful oligarchs and its eastern, pro-Russian regions, to snuff out the pro-Europe protests with force.
This is hardly unique in European soccer — soccer teams seem to be the new plaything for oligarchs and Middle Eastern consortiums these days — but when a group known as Qatar Sports Investment took over P.S.G. in 2011, its cash flow rocketed the bankroll into a dimension previously unseen in the more modest surroundings of the French league.
He terms it "manna from heaven for deeply illiberal and fantastically wealthy ex-Soviet oligarchs and Middle-Eastern oil tycoons.
As the journalist David Hoffman recounts in his book, "The Oligarchs," a number of Eastern-bloc countries were unable to repay loans, and IBEC was in trouble.
With Egypt, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia all showing there (a first for Saudi Arabia), Middle Eastern art was Topic A among the gaggle of oligarchs, aristocrats and movie stars who gathered for three days of frantic partying and private viewings before the fair's official opening on Saturday.
