Oleg Tinkov — businessman with roots in the USSR
Oleg Tinkov is a Russian-British entrepreneur who founded Tinkoff Bank — Russia's second-largest bank by retail customers — as a fully digital, branchless institution. He was diagnosed with leukaemia in 2020 and became one of the few Russian billionaires to publicly oppose Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. He subsequently renounced his Russian citizenship and has lived in the UK.
Tracing the roots — Polysaevo (Russia)
Born in Polysaevo, Kemerovo Oblast (Siberia) in 1967, Tinkov built successive businesses — dumplings (Daria Foods), beer (Tinkoff Beer), and finally banking — reinventing himself each time. His public denunciation of Putin's war, made while undergoing cancer treatment, was one of the most extraordinary acts of dissent by any Russian business figure.
Polysaevo (Russia). At the time, this region was one of the fifteen republics of the Soviet Union.
A career defined by ambition
"There are no winners in this war. There will be losers, and these losers will be ordinary Russian people."