Sergei Polonsky, the cherubic billionaire owner of Mirax Group, one of Russia’s biggest property developers, is bounding around, Donald Trump-style, in his vast office on the fourth floor of Moscow’s Federation Tower.
Outside, dust is flying as hundreds of workers, mainly from Central Asia, labour to complete the Moscow City business park where glinting glass skyscrapers appear to be sprouting as quickly as mushrooms after the rain. With more than 422,000 sq metres in floor space already allotted to big businesses and a Grand Hyatt Hotel, the Federation Tower claims to be Europe’s tallest building at 448 metres tall. It is the heart of a construction project that at once signals Russia’s transformation and its swaggering oil wealth.
