Aras Agalarov

Aras Iskanderovich Agalarov (; ; born 8 November 1955) is an Azerbaijani billionaire real estate developer. Listed in Forbes as the 51st richest Russian in 2015, several sources have described him as a Russian oligarch. Early life Born in Baku, Agalarov was educated at the Azerbaijan Polytechnical Institute. There, he studied computer engineering and was a member of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan and Baku City Committee. Career Agalarov then opened the first Crocus Inter store, which became a retail business that includes malls offering housewares. This moved him into property development, where he built the Crocus City Mall, the largest shopping centre in Moscow. Adjacent to this he then built the largest trade center in Russia on the outskirts of Moscow, Crocus Expo, and has since developed a luxury housing development. He has partnered with Robert De Niro in Nobu Matsuhisa's two Moscow restaurants. In 2012, the built a new campus for the Far Eastern Federal University outside Vladivostok. Agalarov says he had to buy a larger Gulfstream jet to visit the site, where he spent $100 million of his own money on cost overruns on the $1.2 billion campus of 70 new building on Russky Island overlooking the Pacific Ocean. He then won projects for a Moscow superhighway and two stadiums for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.