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Why is Roman Abramovich still smiling?

THE contrast in fortunes can seem perplexing. Most of the theories about how Mikhail Khodorkovsky, ex-head of Yukos, an oil firm, offended Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, might be applied to Roman Abramovich, too. Or at least it seems that way.

Mr Khodorkovsky is said to have meddled in politics. Mr Abramovich is governor of the far eastern province of Chukotka. Yukos is accused of fiddling its taxes. Sibneft, Russia's fifth-biggest oil firm, which Mr Abramovich controls, has exploited tax "optimisation" schemes very efficiently. Like Mr Khodorkovsky, Mr Abramovich was among the first Russian bosses to exchange opaque business practices for better – and ultimately more profitable – corporate governance. But, according to some critics, Sibneft has not grown up entirely. In the courts of Moscow and the British Virgin Islands, Sibir Energy, another firm, is arguing that Sibneft illegally diluted Sibir's 50% stake in a west Siberian oil venture, a stake Sibir values at up to $2 billion, to less than 1% by underhand share issues: a favourite 1990s wheeze. (Sibneft hints that the dilution was part of a broader deal with a big Sibir shareholder.) With his yachts and multiple homes, Mr Abramovich has a more gratingly lavish lifestyle than did Mr Khodorkovsky. Yet while back-tax claims have wrecked Yukos, Sibneft seems to have settled a much smaller bill quietly and amicably. And while Mr Khodorkovsky, sentenced to nine years in jail for various alleged crimes, is now sharing a cell with ten other prisoners, Mr Abramovich, his successor as Russia's richest man, will this weekend watch his favourite toy, Chelsea Football Club, begin its defence of its English Premiership title.

One possible explanation is that in Russia "the rules" are different from those in the West. They are also liable to change suddenly. Indeed, understanding that has been perhaps Mr Abramovich's greatest talent. With Boris Berezovsky, one of the original "oligarchs", he is said to have helped choreograph Mr Putin's succession to Boris Yeltsin. But Mr Abramovich understood Mr Putin better than his partner. From his exile in London, Mr Berezovsky recently threatened to sue Mr Abramovich over what he claims was the illegal acquisition of his assets after he was chased out of Russia. (A more charitable view is that Mr Abramovich simply spotted an opportunity.) Leonid Nevzlin, one of Mr Khodorkovsky's partners, alleges that Mr Abramovich – who pulled Sibneft out of a planned merger with Yukos after Mr Khodorkovsky's arrest – also orchestrated the Yukos affair. In court, Mr Khodorkovsky seemed to agree, lamenting the machinations of "mediocre business executives" who owned yachts and football clubs. But last week Mr Khodorkovsky backtracked, conceding that, while Mr Abramovich was "not the Apostle Peter," he was not to blame for his downfall.

In contrast to these fallen tycoons, Mr Abramovich has been ingratiatingly generous to Mr Putin's government. He has pledged to finance a new national football stadium. In effect, he gave a stake in a TV company that he acquired from Mr Berezovsky to the Kremlin. That helped to prove that he was no political troublemaker. Despite his pharaonic lifestyle, in political terms Mr Abramovich's profile has always been low: as one experienced oligarch-watcher puts it, where others – however belatedly and self-interestedly – discovered political principles, Mr Abramovich "discovered compound interest".

He does not influence parliament or cultivate foreign dignitaries as Mr Khodorkovsky did. Chukotka may owe more to business than politics. Mr Abramovich's defenders say that his interest in the desolate Arctic region is purely humanitarian. The grim lives of its 50,000-odd inhabitants have indeed improved since he took over. Sceptics dwell on the regional tax breaks Sibneft has enjoyed (though these, says the firm, have been more than compensated for by corporate and personal spending on social projects). Mr Abramovich visits his remote fiefdom less frequently then he once did, and seems ready to quit when his gubernatorial term expires in December. The Kremlin, however, may lean on him to stay on.