Polo's return flaunts Russian wealth

A Russian horseman was saddling up with riders from seven other countries on Saturday for the first game of polo in Russia since the 1917 revolution.

Polo - considered the sport of princes - is notoriously elitist and, for the Russian businessmen who have acquired huge wealth since the collapse of the Soviet Union, it offers an opportunity to mix in an exclusive circle.

Polo is a particularly elitist sport

The exhibition match was organised by the founder of one of Russia's leading internet services, Victor Hauco.

He has built two polo pitches and, after Saturday's exhibition match, is planning to invest $30m in a polo and golf complex just outside Moscow.

He is following in the footsteps of another of Russia's richest men - Roman Abramovich - who recently stunned the football world by buying the English Premiership club, Chelsea.

He then went on a multi-million dollar spending spree to bring in some of the world's top players.

International scene

On the Moscow Polo Club's website, Mr Hauco announced plans to hold three international tournaments over the year and to promote polo by training a new generation of players.

The first Russian players are already appearing on the international scene.

Belolipskaya-Bernadoni plays for the Royal Berkshire team, based near Windsor in south-east England, and has appeared on the tournament circuit in fashionable sites around the world.

According to Britain's Guardian newspaper, Roman Abramovich has also been taking lessons when he is not cheering on his team of football superstars.

Too bourgeois

Polo does not have a long history in Russia. The first tournament took place in 1884, among cavalry officers and aristocrats.

Roman Abramovich is reportedly taking polo lessons

But after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, polo was considered much too bourgeois.

The BBC's Russian affairs analyst Stephen Dalziel says that since the USSR fell apart, a different revolution has being going on in Russia.

A new breed of businessmen has sprung up who are hugely wealthy.

They have built themselves country mansions and bought their wives expensive jewellery.

Now they want to amuse themselves in the manner of rich people elsewhere.

Tennis has flourished in post-Soviet times, and Moscow's first golf course was built in the 1990s.

Guest list

Saturday's event was to be followed by a glittering invitation-only gala dinner.

The guest list includes the former polo trainer for the Sultan of Brunei and Yuvrav Shivrav Singh III, the maharajah of Jodhpur, who learned his polo skills at the English public school Eton, the Moscow Times reported.

Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov and his wife, both keen horse-riders, are also expected to attend, the French AFP news agency reported.

President Vladimir Putin was invited and, unavoidably detained by work elsewhere, is said to have written a letter of support.