- Tatyana Bakalchuk started Wildberries with $700, now Russia’s richest woman at $7.4 billion.
- Bakalchuk maintains low profile, renting instead of owning a home despite immense wealth.
- Wildberries expands globally, develops alternative trading platform following Russia’s SWIFT ban.
A $700 dream come true
Tatyana Bakalchuk, a mother of seven, started Wildberries, an e-commerce business, out of her Moscow apartment in 2004 during her maternity leave.
With an initial investment of just $700, Bakalchuk created a website that would eventually become Russia’s equivalent of Amazon.
Today, Wildberries boasts $6 billion in revenue and a gross merchandise volume of $27.8 billion in 2023.
No mansion, no problem
Despite her immense wealth, estimated at $7.4 billion by Forbes, making her Russia’s richest woman, Bakalchuk maintains a low profile. She reportedly doesn’t own a home, preferring to rent instead.
Bakalchuk’s husband, IT entrepreneur Vladislav Bakalchuk, owns 1% of Wildberries, raising questions about her self-made billionaire status.
However, Wildberries representatives have stated that Vladislav’s earnings from selling stock in an internet provider were not involved in starting the e-commerce giant.
From Russia with love
Wildberries has expanded into Europe, launching in Germany, Italy, Spain, and France in 2021.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent banning of seven Russian banks from SWIFT, Bakalchuk is working with advertising operator Russ Group.
They are developing a new digital trading platform as an alternative, overseen by Russia’s former minister of economic development, Maxim Oreshkin, who was handpicked by President Vladimir Putin.
