Moscow's new rich embrace sport of princes

You can find them at St Tropez in the summer and St Moritz in the snow. Their children are enrolled in force at English public schools. Now Russia's new rich are preparing to adopt what is perhaps the ultimate aristocratic pursuit: polo, the game of the Raj and the royal family.

Next month sees the first Russian chukka since 1917, when the revolution banished the game of kings and tsars, along with golf and other bourgeois activities.

A Moscow-based financier has started work on two polo fields in a plush suburb favoured by the city's politicians, and in a few weeks' time will inaugurate them with an exhibition match, complete with teams of international players and corporate sponsorship.

Victor Huaco, the former head of the Rambler internet service in Russia, is confident that there is a market for a game associated with some of the wealthiest people in the world.

He is planning a combined £30m polo and golf complex to meet the demand for lifestyle sport. At present, he says, Moscow's business classes are restricted to tennis and the gym.

Even the Russian weather will prove no obstacle to his plans as recent years have seen the development of "snow polo", played with a high-visibility red ball.

The mayor of Moscow and his wife, both keen horse riders, are expected in the audience next month.

President Vladimir Putin has also been invited to the game, sponsored by Range Rover, Deutsche Bank - the foreign finance house with the largest exposure to Russian markets - and Alfa Bank, the country's largest privately owned bank.

The first Russian players have already started appearing on the international scene, with the Royal County of Berkshire club, near Windsor, counting two among its new members.

The Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, the new owner of Chelsea football club, has been taking lessons, according to the specialist polo press. Mr Abramovich's mansion in West Sussex, which has its own stables, used to belong to the Australian polo enthusiast and media mogul Kerry Packer.

Mr Huaco, a Peruvian-born financier and amateur polo player, was in Britain last week to finalise plans for the exhibition game.

"The way Russians are in terms of development, this is the kind of thing that fits," he said. "It's very necessary.

"The whole social platform that comes along with it is something they need. Russians have been to St Tropez, to Paris, to London. Now they want something in Moscow."

Mr Huaco, who is now with the ESN financial group, has been joined by a team of Muscovite businessmen promoting golf to eastern Europe - another sport which found little encouragement in the Soviet Union.

To this day there are only two courses in Moscow, but the game is spreading in eastern Europe, with the emergence of a junior tour.

Polo, too, is growing rapidly, according to Roger Chatterton-Newman, the editor of Polo Quarterly International magazine, and can be found in 80 countries. Poland, which had a strong tradition among its aristocracy, recently staged its first tournament since 1939.

In Russia, polo was largely restricted to cavalry officers in St Petersburg and the royal family. But Mr Huaco expects it to be a good deal more popular in the years ahead.

"I don't know when a Russian polo team will win awards," he said.

"But I'm sure that in two years' time a team will be competing abroad, if not before."