ROMAN Abramovich could be a character from a novel, but that novel would have to be Russian. No other book would have the scale, the vigour or the sheer nerve to describe him. Abramovich's life has been a series of remarkably dramatic developments. His mother, Irina, died when Roman was a baby after a botched abortion. When he was four, a crane fell on his father, Arkady, who was a construction worker. This is just the stuff we know about. A lot of his history - for example, how he became so staggeringly rich - remains mysterious, despite the best efforts of the press.

Chelsea fans are very worried that Abramovich may be about to divorce Chelsea's manager Jos� Mourinho. But how could they tell if it was going to happen? It is not even known how much Abramovich has paid his third wife, Irina, in their divorce settlement. The Russian business publication Vedmoski estimates the sum at Euro291m, a tiny fraction of his fortune. Rupert Murdoch had to pay his wife, Anna, �1.3bn when he divorced her in 1999. Irina Abramovich, who met her husband on an aeroplane in 1990, is thought to have an even greater horror of publicity than her husband. Vedmoski claims that she gets a house in London, a house in Paris, a house in Moscow, a yacht and a plane. But then she had all those things already.

The celebrity divorce lawyer Vanessa Lloyd-Pratt told a British newspaper that the Abramovich divorce had been "very cleverly done". No one knows exactly where in Russia the divorce was granted, but it was probably in Chukotka, the province of which Abramovich is governor. Chukotka has a population of 73,000 and is mineral rich.

Abramovich has poured money into it, building supermarkets and schools. In December 2000, he was elected by 92% of the electorate. On being governor, Abramovich gave one of his rare statements: "It's a new endeavour for me. I've never run a territory. I've never talked publicly to people. I've got to see whether I like it."

Now it seems - if the divorce was granted in Chukotka - that all that spending was yet another good investment. In the UK, where the Abramovichs live and where their five chidren attend school, the settlement would have been greatly to Mrs Abramovich's advantage. In London recently Paul McCartney and Heather Mills have provided much spectacle in their acrimonious divorce. Insurance millionaire John Charman is currently challenging the record-breaking Euro70m given to his wife in their divorce. The resulting publicity brought Mrs Charman's wealth to the attention of criminals, and last week she was held up at gunpoint and robbed of all her jewellery.

That will not happen to Irina Abramovich. For one thing, she and her children are protected in the UK by exSAS bodyguards. Mrs Abramovich is sometimes seen socialising with the motor racing magnate Bernie Ecclestone, from whom the Abramovichs bought their Knightsbridge home for more than Euro100m.

Houses are one of her interests. Every time she had a baby, she redecorated the Knightsbridge house. She is also an enthusiastic buyer of Russian furniture and art. Her taste is said to be faultless - but then the taste of very rich women is always described as faultless by the people from whom they are buying.

Irina Abramovich is an interesting figure. She is rather patronisingly referred to as a former Aeroflot hostess, but this ignores that in Soviet and glasnost times, being an air hostess in Russia was a prestigious job. One of the perks of that job was finding a rich husband. Irina had also grown up in poverty and without a father.

She swore that her future children would never have to endure what she did. Roman divorced his first wife shortly after meeting her. They lived in her family's apartment and she helped him sell plastic toys and second-hand tyres in markets in Moscow.

Most wives of Russian oligarchs tolerate a mistress or two, but Irina would not tolerate the presence of Daria Zhukova, 24, a homeopathy student. Daria's parents are also thought to have been unhappy that Abramovich was married.

Until he was nine Roman lived with his paternal uncle Leib and his family in Ukhta, just south of the Arctic Circle.

Infested by mosquitoes in the summer and with temperatures hitting -30�C in winter, Ukhta was no picnic. Leib and Lyudmila Abramovich had a three-room flat, and the adults slept in the living room.

One of the few newspapers to investigate Abramovich's childhood, the Daily Telegraph, sent a reporter to Ukhta in 2003. He was not impressed. The apartment building where the Abramovich family had lived now housed a laboratory specialising in the investigation of sexually transmitted diseases and a dentist. But old neighbours remembered the young Roman. Lyudmilla Maltseva told the Telegraph: "He was a very polite and quiet boy. Not rowdy like the others. The Abramovichs were the model of a good family. You know, well off but not stuck up types. Of course, they were Jewish."

Leib Abramovich was director of supplies at a local factory and was well connected enough to arrange for a new neighbour to buy a Lada car. At one point, Roman, aged about nine, was sent to live with another uncle in Moscow, but he returned to finish his schooling at Ukhta's technical institute. The one ambition he expressed was to get out of Ukhta. On leaving school, he was conscripted into the Russian army.

Roman's big break came in 1993 when he met the oligarch Boris Berezovsky who introduced him to the magic circle of the then president Boris Yeltsin, and of Yeltsin's daughter, Tatyana Dyachenko. His rise had to that point been faultless, except for the time he was investigated over the case of 55 railroad trucks, loaded with diesel which had mysteriously gone missing from a petroleum plant near his old home town of Ukhta. Abramovich soon acquired 80% of Sibneft, the Russian oil company;

50% of Rusal, the former Russian aluminium oil monopoly, and 26% of Aeroflot, his wife Irina's former employer.

This was part of the loans-for-shares scam which made the new Russia's robber barons stratospherically rich. The loansfor-shares deal was later described by Andrei Illarianov, Putin's economic adviser, as "worse than a crime, it was a mistake".

The figures speak for themselves. Sibneft was bought for Euro117m. In 2003, it paid its new owners a dividend of Euro880m.

The bonanza came to an end when Putin was appointed as Yeltsin's successor in 2000. This spelled trouble for the oligarchs. The following year, Berezovsky fell out with Putin and he now lives in London. Abramovich has never fallen out with Putin and it is only now that he is attracting publicity in his own country.

Until 1999, the Russian newspapers had no photograph of Roman Abramovich. But, to adapt a football phrase in the wake of the last week's publicity, they have now.

C.V.

Born: 24 October 1966, Russia to Irina and Arkady Abramovich.

Family: Raised by his aunt and uncle, Lyudmilla and Leib Abramovich. Two cousins, Natalya and Ida.

Married: Not any more. Recently divorced his second wife, also Irina.

Five children: Anna, Arkady, Sonya, Arina, and Ilya, aged between three and 14.

Hobbies: Chelsea Football Club and, probably, Dharia Zhukova, daughter of another Russian millionaire. Also governor of Chukotka, remote province in northeast Siberia.

Famous because: He's the richest man in the UK, 16th richest in the world. Forbesmagazine estimates his fortune at $18bn.