Meet Russia’s richest woman, a self-made billionaire who founded her e-commerce company on maternity leave

• Tatyana Bakalchuk is Russia’s richest woman with an estimated net worth of $7.4 billion.
• She founded e-commerce retailer Wildberries, Russia’s version of Amazon that sells a range of items.
• Bakalchuk is developing a payment platform to bolster Russia’s economy amid international sanctions.

In 2004, Tatyana Bakalchuk spent $700 to create a website for Wildberries, an e-commerce business she started out of her Moscow apartment while on maternity leave.

Today, Wildberries is considered the Russian equivalent of Amazon, a booming online retailer that earned $6 billion in revenue in 2023, and Bakalchuk is Russia’s richest woman, Bloomberg reported.