-born oligarch Mohammad Zahoor rose out of poverty to build a Ukrainian steel empire worth billions and marry a former Mrs World. But now the flamboyant magnate wants to use his riches to make Kamaliya, his wife, the next Lady Gaga.
Mohammad Zahoor wouldn’t exactly call himself an oligarch, he says, but there’s an unmistakably oligarchic quality to the way he is speeding along the Kiev expressway. His blue Bentley is slicing through traffic at 90 miles per hour in a 50 mile-per-hour zone, followed bumper-to-bumper by a Mercedes SUV. Both vehicles are parting the Ukrainian traffic like it’s the proverbial Red Sea, while socialist-era apartment complexes whiz by outside.
Zahoor is sprawled on the backseat next to his wife Kamaliya. She looks gorgeous, he says, in her white diamond-studded dress. Next to the driver sits Igor, the bodyguard. Igor was once a member of former Russian president Boris Yeltsin’s personal security team. He glares at every driver who fails to get out of the way quickly enough.
In just 10 minutes, Kamaliya is due to perform at the Palace of Arts in Kiev – a gala in honour of late Ukrainian fashion designer Mikhail Voronin, who is such an admired icon in Ukraine that 4,000 people are expected to attend the event. Kamaliya will sing one of her songs there. She has opted to perform a ballad.
But Kamaliya the singer is more than just Zahoor’s wife, she’s also his pet project. In Ukraine she is a fairly well-known pop star. She combines traditional opera singing with dance pop, which can take some getting used to for Western European ears. She also won the Mrs World pageant in 2008 and appeared in a film with Sharon Stone, although the movie hasn’t been released. Zahoor sees a great deal of potential here. He has finally found something worthwhile to do with his money.
Zahoor, who is in his late 50s, once owned five steel mills in Ukraine, and when he sold them in 2008 he netted roughly $1 billion (€750 million), although he would rather not divulge the exact amount. What does one do with $1 billion in the bank in the midst of the financial crisis? Zahoor invested in two hotels in Kiev and a number of office buildings. He purchased the liberal English-language weekly the Kyiv Post – along with a TV studio, an airplane, a yacht, two Bentleys, two Mercedes, an Audi S8 and a Range Rover. So what now?
Indeed that very night, on the way to the gala, Zahoor revealed his goal: “We intend to send Lady Gaga into retirement.”
That might sound fairly outrageous, but Zahoor has been no stranger to success since he left Karachi at the age of 19 and arrived penniless in the Soviet Union to acquire a degree in metallurgical engineering. At the time, it was certainly just as unlikely that he would today become one of the richest men in Ukraine. Kamaliya has talent and has been singing professionally since the age of 11. The rest can be bought.
Back at Zahoor’s estate, located just outside of Kiev, Kamaliya immediately wants to hear the latest figures from her German manager. Although she sings in English, her pronunciation needs some work.
Zahoor met the singer back in 2003, when he was still a steel merchant – already fabulously well-to-do, but uninteresting for a Ukrainian pop diva. He sent her flowers every day until she agreed to marry him
On the day before the gala, Zahoor returned from the UK with Kamaliya. They had been collaborating on a film about the superrich – after all, Zahoor knows that his wealth makes his wife more interesting.
Pakistani steel magnate wants to turn wife into Lady Gaga!
