Yelena Baturina, the richest woman in Russia, and mastermind of the Norman Foster-designed complex, “Project Orange,” aiming to design a complex shaped like slices of fruit which would lay a light orange tint over the Moscow River.

Baturina, 46, who had an estimated net worth of $4.2 billion in 2008, is Russia’s richest woman; this year, she disappeared from Forbes’ billionaires list — with an estimated net worth of just $1 billion — suggesting a lull in Russia’s construction boom.

Last week Yelena Baturina applied for government loan guarantees to the tune of $1.4 billion — aiming to guarantee that her Project Orange escapade did not collapse under increasing economic pressures.

“She has no understanding of ordinary life, or ordinary people. She lives in her own golden world, from which she looks out at the reality that surrounds her, and of which she has no understanding,” said Moscow’s opposition law maker, Sergei S. Mitrokhin, to the New York Times.

The former factory working investor holds hotels in the Black Sea’s tourist resort, Sochi, as well as over 70,000 hectares of agricultural land in Belgorod.

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