BLAVATNIK Leonard (Leonid) Valentinovich (b.1957) is a British and American tycoon with strong Russian ties. He was born in Odessa and grew up in Yaroslavl and Moscow, in 1978 he emigrated to the United States with his parents. In 1981, Blavatnik got US citizenship. There he studied at Columbia University, where he received a master’s degree in computer science.