Alright, pg, I had enough. I looked at the list of Russia's billionaires. At least 5 of them had humble backgrounds. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Gutseriev) 1 has a Muslim father. Some have Jewish sounding last names. Some of them had no early data.
Well I'd think that Russia is rather unique in that their power structure semi-collapsed during the 90's and during the chaos of America trying to turn the country to capitalism there were some who were able to jump into the power vacuum and rise to the top.
Most of them have since been disposed (like the guy you linked to) or brought into the fold of the new power structure that arose around Putin.
I will do a more comprehensive study soon, but my comments about politburo members (especially late soviet ones) was meant to preempt such points as yours. If you look at the billionaires from other countries, it is also as diverse if not more so than the US. In fact it makes some sense (to me at least) that a survey of any extreme outlier populations should show such diversity, it is rather the opposite (a homogeneity) that is interesting...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Russian_people_by_net_w...
EDIT: Will check my hypothesis that Communist politburo members had an even more varied background, to support some extreme conclusions.