He is a playboy billionaire and reputedly Russia’s most eligible bachelor. But what Mikhail Prokhorov really wants to be, it seems, is a snob.

Mr Prokhorov plans to set up an invitation-only website – called Snob – to help rich and successful Russians to connect with people just like them. The networking site will be followed by a magazine of the same name and Snob TV, a channel aimed at viewers with “high-class tastes”.

Mr Prokhorov, 42, is rated Russia’s fifth-richest man with estimated wealth of $22.6 billion (£11 billion). He came to attention last year when French police in the ski resort of Courchevel detained him briefly during an investigation into an alleged high-class prostitution ring. He was released without charge.

The project aims to tap into the lifestyle of a social and business elite whose money-no-object appetite for extravagant parties and luxury brands have turned Moscow into one of the world’s most decadent cities.

Russia’s energy-fuelled economic boom has helped to create an estimated 110 billionaires and 131,000 millionaires. The Snob.ru site, an elitist variation of Facebook, will start in June, followed by the magazine a month later and the TV channel in November as part of a $150 million project funded by Mr Prokhorov.

“There are networking sites for all types of people but none for the sort of educated, independent and successful professionals that mix in my social circle. We want to create this closed online club where people can talk to each other,” Andrei Shmarov, Snob’s general director, told The Times. “Such people are not poor as a rule, but wealth will not be the only criterion. A scientist who demonstrates professionalism and success could also be with us.”

He said that the company would send invitations to 5,000 people to join the site. Others would be allowed to join if at least two existing members recommended them. The Snob title was chosen as an acronym of the Russian words for fulfilled, independent, educated and successful. The Times English Dictionary defines a snob, however, as someone “who behaves condescendingly to others”.

“You have that meaning in England because of your historical antagonism between the middle classes and the aristocracy. But there is no such conflict in Russia and snob has a different meaning for us,” Mr Shmarov said.

“It’s what you would call a self-made man – somebody who has not inherited their wealth but achieved it for themselves and gained a right to be snobby. In Russia, we are all a little bit snobby this way.”

Snob TV will broadcast for only five hours a night. Mr Shmarov said: “Nobody wants to watch TV for longer than that each night and we will guarantee to show only first-class programmes.

“If we show a concert, for example, it won’t be the Spice Girls or Tatu but the Rolling Stones in Belgrade or an Ella Fitzgerald performance.”

The project is Mr Prokhorov’s first venture into the media after making his fortune in metals and minerals. He explained his interest in the new venture on his blog, saying: “I think it would be very good if Russia became a world leader not just in energy, but in the creation of new intellectual products too, like new media.”

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