9. Moscow
Out of the ashes of the fall of the Soviet Union, liberalization, and subsequent hyperinflation, Moscow has emerged from what Russian President Vladimir Putin once called the "greatest geopolitical disaster of the last century" as an economic dynamo. Buoyed by a resurgence in the Russian financial and energy sectors -- and led by nouveau riche plutocrats -- Moscow is today Europe's most expensive city and has the highest number of billionaires of any city in the world.
Recent Russian graduates dance after their commencement ceremony in Red Square in the center of Moscow on June 24, 2012.
EPA/MAXIM SHIPENKOV
