The Russians are coming!
Yes, the Russians are in Georgia, but they are also going to the Riviera (the French Riviera, not the old Buick Riviera):
Russian oligarch ‘invader’ pays record £392m for Riviera villa
That’s more or less $800 million to us American peasants (give or take $10-20 million).
Villa Leopolda was built for Belgium’s King Leopold, who exploited what is now Congo as his own estate and used to party hearty at the Riviera and in Paris.
But I digress.
Villa Leopolda sits on 20 acres in Villefrance and is one magnificent place.
Its current owner, Lilly Safra, is the widow of billionaire Edmund Safra, who died in a fire in his Monaco penthouse.
The gardens of the house have been used in films,
Now an unnamed Russian billionaire who likes to party hearty is not the only one throwing his money around:
Russian excess is feeding discontent among poorer people. Pierrette, a housekeeper for one Russian, said: “I attended a party where the guests had fun throwing burning €500 notes into the air while everyone split their sides laughing. The domestic staff were later told to collect the ashes. It was sickening.”
They may yet find out that easy come, easy go.
Tags: Fausta's blog
August 11th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
About 7 years ago, I was in Nice for 2 months in late winter. I learned that it had previously been a favored site for wealthy Russian expats and that they were returning in force. While I was delighted at being able to wear a linen-type blazer instead of my winter coat, I couldn’t help but notice lots of bejeweled ladies in fur coats checking out the high-priced boutiques. I suspected that they were Russian.
August 11th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Is it just me, or are there others that think Putin escaped from a James Bond film?
August 11th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
It Takes a Thief?
August 14th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Yes, I believe Villa Leopolda was one of the locations
August 17th, 2008 at 4:24 am
The Russians are spending billions of dollars but RUSSIA fails to repay its old debts
A debt is a debt of Russia to repay
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By the year 2000 the $ 400 million mentioned in above had been paid to the French governemnent and redistributed to the bondholders who underlined that although they were accepting them as a down payment, they in no way considered the debt to be extinct (by the year 2000 the total capitalised outstanding amount due was estimated to be $ 80 billion).
Since 1918 several entities have been formed to represent French bondholders’ interests. Recently, the most credible has been Association Française Internationale des Porteurs d’Emprunts Russes (AFIPER)
Under the chairmanship first of Gérald de Dreux-Brézé, now of Eric SANITAS, AFIPER pursued an extremely active policy, successfully opposing several Russian attempts to launch a mutual fund (FCP EuroBank Long Terme CEI) or modern Russian bonds on the French financial market, which probably was a contributing factor in bringing the Russians to sign the 1997 agreement. Following the dismal amount offered via the agreement, AFIPER resumed its harassment policy, with much less success however because further to the 1997 agreement the French market was now open to Russian issuers, and the French government was also free to openly state that it no longer supported French claims; in fact, not only has it stopped supporting them, but it has actively hindered the judicial process for AFPER in all French jurisdictions since then.
On October 29th 2002 the world’s largest sailing ship SEDOV, operated as a training vessel by Murmansk University for the account of the Russian Federation, precipitously left Marseilles under cover of darkness at 2:15am after having had to cancel planned official receptions; the French intelligence body ‘Renseignements Généraux’ had warned the Captain that AFIPER was about to serve an impounding order on the ship.
On July 10th 2003 AFIPER served an impounding order on 240 pieces of artwork which were on loan from the St. Petersburg Hermitage Museum to the Musée des Invalides in Paris. The request was rejected by the French court, but caused much annoyance in Moscow.
Many other legal actions have been launched, without success as stated above, although they have served a purpose in that the judgements now confirm the existence and validity of the debt. In 2005 Pierre de Pontbriand decided to halt the harassment policy and concentrate on the single purpose of bringing to an end the unjustified suspended quotation of the Russian bonds on the Paris Bourse.
While all members of AFIPER support the idea of reopening access to quotation on the stock exchange (it is a major legal issue), many believe a harassment policy, should be resumed, particularly since France is entering a presidential election year (there are estimated to be approximately 400.000 bondholders in France). Some believe the 1997 agreement provides grounds for them to present our $ 80 billion claim to France , and also that more should be done to recover the present value of the 47 tons of gold. Lastly, they believe non-French avenues should be explored.
At present, the way forward is under review.
The Russian Federation is still in default on 80 billion USD and this claim will be pursued by French bondholders until it is settled.
French Association of Russian Bondholders – http://www.afiper.org