Londongrad: From Russia with Cash; The Inside Story of the Oligarchs
The amazing true story of how London became home to the Russian super-rich – told for the first time ever. A dazzling tale of incredible wealth, ferocious disputes, beautiful women, private jets, mega-yachts, the world’s best footballers – and chauffeur-driven Range Rovers with tinted windows.A group of buccaneering Russian oligarchs made colossal fortunes after the collapse of communism – and many of them came to London to enjoy their new-found wealth. Londongrad tells for the first time the true story of their journeys from Moscow and St Petersburg to mansions in Mayfair, Knightsbridge and Surrey – and takes you into a shimmering world of audacious multi-billion pound deals, outrageous spending and rancorous feuds.But while London's flashiest restaurants echoed to Russian laughter and Bond Street shop-owners totted up their profits, darker events also played themselves out. The killing of ex-KGB man Alexander Litvinenko in London to the death – in a helicopter crash he all but predicted – of Stephen Curtis, the lawyer to many of Britain's richest Russians, chilled London's Russians and many of those who know them.This is the story of how Russia's wealth was harvested and brought to London – some of it spent by Roman Abramovich on his beloved Chelsea Football Club, some of it spent by Boris Berezovsky in his battles with Russia's all-powerful Vladimir Putin. Londongrad is a must-read for anyone interested in how vast wealth is created, the luxury it can buy, and the power and intrigue it produces.
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MARK HOLLINGSWORTH AND STEWART LANSLEY
LONDON GRAD
FROM RUSSIA WITH CASH
THE INSIDE STORY OF THE OLIGARCHS
‘There are no barriers to a rich man’
- Russian proverb
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1 The Man Who Knew Too Much
CHAPTER 2 The Russian Billionaires’ Club
CHAPTER 5 The Russians Have Landed
CHAPTER 7 The Big Game Hunters
Roman Abramovich and Daria Zhukova © Big Pictures
Chelsea win the Premier League © Reuters
Mikhail Khodorkovsky © Camera Press
Vladimir Putin and Oleg Deripaska © PA
Boris Yeltsin and Boris Berezovsky © PA
Boris Berezovsky in Surrey © Camera Press
Alexander Lebedev, Mikhail Gorbachev and Bono © Getty Images
Evgeny Lebedev, Mikhail Gorbachev and Geordie Greig © Getty Images
Naomi Campbell and Vladimir Doronin © Big Pictures
Pelorus in St Petersburg © PA
Helicopter in Sardinia © Big Pictures
Roman Abramovich’s Boeing 767 © Rex Features
Natalia Vodianova and Justin Portman © PA
Damien Hirst and Daria Zhukova © Getty Images
Christian Candy and Nick Candy © Getty Images
Prince Michael of Kent © Camera Press
Lord Bell © Camera Press
Nat Rothschild © Getty Images
George Osborne © PA
Queen K © Getty Images
Lord Mandelson © Camera Press
Stephen Curtis © PA
Pennsylvania Castle © Rex Features
Helicopter crash site © Rex Features
Alexander Litvinenko’s FSB credentials © Litvinenko/PA
Alexander Litvinenko © PA
Alexander Litvinenko in hospital © Getty Images
Anna Politkovskaya © PA
Paul Klebnikov © PA
Andrei Lugovoi © Corbis
Badri Patarkatsishvili and Boris Berezovsky © PA
Fyning Hill estate © Getty Images
Oleg Deripaska’s London home © Rex Features
Russian women in London © Aleksei Kudikov/Eventica
Russian gathering in Trafalgar Square © Aleksei Kudikov/Eventica
Ksenia Sobchak © Landov
Polina Deripaska, Tatyana Dyachenko, Valentin Yumashev © Landov
Dmitri Medvedev © Nikas Safronov
Vladimir Putin © Nikas Safronov
Chocolate heads © Getty
‘I have dug myself into a hole and I am in too deep. I am not sure that I can dig myself out’
- STEPHEN CURTIS, January 2004
6.56 P.M., WEDNESDAY, 3 MARCH 2004. A brand-new white six-seater £.5-million Agusta A109E helicopter lands under an overcast sky at Battersea heliport in south-west London. Waiting impatiently on the tarmac and clutching his two unregistered mobile phones is a broad-shouldered 45-year-old British lawyer named Stephen Curtis. He is not in the best of moods. Three minutes earlier he had called Nigel Brown, Managing Director of ISC Global Ltd, which provided security for him, regarding disputed invoices sent to a Russian client. ‘This is causing problems!’ he shouted and then paused. ‘Look, I have to go now. The helicopter is here.’
Curtis climbs aboard the helicopter and manoeuvres his bulky frame into the passenger cabin’s left rear seat. A member of the ground staff places his three pieces of hand luggage on the seat in front of him and the pilot is given departure clearance. At 6.59 p.m. the chopper lifts off into the gloomy London sky. It is cold and misty with broken cloud at 3,800 feet, but conditions are reasonable for flying with visibility of 7 kilometres.
The lawyer turns off his mobile phones and sits back. After a day of endless and stressful phone calls from his £4 million luxury penthouse apartment at Waterside Point in nearby Battersea, he is looking forward to a relaxing evening at home at Pennsylvania Castle, his eighteenth-century retreat on the island of Portland off the Dorset coast.
By the time the helicopter approaches Bournemouth Airport, after a flight of less than one hour, it is raining lightly and the runway is obscured by cloud. The Agusta is cleared to land and descends via Stoney Cross to the north-east where, despite the gloom, the lights of the cars on the A27 are now visible in the early evening darkness. The pilot, Captain Max Radford, an experienced 34-year-old local man who regularly flies Curtis to and from London, radios air traffic control for permission to land on runway twenty-six.
‘Echo Romeo,’ replies Kirsty Holtan, the air traffic controller. ‘Just check that you are visual with the field.’
‘Er, negative. Not this time. Echo Romeo.’
The air traffic controller can only see the helicopter on her remote radar monitor. Concerned, she increases the runway lighting to maximum intensity. This has the required effect and a mile from the airport the pilot radios: ‘Just becoming visual this time.’
‘Golf Echo Romeo. Do you require radar?’ asks Holtan.
‘Yes, yes,’ replies Radford, his voice now strained; he repeats the word no less than eleven times in quick succession.
Suddenly, the chopper descends sharply to the left. It then swings around almost out of control. Within seconds it has fallen 400 feet. ‘Golf Echo Romeo. Is everything O.K.?’ asks a concerned Holtan.
