Gilded to the rafters and filled with treasures, the residences of Russia's most extravagant billionaires are fit for a tsar. Recently, some are coming into the spotlight as members of the country’s wealthy elite are being sanctioned in response to the crisis in Ukraine. Around the world, there are at least 124 properties owned by 22 sanctioned oligarchs, according to Forbes, with their properties totting up to around £4.2 billion ($5.2bn). Prepare to be wowed as we take a glimpse inside some of these ostentatious estates …

Pictured here with President Vladimir Putin, Igor Shuvalov used to be the deputy prime minister of Russia. He is now the head of Russian bank VEB. The European Union sanctioned Shuvalov in March 2022 because of his ties to the Russian president, and he has links to several lavish properties in the UK.

According to The Guardian, Shuvalov was named as the owner of two luxury apartments in London by anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny. The building is a lavish, late-Victorian apartment block between the River Thames and government HQs, including the Ministry of Defence. During the First World War, the building housed the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service.

Pictured here in Moscow, Russia, the former deputy prime minister’s flats have reportedly been converted into one luxury 500-square-metre apartment. Shuvalov allegedly claims to rent the properties rather than own them himself, and they were purchased in 2014 for £11.4 million ($14m), as reported by The Guardian.

Mikhail Fridman has made his billions through controlling the likes of investment company LetterOne and founding the largest non-state controlled bank in Russia, Alfa Group. Along with other wealthy Russians in the West, Fridman has been sanctioned in relation to the invasion of Ukraine. According to the i newspaper, the multi-billionaire made a plea to the UK Government for access to his funds out of fear that he would no longer be able to "live normally in London". But his sprawling London estate is much more extravagant than your average house…

This Victorian-era, Gothic estate is nestled in a monied neighbourhood in North London. Fridman purchased the mansion for around £73 million ($90m) in 2016 and transformed the dilapidated house into an oligarch’s dream home, with an underground swimming pool, yoga room and observatory.

Included in its five acres of land are a fruit terrace and lily ponds. According to Forbes, Fridman’s second home in London is believed to be his main residence – a three-storey stuccoed home also situated in North London that he bought in 2002.

Pictured here walking behind President Putin, Suleiman Kerimov was sanctioned by the West in March 2022, but it wasn’t the gold magnate’s first run-in with the authorities. According to Forbes, he owns four villas set in the luscious Cap d’Antibes on the French Riviera, but the sale of one of the properties drummed up a lot of unwelcome attention in 2020 when it became the centre of a tax scandal. He was eventually acquitted and his legal counsel released a statement, reported through the Associated Press, that: "he has never been convicted by any court whatsoever, in France or abroad."

In 2008, the property was declared to have been sold for £39 million ($51m) – a hefty £110 million ($139m) short of the actual purchase price. 12 years later the Swiss company used to buy the property was slapped with a £1.3 million ($1.6m) fine.

The abode had been in the spotlight before, but for less controversial reasons, when it was used for filming the 1988 Michael Caine/Steve Martin film Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. The Mediterranean mansion comes with a whole host of Hollywood-worthy features, including a tennis court, an oval outdoor pool and a spacious greenhouse.

Uzbek-born Alisher Usmanov made his first fortune from manufacturing plastic bags, which were in short supply in the Soviet Union. Nowadays, his largest holding remains in the steel and mining company Metalloinvest. The billionaire has significant financial interests in the UK, including his (now severed) commercial ties to Everton Football Club and his property portfolio – which, according to Forbes, includes property in London and Surrey – and further afield, including Germany, Croatia, Switzerland, Monaco and Italy. 

Usmanov was hit with multiple sanctions in the US, EU and UK and beyond, in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and while the following estates belong to the Russian, these assets are currently frozen. In the UK, Alisher Usmanov owns this 19-century estate in leafy Hampstead in London. The estate stretches across 11 acres and has a long list of high-profile former owners, including King Khalid of Saudi Arabia and Qatar’s Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani.

If he wants to escape from the city, Usmanov has a 700-acre estate in Surrey. This historic plot used to belong to American industrialist J. Paul Getty, and features a two-storey Tudor-era mansion, complete with gardens, multiple libraries and a swimming pool. Usmanov also has, as reported by Forbes, three homes in Rottach-Egern on Lake Tegernsee in southern Germany, which he owns through Isle of Man-based Lake Point Property Holding, Lakeview Property Holding Limited and Tegernsee (IOM) Limited, according to OCCRP data. 

Another property with a long history, the Surrey estate was visited by Queen Elizabeth I in 1560 and has since hosted many esteemed guests. Pictures of the estate’s current interiors are hard to come by, but this charming photo shows how the property was decked out under the ownership of the Gettys in the mid-1900s.

Aluminium tycoon Oleg Deripaska was first sanctioned in the US in 2018, and most recently has been sanctioned by the UK, USA, EU, Canada and Australia in relation to the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. In 2008 Deripaska was the richest person in Russia, and one outlet for all that cash is his extensive global property portfolio, which, according to Forbes, stretches from London to New York, Saint-Tropez to Italy. However, one of Deripaska’s associated properties has been receiving more attention than the rest in recent months, as his mansion in Belgravia, London, was occupied by activists protesting against the situation in Ukraine, according to The Guardian.

 A spokesperson for the billionaire then told Sky News the property was owned by other members of the Deripaska family rather than the business tycoon himself. The flat sits in one of London’s most stylish postcodes and comes with seven bedrooms, a home cinema and a Turkish steam bath. The property was on the market for £25 million ($31m) in 2002, which the Mirror reported made it the most expensive terraced house in the world at the time.

Across the Atlantic, Oleg Deripaska also owns several properties. In 2008 he purchased this five-storey house in New York’s Upper East Side for £34 million ($42.5m), which was covered extensively by Forbes.

Another one of Deripaska’s American homes is this adorable townhouse in Manhattan. Curbed reports that the home is a former speakeasy called Pirate’s Den and it is thought to be haunted. The spooky three-storey property was purchased for a reported $4.5 million (£3.6m) in 2006, and it has clearly been a worthy investment, as it is now worth an estimated $11.8 million (£9.5m), according to Trulia.

Now the president of Monaco Football Club, Dmitry Rybolovlev’s £5.3 billion ($6.6bn) fortune stems from his work with potassium fertilisers, and he’s been in the headlines in the last decade for suing Sotheby’s auction house and a long-winded – and expensive – divorce battle. He has managed to dodge sanctions relating to the conflict in Ukraine though. 

This beautiful Regency-style estate in Palm Beach, Florida, has received more attention than any of Rybolovlev’s other properties. Purchased from Donald Trump in 2008, the abode set the Russian billionaire back an astonishing $95 million (£77m). At the time of the sale Trump had been secretive about the buyer being Russian, but it was later revealed by the New York Times that the buyer was County Road Property, a company owned by Rybolovev. The billionaire then disavowed any interest in the estate and it was later demolished and divided into three separate lots.

Other properties owned by Rybolovlev include a sprawling penthouse in Monaco, plus lavish homes across the United States and, according to France 24, a suave chalet in this stunning Swiss resort called Gstaad.

Russian President, Vladimir Putin allegedly had his own Italianate palace complex built for him on the Black Sea coast, which hit the headlines when Russian Wikileaks published photos of the home in January 2011. Putin could certainly afford such a sumptuous place, if the rumours surrounding his actual net worth are to be believed. Despite pulling in a relatively modest annual income of £100,000 ($124k), Russia's president is reputed to be worth up to $200 billion (£162bn), which would make him the second-richest person on the planet. And there's even a chance he could be the wealthiest, according to Fortune magazine.

Yet billionaire oligarch Alexander Ponomarenko has claimed to be the long-time owner of the Black Sea property, and another billionaire oligarch, Arkady Rotenberg, is said to currently hold the deeds. Both men are close to Putin, especially Rotenberg, who is a childhood friend of the president and was once his judo sparring partner. Rotenberg has also been sanctioned by the UK, US, and Switzerland, among other countries, and also has, according to Exberliner, an "empty villa" in Schmargendorf, southwest Berlin, which was discovered by DER SPIEGEL magazine.

Designed by Italy's Lanfranco Cirillo, the go-to architect for Russia's elite, the Italianate-style palace spans a whopping 190,000 square feet, making it more than three times bigger than the White House. While it's said to have just 11 bedrooms, the property has scores of rooms besides. Let's take a look inside.

As you can see from this image of the main hall, no expense was spared on the property. Beautiful hand-painted frescos adorn the walls and ceilings, which are clad in marble with copious gold detailing. Spectacular chandeliers grace almost every room in the palace.

The bedrooms are just as opulent, with four-poster beds and plenty of antique French and Italian furniture. Gilded ceilings and silk-panelled walls complete the ostentatious scheme. There's no doubt about it, this is luxe living at its finest. The palace was reportedly being refurbished between 2005 and 2020 as it had suffered from a severe mould problem, according to a report by the BBC. While Putin faces sanctions, the New York Times described his assets as an "enigma".

Lesser-known billionaire Andrey Goncharenko is rarely seen in public, but his stunning properties certainly draw attention. A stone's throw away from the US ambassador's residence in London's leafy Regent's Park, this sprawling London lodge was snapped up in 2012 by the Gazprom billionaire, who according to the Mirror, paid a hefty £120 million ($148m) for the property. At the time, it was the UK's most expensive house – and then some. Designed by renowned architect John Nash, the lodge was built in the 1820s and extended in the early 1900s by another esteemed architect, Edwin Lutyens. 

Shown here in an 1826 illustration, Goncharenko bought the property from Conservative peer Lord Bagri, who was responsible for the sumptuous restoration of the lodge's gilded plasterwork. Nevertheless, Goncharenko was clearly underwhelmed by the restoration and has since ripped out many of the features. The Russian tycoon has also replaced the subterranean swimming pool, which converts into a ballroom at the flick of a switch. The new basement pool area includes a sauna, steam room and home cinema. Wonderfully luxurious, the lodge's bathrooms are dripping in opulence and wow with wall-to-ceiling marble and glitzy gold-plated taps. Even the towel radiator is made from gold!

Goncharenko’s real estate portfolio spans the most fashionable parts of London, including an area dubbed 'Red Square' due to the number of Russian billionaire residents, according to Business Insider, Goncharenko snapped up this Belgravia home for £15 million ($18.6m) in 2014. The gorgeous Grade II-listed property covers 15,000 square feet and is laid out across five storeys. The billionaire didn’t spend that much time in the property evidently, and The Guardian reported that squatters occupied the empty house in 2017 and briefly used it as a homeless shelter before they were evicted.

Banking billionaire Alexei Kuzmichev was another partner in the lucrative creation of Alfa Group and LetterOne, and a fraction of his multibillion-dollar fortune has gone on high-end property. He bagged two huge quadruplex townhouses in a block in New York's Upper East Side back in early 2016. 

While he has sold off one townhouse, this brownstone property designed by the illustrious architect Grosvenor Atterbury in 1901 rocks a huge extension consisting of four additional storeys.

Two of the new floors feature the sort of roof terraces most Manhattanites could only dream of chilling out on, with fabulous views, a stylish seating area and a hot tub.

Moving inside, the tasteful décor tones down the bling with a clean and fresh contemporary palette. The main living room, for example, isn't understated, but it's a whole lot more minimalist than traditional Russian tastes. Despite this, the room doesn't go without a few flourishes of gold – naturally.

Likewise, the dining room has gold-hued chairs and other glitzy details offset by stark white walls and a neutral rug. On-trend with many Russian oligarchs with property in the Big Apple, the New York Post reported that Kuzmichev has listed the property for $41 million (£33m) following US sanctions.

Roman Abramovich might be the most notable Russian oligarch with property in London, and his Kensington mansion is an impressive sight. The former Chelsea Football Club owner bought the house in 2009 for £90 million ($111m), and it is just one of his UK-based assets which, according to gov.uk, have been frozen.

The 15-bedroom property is just a stone’s throw away from the royal residence of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. In fact, the property sits on land owned by the Crown Estate, which means that the Royal Family receives thousands of pounds each year for its lease.

Kensington is home to ‘Billionaires' Row’, and it is also home to the Russian Embassy (pictured). According to the Daily Mail, Roman Abramovich is also believed to own a flat in Chelsea that overlooks the River Thames, which he purchased for an alleged £22 million ($27m) in 2018. It’s unknown how much longer Abramovich will own his swanky inner-city properties. Labour MP Chris Bryant said the government is moving too slowly to keep up with oligarchs, who may try to sell off assets as quickly as possible, and as the Daily Mail reported Abramovich has already started selling off his UK portfolio.

In April 2022, Business Insider reported that French authorities seized Roman Abramovich's villa in the south of France as part of a crackdown on Russian oligarchs. His lavish villa situated on the Cap d'Antibes, which is one of the most prestigious parts of the French Riviera and is said to be worth around £90 million ($111m). The sprawling estate once belonged to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

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