Watercress

A Russian billionaire, whose $50m estate brought riches to a poor Northland community, has fallen foul of locals after asking to water his lawn with their sacred water. By Madison Reidy.

GUESTS paying thousands to stay at a private luxury lodge in Northland are oblivious to the state of the ramshackle town it is nestled in when they arrive by helicopter.

They do not see the sheds with smashed windows that some locals call a home, the decrepit buses and written off cars piled in paddocks and barefoot locals picking vegetables from muddy creeks to feed their family.

The ultra wealthy guests of Russian businessman Alexander Abramov’s $50 million mansion in Helena Bay, a small coastal town 40 kilometres north of Whangarei, boasts a famed Italian restaurant, Europeanstyled living quarters finished with an indoor spa and a 25-metre heated swimming pool.

But the locals do not mind too much because, as one says, the Russian billionaire that built the lodge has ‘‘waved money around’’ the struggling Whangaruru district.

That was until a request to the local council seeking permission to irrigate up to 60,000 litres of water a day from the local stream to keep his gardens green in summer bypassed iwi, and upset some neighbours who gather food from the stream.

It appears that Abramov was well advised where to spend his cash. Before, during and after the six-year build from 2010 to 2016, he granted private beach access to the local Ngatiwai iwi, planted native trees and wetlands, set up an on-site farm, graduated eight carpentry apprentices and employed 130 locals straight after the 2008 global financial crisis.

His generosity included lending construction machinery and project managers to clean up the iwi’s Mokau Marae meeting house after it burnt down in 2013.

Abramov’s New Zealand spokesman Chris Seel says the Abramov family was 100 per cent committed to supporting the community and boosting Northland’s tourism sector.

‘‘We are a bigger newcomer than anyone else has been in the past, you have got to make a real effort to meet people, to explain what you want to do, to build a level of trust. We made a real effort to engage the local community.’’

But Whangaruru resident Huhana Lyndon says the ‘‘frivolous nature’’ of Abramov’s request to take 60,000 litres of water to keep his imported lawn green ‘‘raised a heckle straight away’’.

Seel says he regretted not notifying iwi of the request and one of his colleagues had since apologised and Ngatiwai Trust Board chairman Hadyn Edmonds says he is comfortable with Abramov irrigating water from the stream.

But the slip up has left a bad