No peace for Tolstoy in war over Putin cash
SOCIALITE Alexandra Tolstoy’s life has become a saga worthy of one of her ancestor Leo’s novels.
She now fears she will lose her palatial home in Chelsea after a High Court ruling this week decreed that a trust set up for her three children by her estranged boyfriend Sergei Pugachev, once dubbed Putin’s Banker, is a ‘sham’.
Pugachev is accused by the Russian government of embezzling more than £655million. Two years ago he fled the UK for France, receiving a two-year prison sentence in his absence for contempt of court.
The trust, which included another property in Chelsea bought for £12 million, had their three children listed as beneficial owners. However, in the case brought by Russia’s Deposit Insurance Agency, the judge ruled Pugachev was the sole beneficial owner.
Alexandra, who has been left in financial limbo, plans to appeal. ‘Today the High Court ruled that the Russian government has won in its litigation against my children to take our beloved home,’ she said on Instagram.
‘But as Scarlett o’Hara said “Tomorrow another day”.’
She tells me: ‘We are living in our home but I don’t know whether it’ll be days, weeks or months before we are evicted.’
Her lawyer Philip Barden tells me: ‘Pugachev hasn’t paid a penny of maintenance to his family since he left the country.
‘She doesn’t know how to meet her finanical needs while he continues to live in a chateau in France enjoying an opulent lifestyle.’
Pugachev, 54, claims the legal case against him is part of a move to seize his assets after he fell out with the Russian president. Alexandra, 43, got together with Sergei after her marriage to penniless Cossack horseman Shamil Galimzyanov broke down in 2009. The judgment offers an insight into her fractious relationship with Pugachev, whom she never married.
In 2013, her father Count Tolstoy and his wife travelled to Pugachev’s French chateau for Alexandra’s 40th birthday.
When they arrived, they found that Pugachev had cancelled the party and locked the gates. is