At a German hideaway, oligarch villas challenge a ‘silent contract’
Nestled among snow-capped mountains an hour’s drive south of Munich, the villages around the Alpine lake of Tegernsee have been a playground of the superrich for centuries — whether Bavarian kings, Russian czars, Nazi elites or pop stars.
They have been drawn not just by the pristine views, but also by the cozy air of discretion that in more recent years has made the area a favourite destination for Russian oligarchs, too.
“This valley has been a hideaway not only for the rich, but for the very opaque. It is a long tradition,” said Martin Calsow, an author of German crime novels, who lives in Tegernsee and sets many of his stories there. “We live off them, they are the source of our wealth, and as long as we don’t mention it, everybody can prosper. It’s like a silent contract.”
But Russia’s war in Ukraine — and the sanctions targeting Russian elites in response — have roiled the placid waters of Tegernsee, upsetting the calm veneer with nagging questions about whether it is right anymore to look the other way from the sources of wealth of those the area has hosted.
At least, that is the intention of Thomas Tomaschek, a Green politician who sits on the council for Rottachegern, a village on the Tegernsee where some prominent Russian oligarchs maintain their lakeside hideaways.
Tomaschek has done an unusual thing in these parts: challenging the local complacency by pushing the federal government to seize or freeze assets — no easy task given the financial shields that are as much a part of the superrich lifestyle as the neon-coloured Lamborghinis that speed along the mountain roads.
“We have a moral problem here with these oligarchs,” Tomaschek said. “Many tell me, ‘Don’t make noise, it’s not our business.’ Well, I think it is our business.”
He has taken aim, in particular, at Alisher Usmanov, an Uzbek-born tycoon and ally of President Vladimir Putin of Russia. Usmanov made his fortune through metal and mining operations and owns three villas on the lake. Nearby is a sprawling hillside estate tied to Ivan Shabalov, a Russian pipeline magnate. He has not had sanctions imposed against him, but some question how he made his billions because his company works with the Kremlin-controlled energy giant Gazprom.
The doubts in Tegernsee reflect a similar soul searching at a national level. The decision to freeze the Nord Stream 2 pipeline between Germany and Russia symbolised how politicians and business people have been forced to acknowledge that their motto of “change through trade” has not moderated Moscow’s approach but rather compromised their own reputations. But the arguments in Tegernsee show that despite the government’s change in stance, some who profited from ties to Moscow’s elite still seem intent to wait out the current furor and quietly return to business as usual.
Usmanov, who locals say visited at least three times a year, was staying at Tegernsee when he was added to the European Union’s sanctions list in February.
Nonetheless, his private jet was able to depart from Munich several hours later. Airport officials told local news media that the plane was registered to a company in the Isle of Man, not to Usmanov himself, and that none of the passengers had used Russian passports.
“That shows that the authorities were asleep,” Tomaschek said. Usmanov’s press team, in response to queries from The New York Times, said the properties in question had been transferred to a trust years ago in a “fully transparent and legal” fashion. Usmanov had nothing to do with the
Ukraine crisis and was not close to Putin, the team added. “Demands for the expropriation of someone else’s legally acquired property is legal nihilism in its purest form,” the press team said, noting that Rottach-egern had “a special place in his heart.”
Tomaschek disagrees and compares Germany’s response unfavourably with that of Italy, where authorities deployed anti-mafia laws to identify and seize oligarch yachts and villas relatively quickly.
In recent weeks, Germany has been trying to shore up its legal framework, spearheaded by a new task force. But it could still take months — potentially providing time to move or hide assets.
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RUSSIA’S WAR IN UKRAINE HAVE ROILED THE PLACID WATERS OF TEGERNSEE, UPSETTING THE CALM VENEER WITH NAGGING QUESTIONS