From KGB agent-cum-pimp to Monaco aristocrat: How a family of Russian spies became European tycoons

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A pimp from the KGB

Born in Leningrad in 1954, Vladimir Strzhalkovsky graduated from the Leningrad Electrotechnical Institute in 1977 and soon joined the KGB Directorate for the Leningrad Region, where he worked until the collapse of the Soviet Union. While in the KGB, he met Nikolai Patrushev and Vladimir Putin, both of whom played a decisive role in his future career.

In 1991, at a time when Putin already chaired the Committee for External Relations at the St. Petersburg Mayor's Office, Strzhalkovsky founded the Neva travel agency, which he headed until 1999. In addition to organizing cruises, the company was involved in prostitution, a fact that came to light during a hearing of a case on pandering (Case No. 633) in December 1998 in the County Court of the Finnish city of Kouvola. According to the court ruling, “The Neva Travel Agency organized more than 2,000 trips of Russian sex workers to the Finnish towns of Lapinjärvi and Valkeala from January 1996 to October 1997.” Strzhalkovsky's deputy Timraliev and Neva representative Natalia Oksa were named as defendants for their role in “organizing openly practiced prostitution by women coming to the motel from Russia.” Although the court established that the firm was engaged in organizing prostitution, the defendants avoided liability: Oksa allegedly only “prepared visa applications for tourists according to provided lists,” and Timraliev “is not criminally liable for the act of another person.”

In late 1999, three months after Putin was appointed prime minister, his former KGB colleague was appointed deputy minister for physical culture, sport, and tourism. At the same time, judging by reports in the Finnish press, Strzhalkovsky retained his connection to the brothel business even after taking the ministerial chair. In May 2000, Strzhalkovsky appointed Oksa as a freelance representative of the Ministry of Physical Culture, Sports, and Tourism of the Russian Federation in Finland and entrusted her with the management of the ministry's property in Finland. An Yle investigation revealed that at least two of the apartments formerly owned by the ministry were used as brothels.

After Putin won the presidency in the spring of 2000, Strzhalkovsky's career continued its meteoric rise. In June of that year, he was appointed Chairman of the Russian State Committee for Physical Culture, Sports, and Tourism, and only a month later, he became a deputy to Russia's Minister of Economic Development and Trade, German Gref. In Putin's second term, Strzhalkovsky was appointed head of the Federal Agency for Tourism and promoted to the rank of 1st Class State Counselor.

An underperforming manager with a $100 million golden parachute

Strzhalkovsky's most lucrative job was as chair of the board of mining giant Norilsk Nickel, a position he held from August 2008 to December 2012. As analysts noted, his main function was not to manage the company but to lobby for Nornickel owner Vladimir Potanin's interests in the Kremlin. Strzhalkovsky himself was nicknamed “The Tourist” at Nornickel's enterprises — not only because of his past work in the tourism sector but also because he preferred to manage one of the country's largest industrial enterprises — one which operated largely north of the Arctic Circle — without leaving Moscow.

Meanwhile, the Tourist's pay was more than generous — one of the highest in Russia. Strzhalkovsky received $400,000 a month and two types of bonuses on top of that: the first in the amount of $3 million a year provided that the company did not show losses, and the second calculated based on the annual increase in the value of phantom Nornickel shares in Strzhalkovsky's name. Vedomosti's sources estimated that these bonuses were worth up to $25 million a year, with business outlet RBC putting the range of Strzhalkovsky's total income for 2009 at between $17 million and $25 million. While Strzhalkovsky was receiving record payments, the municipal authorities in the single-industry town of Norilsk were putting off the repairs of worn-out infrastructure in an effort to reduce their budget deficit. Using the weighted average exchange rate of 2009, Strzhalkovsky would have received approximately 500 million rubles at Nornickel in that year. Meanwhile, the mayor of Norilsk put off repairs to two worn-out sewers and to installing lighting on Krasnoyarskaya and Ordzhonikidze Streets in order to economize 99.6 million rubles of the city’s budget.

Despite record payments to top management, Nornickel's development lagged behind that of other Russian enterprises. Analysts polled by Vedomosti pointed out that in the four years under Strzhalkovsky's leadership, the company's value rose by 11.6%, while the MICEX index added 42% over the same period. But despite his underwhelming performance, Strzhalkovsky received the largest termination payment in Russian history. His golden parachute amounted to $100 million, which was just under 10% of Nornickel's dividend payout for the period.

How a bank in Cyprus linked the KGB man to Trump's entourage

The tens of millions of dollars Strzhalkovsky received from Nornickel led him to the post of Deputy Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the Bank of Cyprus — against his will. Strzhalkovsky placed at least half of his Russian severance package in a family account with the Cyprus Popular Bank (Laiki). But the 2013 banking crisis derailed his plans. In May, following a decision by the Cypriot authorities, most of Laiki Bank's assets and loans were transferred to the Bank of Cyprus. The bank was soon restructured as part of the Cypriot government’s bailout agreement with international creditors. More than 20,000 bank customers who had deposits of more than 100,000 euros became owners of 81.4% of its shares after 47.5% of their uninsured savings were converted into equity at a rate of 1 euro per share. As a result, Strzhalkovsky became deputy chairperson of the bank's board and the head of the risk committee. Incidentally, the list of the bank's major shareholders also came to include four individuals directly or indirectly linked to Donald Trump.

One of them is Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev, a figure in special prosecutor Robert Mueller's investigation into a suspicious Florida property deal. In 2004, Trump bought a plot of land with a mansion in Florida for $41 million. When, at the height of the 2008 crisis, Trump urgently needed money, Rybolovlev purchased the mansion from him — not at a discount, which would have been logical given the collapse in real estate prices, but for $95 million. In doing so, Rybolovlev saved Trump from bankruptcy. The Russian later resold the plot at a loss, for only $30 million.

After the publication of the article, Dmitry Rybolovlev’s press service provided a statement to The Insider. It said the following:

• The property purchased from Donald Trump in 2008 was later subdivided into three separate plots, which were subsequently sold at a profit compared to the original purchase cost.
• The final report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller contained no accusations against Dmitry Rybolovlev — neither in connection with this real estate deal nor in any other matter.

Another major shareholder of the Bank of Cyprus — the man who put Strzhalkovsky on its board of directors — is American billionaire Wilbur Ross. Ross had worked with Russia in the 1990s as a board member of the U.S.-Russia Investment Fund, promoting American business interests in the country. He specialized in transactions involving distressed assets, one of which was the Cypriot bank. Ross has featured in many scandalous stories and was very close to Trump, serving as the future president’s economic adviser during his first campaign before taking the job of Secretary of Commerce.

Another member of the board of directors was Maxim Goldman, who represented oligarch Viktor Vekselberg's Renova Group. Vekselberg subsequently turned out to be one of Trump's campaign donors, and the FBI discovered that Trump's fixer, Michael Cohen, had received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Vekselberg's firms for “consulting services.”

The board of directors was headed by another individual connected with Vekselberg, Josef Ackermann, director of Renova Management AG. Ackerman is notable not only as Vekselberg's man but also as a former director of Deutsche Bank. During his tenure as executive director in 2002–2012, Deutsche Bank committed several financial irregularities, the largest of which involved laundering $10 billion of Russian money through offices in New York, Moscow, and Cyprus. The bank was fined more than $670 million in 2017 for these violations. One of the bank's top customers turned out to be none other than Donald Trump: his 2016 financial disclosures showed that he had loans with Deutsche Bank totaling $364 million, to be repaid before 2024.

There is no such thing as ex-KGB

Strzhalkovsky's subsequent appointments have shown that he retains ties to both Putin and another Leningrad KGB colleague, Nikolai Patrushev, who served as the Secretary of Russia's Security Council from 2008 to 2024. In 2015, Strzhalkovsky joined the supervisory board of Rosselkhozbank. Kommersant's sources attributed the appointment to his acquaintance with Nikolai Patrushev, whose son Dmitry chaired the bank's board. His supervisory board candidate application also suggested he had held the position of nuclear operator Rosatom's special envoy for the development of nuclear technologies in Africa.

In 2019, PASMI drew attention to the fact that the children of Patrushev and Strzhalkovsky own neighboring cottages in the Russian resort town of Gelendzhik, not far from the site of Putin’s infamous $1 billion palace. The Patrushevs’ neighbor — the nominal owner of a three-story cottage valued at $240,000 — was nine-year-old Vanda Vladimirovna Strzhalkovskaya.

From 2016 to 2019, Strzhalkovsky headed the Dynamo All-Russian Physical Culture and Sports Society (VFSO). Since its foundation by Felix Dzerzhinsky in 1923, Dynamo has remained the sports club of the Soviet — and then Russian — security services. Teams comprised of officers of the Federal Protective Service, Federal Security Service (FSB), Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), and Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) compete in its tournaments, while regional Dynamo societies are headed by local FSB and MVD chiefs. Nikolai Patrushev is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Dynamo Society.

A spy son with Nazi views

Yevgeny Strzhalkovsky, Vladimir’s son and a holder of his assets, is also a professional “scout.” He was born in 1980, graduated from the Academy of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR, Military Unit 21247) in 2001, received military ID #007203, and started working under the cover of Vnesheconombank (which is typical for foreign intelligence officers). According to flight database records, in 2007 Yevgeny shared a booking with other SVR officers: Svyatoslav Kobyakov, who posed as a RIA Novosti journalist and then a Ministry of Economy official on a trade mission to Argentina; and Yevgeny Sokolov (Military Unit 33949), who also worked under the cover of the Vnesheconombank and then in the SVR / FSB-controlled company Abrella Industrial.

When he was not busy spying, the younger Strzhalkovsky was fond of historical reenactments, but with a twist — he headed Morgil, which described itself as an “alko-Nazi-fanatic-hooligan-role-playing team.” The term “Nazi” is not an exaggeration: the group's ideology was expressed via the “theory of rejects,” which suggested there were “normal people” and “rejects.” Tolkienists, for example, fell into the latter category, and the use of violence against them was therefore encouraged. Klim Zhukov, a popular reenactment blogger, describes his acquaintance with Strzhalkovsky as follows: “It all started on the slipshod maneuvers of the ancient Romans on the Karelian Isthmus, where we gathered to beat the Romans and the role-players who joined them... Yevgeny headed Morgil, a well-known merry bunch that went to role-playing events and beat people up.”

Morgil's training sessions were similar to those of paramilitary units, and team members learned to combine fencing with hand-to-hand combat techniques and the use of improvised weapons. It was probably because of the elder Strzhalkovsky’s connections that his son's friends were able to use those skills with impunity — both in and out of festival fights. The most infamous criminal episode involving Morgil occurred at the Blinkom-3 role-playing festival at a school in St. Petersburg in December 2002. In that incident, Morgil members beat up two participants and shot one several times at point-blank range with an air rifle, leaving the bullets lodged in his skull. According to the victims, Morgil members threatened to kill them if they went to the police. Even after an official report was filed, the Ministry of Internal Affairs refused to initiate a criminal case until the City Center for Prevention of Neglect and Drug Dependence of Minors went to the prosecutor's office.

Alcohol empire in Europe

Vladimir Strzhalkovsky’s golden parachute and the tens of millions of dollars he earned at Norilsk Nickel eventually turned into a full-fledged alcohol empire in Europe, registered in his son's name. Former SVR officer Yevgeny Strzhalkovsky became a citizen of Monaco and took charge of the family’s foreign assets. At the heart of this operation is the discreet Monegasque company Thesauro Praetor SAM, whose name translates from Latin as “treasurer.” The younger Strzhalkovsky serves as both president and majority beneficiary, a fact confirmed by registration documents for the French company Maison Eugene Rene and the British firm The Leeward Rum Company Limited. Through Thesauro Praetor SAM, he controls a network of companies across Austria, the UK, Italy, and France.

In the UK, Strzhalkovsky owns Maison Eugène René UK Ltd, which previously controlled two British firms: Northern Seas Trading Ltd, registered in Glasgow, and Sandbank Distillery Ltd. Both were liquidated in 2024. Sandbank Distillery had ambitious plans to revive a whisky distillery at Holy Loch in Argyll, Scotland, and even registered the brand Lamont. However, the company was dissolved in 2024 without ever producing a single bottle. The whisky’s name nods to another of Yevgeny Strzhalkovsky British assets. In 2017, he purchased the 12-room Knockdow mansion on the Cowal Peninsula in Scotland, a manor once owned by the Lamont clan. The £4 million purchase included the castle’s decorative gardens and 250 acres of surrounding forest. As British journalists have pointed out, the estate is located near Loch Striven, a little-known but strategically important refueling station used by the British and U.S. navies in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans.

Until recently, Yevgeny Strzhalkovsky’s business partner in the alcohol industry was one of the UK’s most promising wine experts, Liam Stevenson. He holds the distinction of being the youngest person ever to pass the Master of Wine exam, a test that only 425 people worldwide have completed. In 2024, Stevenson won two prestigious business awards: the O2 Entrepreneur of the Year Award and the IWC Regional Merchant of the Year. One of his ventures, Global Wine Solutions, is a leading global supplier of high-end alcohol for superyachts. Until December 2024, a quarter of the company’s capital was held by Yevgeny Drozdov, a nominal representative of Strzhalkovsky, while another 6% belonged to Caroline Anne Madeleine Aldrin, who also served as the company’s director and acted as Strzhalkovsky’s authorized representative in Monaco. In October 2024, these shares were transferred back to Stevenson, and Aldrin stepped down from her position. Strzhalkovsky and Stevenson also co-owned the brand Half Moon Bay Rum, which produced premium gin and vodka in California. In an Instagram post of February 14, 2025, Stevenson mentioned that, aside from his international ventures, he had also consulted on a vineyard project and an unnamed retail business in Russia but was compelled to end his involvement. After The Insider reached out for comment, the post was deleted.

While the Strzhalkovsky family has had to part with its acquired assets in the UK, their business continues to thrive on the European continent. One of its key alcohol holdings is the French company Maison Eugene Rene France, which he owns through the same Monaco-based firm, Thesauro Praetor. The company produces vermouth under the Monte Carlo brand. It is registered in Burgundy, though production takes place in Monaco, where Italian wine from Piedmont is blended with “distillates of aromatic plants from Grasse, the world capital of perfumery.” Another French company linked to Strzhalkovsky, Gundibald Vignobles SCEA, is also registered in Burgundy, home to France’s most expensive vineyards. The business is co-owned by father and son Boillot, proprietors of Domaine Henri Boillot, one of Burgundy’s most renowned wineries.

But Yevgeny’s most valuable foreign asset is in Piedmont, Italy. Through the Maltese company Winocracy Holdings Ltd, he owns the La Scarpa winery. Founded in 1854, this historic estate had been producing wine for over a century and a half from its 25-hectare vineyard. After the acquisition, the new owners invested in both the winery itself and additional vineyards, purchasing five more hectares in 2018. While relatively small in size, these parcels are well-known among sommeliers worldwide. They are located in some of the most prestigious cru (classified vineyards renowned for high-quality wine production) of Barolo and Barbaresco: Roncaglie, Monvigliero, and Canova. The average price per hectare of a standard Barolo vineyard is €73,000, but in these elite cru, it can reach up to €3 million. According to financial reports, La Scarpa’s assets were valued at €20.52 million as of the end of 2022.

In this mix of fine wines, vermouth, and gin, only beer is missing — unsurprisingly, Strzhalkovsky owns a brewery as well. Until 2017, his Monaco-based company held full ownership of the Czech craft brewery Svabin. Although brewery representatives, in response to an inquiry from The Insider, denied any ongoing ties to Thesauro Praetor, there is reason to believe that its subsequent sale was merely intended to obscure the true beneficiary of the enterprise. The brewery is now officially owned by a Romanian citizen, Ivan Marchiuc, born on April 6, 1975. However, corporate records from the affiliated company Taiseiko Operations s.r.o. indicate that until recently, Marchiuc went by the surname Marchuk, held Russian citizenship, and was registered at an address on Nakhimovsky Prospekt in Moscow.

Like Strzhalkovsky, Marchuk is deeply passionate about military-historical reenactments. From 1998 to 2011, he led the Path of the Sword and Iwakiri historical reenactment clubs and was one of the co-founders of Sengoku, an association dedicated to Japanese cultural reenactments. Many of Marchuk’s friends on the Russian social network VKontakte are directly connected to Strzhalkovsky. For instance, Ksenia Oia is an administrator of the International Medieval Combat Federation (HMBIA), an organization linked to Yevgeny Strzhalkovsky. Another contact, Vitaly Gryzlov, was the captain of the Bear Paw team, which competed in the Buhurt Prime group tournament in Monaco, where he received awards from Strzhalkovsky himself. In 2020, Sengoku Jizai, an association that includes Marchuk as a member, was awarded a diploma by the organization Valor of the Ages, whose vice president happens to be Yevgeny Strzhalkovsky. Beyond Marchuk, another Russian reenactor, Ivan Borovikov, and his mother, Natalia, were part of Svabin’s management until 2022. Meanwhile, Strzhalkovsky, who uses the Instagram handle duguay__trouin, remains a follower of the Czech brewery’s page.

Bars and restaurants owned by the Strzhalkovskys

Through the company Thesauro Praetor, Yevgeny Strzhalkovsky also owns the Trinity Irish Bar, a pub near Vienna’s Karlsplatz.

In Russia, assets are registered under the name of Natalia Ivanovna Strzhalkovskaya, Yevgeny’s mother and the first wife of Vladimir Strzhalkovsky. Until May 2018, Natalia held a stake in a St. Petersburg yacht club, owning 30% of Russkiy Yachting LLC. Her involvement coincided with a period during which the club’s two other co-owners — Vladimir Loginov, vice president of the All-Russian Sailing Federation, and Dmitry Sokolov, the founder of several Moscow bars — filed complaints with various authorities regarding the attempted corporate raiding of their business.

Currently, Natalia Strzhalkovskaya is a restaurateur with establishments in some of Moscow’s most upscale locations. Through the company Fitz, she owns the Irish-themed pubs Michael Collins on Tsvetnoy Boulevard, Sean O’Neill on Kuznetsky Most, and Dublinetz on Nikolskaya Street, the bars De Torino on Myasnitskaya Street and Tomi Negroni on Malaya Bronnay, as well as the bistro Fiorentini on Lev Tolstoy Street.

The Strzhalkovskys' unusual hotels

The most significant individual in the family's overseas property structure is Vladimir Strzhalkovsky’s second wife, Irina Vladimirovna Strzhalkovskaya (née Kocherghina). In 2003, she worked for the FGUP Network of President Hotels and Health Resorts of Rus’, which was later reorganized into FGUP President-Service, part of the Russian Presidential Administration. Her current career is still linked to the hotel industry, but in a vastly different role. Irina owns the V-Hotels Group, presumably named after the first letter of Vladimir’s name. The parent company, V-Hotels Group Limited, which she owns and manages, is registered in Cyprus, while its luxury hotels are located in Italy and Greece. Irina is also a Cypriot citizen and holds a Montenegrin “golden passport.”

In the Italian resort town of Abano Terme, located 10 kilometers from Padua, she owns three luxury spa hotels: Premiere Abano, President Terme, and Terme Antoniano. The five-star Premiere Abano has 112 rooms and was fully renovated in 2021 with the aim to “redefine luxury.” Just ten minutes away is another five-star hotel, President Terme, featuring spa facilities, a swimming pool, and two restaurants. The more modest four-star Terme Antoniano offers 165 rooms and a thermal park with five pools.

Since 2016, through the companies Terme Antoniano S.P.A. and President S.R.L., Irina has owned an undisclosed stake of up to 50% in the Italian firm Abano In Benessere, which operates three additional spa hotels in Abano Terme: Hotel Quisisana Terme, Hotel Terme Salus, and Hotel Atlantic Terme.

Publicly, V-Hotels presents itself as an international company with shareholders from Russia, Greece, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Switzerland, and Italy. In reality, however, the group's hotels are fully controlled by Irina Strzhalkovskaya. For example, in Premiere Abano S.R.L., she directly owns 89% and holds another 11% through the Cypriot company Namtok Limited. She directly owns 23% of President S.R.L., with the remaining 77% being held through another Cypriot firm, Vocis Investments Limited.

The V-Hotels network also owns two hotels on the Greek island of Corfu. They are operated by the Cypriot company Bolentaco Limited, whose sole shareholder is Irina Strzhalkovsky. Panorama Sidari is located a ten-minute walk from the Ionian Sea. This three-star hotel complex consists of 180 rooms spread across 12 buildings. Almyros Beach Resort & Spa, on the other hand, boasts the usual five-star luxury, a prime beachfront location, and the same setup of 180 rooms in 12 buildings. Estimating the total value of these assets is difficult, but they are worth tens of millions of euros. Irina is also listed as a director of four Cypriot companies.

The tangled ownership structure appears designed to obscure suspicious financial transactions between Strzhalkovskay-owned firms. According to financial records uncovered by The Insider, some of these companies received loans directly from Irina and her affiliated companies amounting to over €66 million. In 2020, V-Hotels Group Ltd secured €22.67 million in loans from its shareholders and another €8.192 million from Amberg Enterprises Ltd, Nessan Associates Ltd, and Vocis Investments Ltd. Besides Irina herself, a major financial backer of her companies is Bolerstone Trading Limited, registered in the British Virgin Islands. In its 2020 financial reports, this firm disclosed issuing $54 million in loans to an individual named Roman Buzinski and to three of Strzhalkovskaya’s firms.

Despite owning five luxury hotels, the companies managing the properties report extremely modest financial results — either posting losses or turning minimal profits in the range of a few hundred thousand euros. Most of their financial transactions revolve around receiving and repaying loans. The Cypriot companies’ bank accounts are held at Bank of Cyprus — the very institution whose board of directors previously included Strzhalkovsky. These financial arrangements raise serious suspicions that the true purpose of these hotels is money laundering and asset legalization.

Noble Chekists

In the early 2000s, while congratulating FSB employees on Chekist Day, Nikolai Patrushev called the state’s security officers the “new nobility.” It was a bold statement. But for Patrushev’s colleagues Vladimir and Evgeny Strzhalkovsky, integrating into the circles of real European aristocracy proved remarkably easy.

Evgeny achieved this through the Historical Medieval Battle International Association (HMBIA), which, as its name implies, organizes and promotes historical medieval combat — a full-contact sport in which participants fight in authentic medieval armor using blunted steel weapons. The sport combines athletic competition with historical reenactment, striving for accuracy in both equipment and fighting styles. Its Monaco-based branch, HMBSA, plays a key role in the organization, hosting international tournament Buhurt Prime, often referred to as the “Champions League” of medieval combat.

Russia's presence in the international organization is evident even in the leadership of HMBIA: the vice president of the organization is Evgeny Galushin, PR is handled by Irina Kamaeva, and administrative matters are managed by Ksenia Oyya. Evgeny Strzhalkovsky's former coach, Sergey Myasishchev, whose students are known for an unsporting fighting style and rules violations, became the head of the marshals' committee and oversees fighters’ compliance with all rules and regulations. Strzhalkovsky himself is content with the modest role of head of the Monaco organization, while its honorary representative is Evgeny Drozdov, head of the investment department of Strzhalkovsky's fund, Thesauro Praetor. Control over both organizations is merely an intermediate goal: HMBIA intends to join the Federation of Non-Olympic Sports (GAISF) by 2026.

Participation in the historical sport likely helped Strzhalkovsky build a closer relationship with Prince Albert II of Monaco, who personally presented awards to tournament winners. Among those receiving recognition was Alexander Nikitin, deputy head of the specialized department of the Federal Bailiff Service of Russia in the Nizhny Novgorod region, who competed for the Nizhny Novgorod club “Bern.”

It is possible that connections made through the sports-historical club influenced the ease with which Strzhalkovsky was granted a Monaco passport — and with which his vermouth maker received the right to use an alcoholic beverage trademark. The Monte Carlo brand is actively protected by the state and is managed by the specially created public company Monaco Brands.

The younger Strzhalkovsky’s love for costumes and armor is expressed not only via fencing, but also in cinema. Evgeny is one of the producers of the Russian fantasy series Eterna, an adaptation of the book Reflections of Eterna by writer Vera Kamsha, which is set to be released in July 2025. The filming of Eterna has gathered an all-star cast, including Anton Rogachev, Viktor Verzhbitsky, and Viktor Dobronravov. Another producer of the film is Mikhail Kitaev, a partner of Artem Gabrelyanov — the son of propagandist Aram Gabrelyanov. Kitaev and Artem Gabrelyanov are co-founders of the Bubble studio, which released a series of films about Major Grom, glorifying the image of Soviet law enforcement — in other words, suitable partners for the son of a multi-millionaire security services officer.

To be fair, the Strzhalkovskys do have aristocratic roots, albeit not Russian ones. Their family belonged to the Polish nobility and was mentioned in the list of families in the “Highest Approved Heraldry” of the Kingdom of Poland. Vladimir even sponsored the publication of The Strzhalkovskys of the Pulkocits Coat of Arms: Ten Centuries of a Knightly Family, a book written for him by Professor Oleg Nikolaevich Naumov of Moscow State Regional University. But Vladimir's passion for aristocratic titles goes beyond pride in his ancestors: like Patrushev, he also sees himself among the new Russian aristocracy. In September 2005, the former KGB officer received “hereditary nobility” from Maria Vladimirovna Romanova of the House of Hohenzollern-Romanov. In May 2009, he was ennobled with the title of knight of the Order of St. Anna of the First Class. The order was presented by Alexander Zakatov, the personal secretary of the imperial family and the director of the Russian Imperial House's office.

Avoiding sanctions

Neither Strzhalkovsky nor his family members have been sanctioned. Instead, they have even avoided the restrictions applied to ordinary Russians. Natalia, the former employee of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise (FSUE) of the Presidential Affairs Department, became a citizen of Cyprus and continues to own hotels in Italy and Greece. Former SVR officer Evgeny became a subject of Monaco and kept his alcohol-related assets in Austria, Italy, Monaco, France, and the Czech Republic. The only partial exception in the sanctions exemption was Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, who was named on a list put out by Ukraine — however, Kyiv’s reprimand does not prevent Vladimir from living a luxurious life in Europe.

In fact, in 2023, Strzhalkovsky was able to sell his superyacht, Ragnar, without any complications. At one time, the 68-meter vessel, capable of breaking through ice, featured a cozy British pub-style interior, water sports equipment, an amphibious quad bike, heli-skiing gear, and a giant slide. Then, just shy of two years ago, Strzhalkovsky sold the vessel to billionaire Roy E. Carroll for an estimated price of €69.5 million. Carroll renamed it Q and planned to use it as a support vessel for his main superyacht.

Suspicions around the Strzhalkovskys' European assets do not only concern matters of money laundering, but also security. The Insider has repeatedly reported on how Russian intelligence services exploit commercial structures abroad for their own purposes. For example, GRU agent Bulat Yanborisov set up a sports rally to serve Russian intelligence interests (after The Insider's report, he was sanctioned). GRU officer Viktor Labin, who settled in Brussels, used his companies to procure supplies for the Ministry of Defense (and was also added to the sanctions list following the investigation). It does not require much imagination to guess at how Russian intelligence services might benefit from controlling a network of luxury hotels across Europe, fostering connections within aristocratic circles, developing an infrastructure for money laundering, and employing the professional experience of an escort business organizer to boot. Despite all the red flags, the “new nobility” Strzhalkovsky clan continues to live and work in the very heart of the West.