Russian outlet Proekt has discovered that the family of the Secretary of the General Council of the United Russia party Andrey Turchak owns a villa in Cannes, registered under his wife’s friend’s name, and a holiday house in a gated community on the Gulf of Finland that was built on the site of a secret training ground. Proekt’s investigation is published on their website.
The Mas Du Gitan villa. Source: R-House Design website
In 2013, opposition politician Alexey Navalny discovered that Turchak owned a company in Nice, through which he was in possession of €1.3 mln apartments. Afterwards, the United Russia politician updated his tax declaration, and later sold the property. According to Proekt’s investigation, Turchak’s family continued to vacation in Cannes: they were able to find three public photos of Turchak’s daughter Sofia near and inside the villa Mas Du Gitan, dated 2016 and 2018. The villa is located near the apartments that used to belong to Turchak and, according to the documents, now belongs to the SCI Gryphon Property company, which is registered in Monaco.
According to the investigation, the villa has been registered under the names of the Turchak family’s close friends until recently. The contact person for the Monaco company is Larisa Orlova — the name of a close friend of Turchak’s wife Kira. Kira Turchak and Larisa Orlova were seen attending public events together. Furthermore, the ex-owner of the villa told Proekt that the property had been bought by a man with the last name Korotkov — which is the last name of Orlova’s ex-husband.
Proekt was able to find a flight database on the black market, from which it follows that Kira Turchak made at least 20 flights to France in between 2014 and 2022 — to Paris and Nice. According to the database, the last time Kira Turchak went to France was on 5 February.
The holiday house of the Turchak family on the Gulf of Finland. Screenshot: Proekt
Proekt also claims that the Turchak family owns property in a gated community on the Gulf of Finland. Until 2019, this area was the location of the Systems Engineering Research Institute. The test base of the Institute was also there — the tests conducted were classified. In particular, sensors needed to locate submarines were being tested on the polygon.
According to the documents reviewed by the journalists, the biggest building in the gated community is registered under the name Boris Turchak — which is the name of Turchak’s brother.
“The documents state that this land was bought by Turchak from the Systems Engineering Research Institute; in total, he owns five plots of land, with a total area of 20,000 square metres. It’s very hard to estimate the cost of this property, seeing as houses and land of this kind aren’t being sold nearby. According to our estimates, the cost of the property located on the territory of the polygon owned by the Turchak family could be anywhere from 200 (€3.3 mln) to 500 mln rubles (€8.2 mln),” the investigation states.
