How London became the place to be for Putin’s oligarchs
For years, if not decades, the luxury property market in London and south-east England has been feasting on investment from Russia and former Soviet states. The oligarch’s mansion, with fantastical multi-level interiors containing swimming pools, art galleries and vintage car collections, has become the stuff of legend. Estate agents, lawyers, accountants, financial institutions, property companies, public relations agencies, architects and interior designers have all done well out of this abundant cash.
Meanwhile, campaigners and journalists have been sounding the alarm. London, they have long pointed out, appeared to be uniquely attractive to “suspicious wealth” – as the anti-corruption organisation Transparency International UK puts it – from all over the world, and from the former Soviet Union in particular. These alarms were mostly ignored until now, when suddenly it appears problematic to have been complicit in the workings of elites whose leader has started the most dangerous war in Europe since 1945.
The only possible (and insufficient) justification is that this influx of money would trickle down to ordinary citizens, but it has been of questionable benefit to most Londoners. It has added further pressure on London’s famously unaffordable homes. It has promoted exclusion and division in a city whose strengths included openness and accessibility.
Most, for sure, would never be in the market in the places where oligarchs and kleptocrats like to buy, such as Knightsbridge, Kensington, parts of Highgate, and in suburban gated communities such as St George’s Hill near Weybridge, Surrey. But, as Transparency International has also argued, there has been a ripple effect: if billionaires buy in Kensington, then slightly
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