Away from Russia: Where the ex-owner of Spartak and billionaire Fedun can settle
Leonid Fedun became one of the few Russian oligarchs who escaped Western sanctions after the start of the SVO. Recently, the billionaire has not been seen at Spartak matches; there has been talk that he has left Russia. Where could he find shelter and what did he leave behind in Russia?
Rumors that Leonid Fedun is going to leave Russia are circulating throughout the Northeast Military District. Last summer, the billionaire left his post as vice president of Lukoil and sold Spartak. This football season, for the first time, I stopped appearing at the matches of my favorite club. The media wrote that he may have Cypriot citizenship. He is also one of the few domestic oligarchs on whom the West has not imposed sanctions, and this looks very ambiguous after a recent article in Die Welt. According to the German publication, in March 2022, a scheme was organized according to which oil from the Bulgarian Lukoil plant, through a chain of intermediaries, covered up to 40% of the needs of Kyiv and the Ukrainian Armed Forces. In fact, Ukrainian tanks could be fueled with Lukoil diesel fuel. And it was Fedun who managed the concern at that time.
Be that as it may, behind the cordon of Leonid Fedun (No. 19 in the Russian Forbes ranking) immodest reserve airfields have long been waiting, where nothing prevents him from settling forever.
Leonid Fedun sold Spartak and now does not appear at the matches of his once dear team
Villa near Nice and penthouse in London
The resort of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat on the Cape of the French Riviera was recognized as the second most expensive residential area in the world. But despite the luxury and glamor reigning around, the villa of Leonid Fedun’s family stands out even there: it is larger than the neighboring mansions, is closer to the beach and has the best view of the bay.
According to the telephone directories of the Nice district, 38-year-old Anton Fedun is registered at the villa’s address. And it is managed by a company owned by 34-year-old Ekaterina Fedun. These are the children of the co-owner of Lukoil from his first marriage.
The villa was bought in the 2000s for €14 million, now its value is up to €50 million.
However, Leonid Fedun may choose London to live. According to TheGuardian, near Buckingham Palace he has a penthouse worth £23 million in the One Hyde Park residential complex – this is by far the most expensive new building and the most glamorous address in the world.
Bulletproof glass, silver-cream Art Deco-style lobbies, apartments made of oak, leather and lye, 24-hour service at the all-inclusive level of a five-star hotel, in the basement there is an ozone pool, squash courts, a golf simulator, an intimate cinema and a spa complex . For security purposes, there are scanners installed around the perimeter that recognize the iris of the eyes. There are also special cameras inside that take pictures of your back and play it back with a delay on the mirror so you can see what you look like from behind.
And the One Hyde Park residential complex is designed so that its residents never have to step foot on a regular sidewalk or jostle with the general public.
Interior example at One Hyde Park
Balcony at One Hyde Park
Some of the windows at One Hyde Park overlook the Serpentine Lake in Hyde Park
If Leonid Fedun wants, he can stay in London to visit his son, Anton Fedun. He manages two family hotels in London – the Ampersand Hotel, purchased for £100 million, and Vintry & Mercer, worth £60 million. The Times recently wrote in detail about the life of Fedun Jr.: it called him a British citizen and talked about his apartment for £8.4 million in the affluent area of Marylebone.
By the way, Fedun’s daughter, Ekaterina, also lives in the capital of England. She is known there as a party girl and socialite. Formally, the girl works for the British PR agency Bacchus. But here’s a strange thing: the social network Linkedin and the Rocketreach service – two powerful tools for finding employees of companies around the world – did not find Ekaterina Fedun on the Bacchus staff.
Anton Fedun with his wife Alina Uspenskaya at the ArtSocial Christmas gala concert on November 29, 2019 in London, England
Ekaterina Fedun on her wedding day
Anton and Ekaterina Fedun
Did the Feduns organize a sale of assets?
Of the interesting real estate in the Fedun family in their homeland, there are mansions in the alleys of Arbat in the historical apartment building of I.S.
Baskakova. Ekaterina Fedun, who left Russia long ago, is registered there. As Life found out, this particular property is now being sold for 150 million rubles – there are simply no other such apartments in the building. The indicated price seems understated: we are talking about a recently restored and modernized architectural monument in the very center of Moscow, which provides 24-hour security and a closed private courtyard. The apartments themselves for sale are expensively furnished and look luxurious. Ceiling height is 3.5–4 meters.
Apartment building I.S. Baskakova
Inter-apartment halls in the house
Layout of an apartment for sale
One of the bedrooms
A large steel motor yacht Sparta, built just a couple of years ago in Dutch shipyards specifically for Leonid Fedun, is also up for sale for €99 million. This 67-meter vessel is equipped with an infinity pool, an oval Jacuzzi with an attached bar, sun loungers, a sauna and steam room, a limousine garage, a spiral staircase and a glass elevator connecting all decks.
Interiors of the yacht Sparta
Swimming pool on the yacht Sparta
Interiors of the yacht Sparta
Interiors of the yacht Sparta
What remains for Fedun in Russia?
Fedun owns one of the largest estates in the specially protected natural area “Serebryany Bor” – a peninsula in the bend of the Moscow River, where the country’s elite historically settled. Plots without houses here are sold for about 30 million rubles per hundred square meters, and ready-made households go for amounts ranging from a billion rubles. The safety of local residents is ensured by FSO officers, as well as the most modern video cameras installed on high three-meter fences.
Leonid Fedun in Serebryany Bor occupies 15 hectares on Tamanskaya Street. On this land there are three residential buildings (330, 380 and 510 square meters) surrounded by dense forest. Such real estate can cost five to ten billion rubles.
Estate of Leonid Fedun in Serebryany Bor
About a kilometer from Leonid Fedun’s estate in Serebryany Bor is the estate of Zarema Salikhova, his common-law wife and mother of his five youngest children. Here we are talking about a huge mansion with an area of 1400 square meters and an average-sized plot of 25 acres. Price – up to two billion rubles.
Estate of Zarema Salikhova
How Leonid Fedun got rich
Leonid Fedun was born in Kyiv into an international and nomenklatura family. His father is Zhytomyr resident Arnold Antonovich, commander of the medical unit of a group of Soviet troops in Germany and subsequently the chief surgeon of the USSR Strategic Missile Forces. Nothing is known about Polina Lavrovna’s mother except that she had Finnish roots.
Fedun studied at the Rostov rocket school at the military-political faculty and at the military academy near Moscow at the department of philosophical sciences. He worked as a political instructor in military universities and rose to the rank of colonel. In the 80s, he became a lecturer at the All-Union Society “Knowledge”, which had a huge property base throughout the country and was simultaneously engaged in Soviet propaganda and scientific education.
Leonid Fedun with his common-law wife Zarema Salikhova
And Fedun became an oligarch as a result of the default of the late nineties, when the dollar rose in price from six rubles to 21 in a couple of weeks.
“I knew that there would be a crisis, and I took a risk – I sold everything and exited all government short-term bonds. When everything collapsed in August 1998, everyone was running [в отчаянии], and I was just filled with happiness because I did everything right. I had cash, with which I later bought a lot of cheap assets, they served as the basis of my fortune,” Fedun once boasted.
After the start of the special operation, Leonid Fedun publicly complained about the “huge difficulties” that arose for him; behind the scenes, he allegedly complained about the loss of as much as 99% of his fortune. Bloomberg experts were also pessimistic; they calculated his losses at minus 80%.
However, according to new data from Forbes, things are not so bad for Leonid Fedun. Yes, he is among the most impoverished Russian billionaires due to the SVO. But in the end, his family’s capital depleted only by a third, minus $4.2 billion, and is now equal to $9.2 billion. The Feduns retained an 11% stake in Lukoil and a stake in the Specialized Developer Spartak Stadium, which acts as a developer large residential projects in Moscow.
Leonid Fedun
