Ukrainian Oligarch Owns Medieval Chateau in France

Larysa Chertok, sister of Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, owns luxury apartments facing the Eiffel Tower and a XV century chateau on the French bank of Lake Geneva through a chain of French companies. These facts were uncovered by journalists of the Schemes project (Radio Liberty Ukraine) and Scanner Project.

In 2018, Kolomoisky’s family acquired two flats, four apartments, two parking lots and two underground premises on 1 Rue Beethoven – in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The legal owner of this property, is the Monaco based company, (un)coincidentally named “Beethoven Holding”, for which Chertok is the company’s final beneficiary.

The Château de Buffavens was bought by companies, owned by Chertok, in 2014 from the wife of Ihor Palyanytsia, a former business partner of Kolomoisky. The XVth century chateau is considered an outstanding historical landmark of the region. It stands in a total area, with adjacent fields and buildings, of 109 thousand square meters.

In February 2022, the Swiss court rejected Chertok’s lawsuit against Swiss immigration authorities which denied her naturalization because of the “dubious nature” of her capital, the Radio Liberty Ukraine journalists added.

Photo from open sources

Dnipro based Ihor Kolomoisky, 60, has been one of the most prominent Ukrainian oligarchs for decades, with large assets in gas, oil and metallurgical industries, banking and media sectors as well as having informal connections to various political parties and public officials. In 2019, his media holdings supported Volodymyr Zelensky’s presidential campaign.

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In 2016, PrivatBank, the financial backbone of his business assets, was nationalized. In 2020, Kolomoisky was indicted in the United States on bank fraud and then banned from entering the country. In July 2022, Zelensky stripped him of Ukrainian citizenship. In November 2022, the Ukrainian authorities seized oil companies Ukrnafta and Ukrtatnafta, of which Kolomoisky had been key stakeholder, under charges of embezzlement.