Countess Alexandra Tolstoy has revealed that she has been evicted from her multi-million home with only 12 days notice during the coronavirus outbreak.
The aristocratic beauty, 46, is the daughter of Count Nikolai Tolstoy and ex-partner of Russian billionaire Sergei Pugachev.
She is currently staying at her parents beautiful country home in Oxfordshire with her three children during the isolation period.
But despite the idyllic setting, the Russian-born socialite has divulged her anguish at being kicked out of her London pad and losing her travel tour company.
Pugachev lost ownership of his £9 million London property, where Alexandra was residing, after Moscow judges ruled that it belonged to creditors in the Russian capital, in October 2018.
He was also embroiled in a four-year battle with the Russian government – where the DIA accused him of transferring millions from Mezhprombank
Countess Alexandra Tolstoy (seen with her daughter) has revealed that she has been evicted from her multi-million home with only 12 days notice during the coronavirus outbreak
In a highly confessional post, she told her 54,000 followers: ‘Life is complicated at the moment.’
In a highly confessional post, she told her 54,000 followers: ‘Life is complicated at the moment.
‘I’ve lost my travel business and have been told in the last week that we are shortly to be evicted from our home by the Russian government.
‘In fact, they gave me and my children twelve days notice, at the height of a global pandemic.
‘It’s difficult to sleep and focus but over many difficult years I have been tough on myself about staying in the moment, and taking pleasure out of the small things.
‘Reading is certainly one of those and in particular I hugely enjoy reading out loud to my children, especially if it’s Just William.’
The aristocratic beauty, 46, is the daughter of Count Nikolai Tolstoy and ex-wife of Russian billionaire Sergei Pugachev, whom she shares three children with (seen)
She is currently staying at her parents beautiful country home in Oxfordshire with her three children during the isolation period
WHO IS ALEXANDRA TOLSTOY?
Before she met Sergei, Alexandra was married to a penniless Cossack named Shamil Galimzyanov.
The pair met whilst travelling along the Silk Road on horse in 1999.
He was an Uzbek showjumper employed as a guide on the trip. They married in 2003 in London.
Tolstoy first met Sergei, then a Russian senator and trusted friend of Putin who had separated from his wife, when asked to give him English lessons while she was living in Moscow with Galimzyanov.
A year later, they met again at an awards ceremony attended by the Russian president.
Within months, Tolstoy and was pregnant with Sergei’s child. They had three children together – Alexei, known as Aliosha, Ivan and Maria.
Alexandra is the eldest of Anglo-Russian historian and writer Nikolai Tolstoy’s four children.
She grew up in Oxfordshire before going to Edinburgh University to study philosophy. She spent her gap year in Russia.
She has also taken extensive riding trips through Mongolia and Siberia and organises riding holidays in central Asia as well as being a writer.
The countess’s business ‘Travel With Alexandra’, which offers a ‘Tolstoy tour’ to Moscow and Polyana, cultural tour of Moscow and St Petersburg, and horse riding in Kyrgyzstan has been shut.
It comes after her ex-partner Pugachev lost ownership of his £9 million London property, where Alexandra is residing, after Moscow judges ruled that it belonged to creditors in the Russian capital, in October 2018.
The aristocratic beauty, 46, is the daughter of Count Nikolai Tolstoy and ex-partner of Russian billionaire Sergei Pugachev.
He was also embroiled in a four-year battle with the Russian government – where the DIA accused him of transferring millions from Mezhprombank.
They have been pursuing him in England’s high court and ordered him to give up his passports.
The Russian banker claimed the state was trying to steal his £11.5billion assets – including two shipyards, world’s biggest mine and two properties in Moscow and St Petersburg.
Pugachev, who was once in Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, managed to flee to England France – and has since split from Alexandra.
The Anglo-Russian influencer and the children were reportedly told to leave their multi-million Chelsea property in January, following Pugachev’s property battle.
‘Reading is certainly one of those and in particular I hugely enjoy reading out loud to my children, especially if it’s Just William,’ Alexandra said, admitting it’s relieved her stress
Tolstoy has three children with the Sergei – Alexei, known as Aliosha, Ivan and Maria. (seen in the kitchen with her daughter)
The countess’s (seen enjoying cake in the garden) business ‘Travel With Alexandra’, which offers a ‘Tolstoy tour’ to Moscow and Polyana, cultural tour of Moscow and St Petersburg, and horse riding in Kyrgyzstan has been shut
WHO IS SERGEI PUGACHEV?
The Russian state has been pursuing Sergei Pugachev through the High Court claiming he illegally siphoned hundreds of millions of pounds from a government bailout of the Mezhprombank he co-founded.
Mr Pugachev denies the allegations and claims Moscow is trying to steal £11billion of his assets, including two shipyards and the world’s largest mine.
Mr Pugachev has previously been declared to be in contempt of court, with a two-year prison sentence left hanging over his head should he return to this country.
He had been living in France for the past five years after being ordered to give up his passports in 2014 and having his assets frozen.
He also claims ‘credible attempts’ had been made on his life in the UK.
The tycoon is in another legal battle with Russia in The Hague where he is suing the Federation for £11billion.
He claims he is being targeted because of his knowledge of state secrets.
Speaking in TV documentary The Countess and the Russian Billionaire, which airs on BBC2 last month, Alexandra tells how her world came crumbling down around her when Pugachev fled to France in fear of his life after the Kremlin issued an arrest warrant, claiming he owes the state $1 billlion.
The former couple, who allowed cameras into their lives for five years for the documentary, are now completely estranged. Pugachev has cut off Alexandra and their children financially, she claims, and she now faces being left with ‘nothing’ after the Kremlin threatened to evict them from their £12million London townhouse.
As filming began in 2015, Alexandra offered cameras a tour of her lavish home in Battersea, south London, where her neighbours included Brian Ferry. ‘We have a PA, two housekeepers, two drivers, an English nanny, a Russian nanny and a French tutor,’ she says.
Alexandra Tolstoy, 45, and Sergei Pugachev, 57, were followed by cameras for five years for the documentary The Countess and the Russian Billionaire, which airs on BBC2 on Wednesday at 9pm
Sergei once owned two major shipyards, the world’s biggest mine and large chunks of real estate in Moscow and St Petersburg, as well as the Mezhprombank, which he co-founded in the 1990s.
The couple met in 2008 after Sergei hired Alexandra to help improve his English while they were both living in Russia, where Sergei was once-close friends with Putin.
But when Sergei revealed to ‘very close friend’ Putin that he was dating an English woman, the Russian leader was ‘very surprised’.
The family moved between an array of properties including a £12million family home in Battersea, a 200-acre country estate in Hertfordshire, and a £40million beachfront villa in St Barts.
But in 2008, Sergei’s bank hit problems and the Russian bank bailed it out with $1 billion loan.
Sergei, who left Russia in 2011, claims that after relations between him and Putin cooled, the Kremlin tried to seize or destroy his business empire.
The Russians then accused him of profiting from vast sums of taxpayers’ money given to Mezhprombank by the Russian central bank at the height of the 2008 economic crisis.
The Russian authorities froze his assets, put him on Interpol’s wanted list and obtained a court order in Britain forcing him to hand over his passports.
By 2015, he was dividing his time between France and the family home in London and reputed to be number 3 on Kremlin’s hitlist.
Sergei said he enjoyed a ‘very close’ friendship with Russian president Vladimir Putin before falling out with the state
