And when youre in an abusive relationship like that it makes you completely and utterly lose your confidence, you dont even realise its happening. Since the breakdown of her relationship with Sergei Pugachev, who was accused of fraud by the Kremlin in 2015, she has rediscovered her sense of style, favouring pieces that celebrate homegrown traditions and fashions, as evidenced on her popular Instagram account, @alexandratolstoy, where she often documents her wardrobe choices. In her judgment jailing him, Mrs Justice Rose noted he does have a genuine fear that his life is in danger from agents of the Russian state. She was given permission to leave the Soviet Union in 1929 and went to Japan in the same year. By 2015, he was dividing his time between France and the family home in London and claimed to be number 3 on Kremlin's hitlist. Tolstoy also wanted to show support for the small labels she loves to wear now, so theres also a section with exclusive discounts for Alex Gore Brownes knitwear, Pink City Prints Indian-influenced cotton pieces and O Pioneers Laura Ashley-esque dresses. It was on that trip that I met my former husband, Shamil Galimzyanov, an Uzbek horseman. Tolstoy has also partnered with Ampersand Travel to curate boutique tours of Russia, and garnered a loyal following across her trio of Instagram accounts. He got a prison sentence in the UK so he wont come back. The two are not mutually exclusive. By A set of 12 hand-coloured engravings of botanical specimens, 19th century. Oxford Student Publications Limited Later, while living and working in Moscow, she met Sergei Pugachev, with whom she would have three children. He voiced the crocodile in my childrens favourite Soviet cartoon, Cheburashka, so its like hes in our home. Subconsciously, I got quite in awe of all those Russian girls in that world. offers FT membership to read for free. Theres nothing phoney about it I keep it authentic. For her almost 50,000 Instagram followers (@alexandratolstoy), these memories of oligarch-style trophy buys will be impossible to conflate with the idyllic look she now encapsulates. Enjoy browsing and do email us if you have any questions! The sale runs until November 25 on christies.com. After nearly 11 years, however, Tolstoy is moving on from the home she has so lovingly put together, and is now offering some of its contents for sale at Christie's. Estimate: 2,000-2,500. Being in that landscape makes your senses alert. Each 18 x 14 in (47 x 35.5 cm), framed. But its absurd Putin just wouldnt care about that. Having once enjoyed an intensely close friendship, even spending many holidays together, by the time Alexandra met Sergei, he had only seen Putin once, in all those years., Alexandra asks if Ive watched Dirty John on Netflix, and compares theirs to the romance underpinned by the manipulation of the sociopathic significant other: I just find the psychology of being a sociopath or narcissism so fascinating; this creating of narratives that are literally just complete lies, but I think they end up half-believing them She later asks if Ive read And Quiet Flows the Don, saying that the relationship at the beginning is very, very similar; it just feels so full of danger and its very raw, and often angry, but then very passionate to me, it felt really like I was so in love. Reflecting on their marriage, and his moments of physical violence and control over her, she says that there were signs there, but she just didnt know how to read or understand them., I think the real truth was that, yes, he wasnt bowing down to Putin, but he also had a business partner who he was very close to for years, and that business partner left [and it was at this point that Sergei began having business difficulties]; Sergei himself was no kind of businessman. Mothers share the things they want to remember this time around - including going to the tip, picking up craft supplies and having acrylic nails taken off, Britain's first blind and deaf trainee medic reveals she's spent 'more time as a patient than a doctor-to-be' during a nightmare year where she was made homeless and spent three months in hospital. A highlight is a 19th-century Russian painted pine model, below, of the Trinity Monastery of St. Sergius outside Moscow. Anne-Jessica Faure, a lawyer for Mr Pugachev, said there has been no court decision establishing financial wrongdoing by him. I think that probably this business partner had been the brains, and Sergei had been the power broker, Despite the tumult of threats, financial loss, and romantic decline, complicated with the duty of raising small children, Alexandra seems at harmony with her present situation, and this is thanks to her newly unostentatious lifestyle that of the billionaires wife just didnt suit her: My whole confidence got so smashed when I was with him; he was so very manipulative, very denigrating about my riding, my exhibitions, my travel and so, I began to focus on all these things which a normal kind of oligarchs girlfriend would focus on. After visiting Sergei at their chteau in France, where he was physically violent towards her, locked their passports in a safe and smashed her mobile phone, Alexandra managed to return with the children to the UK and now lives between her small country cottage in Oxfordshire and their London townhouse, which she was forced to sell in a deal with the Russian authorities (though thankfully can remain in residence each month until it sells). Until then, dressing up for Tolstoy had been more about style and craftsmanship than touring designer boutiques. I say how I find so much more satisfaction in accumulating individuals pieces and creating ones own eclectic aesthetic, which she certainly concurs: I totally agree! After teenage years spent living mostly in one army surplus shirt and a pair of jeans, Tolstoys style horizons were expanded when she began her adventures in Russia, living like a heroine conjured from the imagination of her distant relation, the Nobel Prize-winning author Leo Tolstoy. Estimate: 2,000-3,000. My mother comes from a big family of seven and they made all their own clothes, bread and yoghurt. During your trial you will have complete digital access to FT.com with everything in both of our Standard Digital and Premium Digital packages. If I look at my children, theyre incredibly curious about a lot of things Im not sure their peers would be curious about my oldest son is obsessed with carnivorous plants, and the middle one is making things all the time I think that, somehow, that aesthetic they sort of go hand-in-hand. ", "The long Italian table - elegant and non-obtrusive, it was a fantastic background for photographs and pieces of Russian enamel that I had collected. A total of 130 items once displayed in the home, including a Scottish Regency bookcase, carved alabaster models and mid-20th century artwork will be auctioned at Christie's. Other pieces currently available on the site include an Oscar de la Renta scallop-edged dress (200), a tweed Celine mini dress (390) and Alaa wool dress (450). Millions of high-quality images, video, and music options are waiting for you. Access the best of Getty Images with our simple subscription plan. 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. It was my friends dream to do it and I hooked onto it. I commissioned these white sofas to be a base for the many layered cushions that I love and spent many happy hours on them - the perfect spot to retire with friends after a dinner party. Offered in Alexandra Tolstoy: An Interior by Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler, 4-25 November, Online. One such piece is a Dolce & Gabbana star print dress (290, pictured up top), which she wore during a trip to Monaco in 2011, the same year she attended the wedding of Prince Albert II and Charlene Wittstock there. Her travel business leading expeditions through the former Russian empire is on hold at the moment because of coronavirus and she has no help from Pugachev. FILTER Showing 23 products Cashmere Folk Fair Isle Jumper 495 259 If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for $69 per month. Countess Alexandra Tolstoy, an aristocratic English woman, had her own fairy tale come true when she fell in love with the man of her dreams in 2008, an oligarch and one of Russia's richest. In the chaos, she even lost jewellery shed been planning to sell. 'It was a great pleasure to be able to fully utilise such a diverse and highly personal selection of works of art, furniture and objects in a family home but also to be surrounded by objects that I took great huge pleasure from every day. Alexandra also worked with Emma on her home in Moscow. Its a safari-type adventure; we stay in the most beautiful locations. | Our privacy policy, Website design and operation by Nelson Fernandes Serrao. When do the clocks change in 2023? The next year, I took a trip to Kyrgyzstan, which is better suited to riding because its mountainous and beautiful, and the horses are wonderful. Having momentarily enjoyed the luxuries of a billionaire lifestyle, shes now entirely without financial support from Sergei, retains no luxuries from their marriage, and has sold all of the designer clothes, bags and shoes shed once owned: but she says shes all the happier because of it. I felt it was quite symbolic, it was out of Russia that this crazy life had happened and now I was giving something back which felt good., But shes honest that its as much for her own familys welfare that shes doing it, too. Ive entertained in this house a lot, Tolstoy tells Christies during our video shoot at Glebe Place earlier in the year. Shes kept a few special pieces. My style reflects my journey. Countess Alexandra Tolstoy's Colefax and Fowler interiors are up for sale at Christie's, for Tatler 3rd November 2020 The writer, equestrian and socialite talks to Tatler about the decision to auction off the pieces that made her Chelsea home impossibly chic. The industry is completely different now. I did really lose myself in that period and Ive started dressing in a way that just wasnt me. It was obvious that Alexandra had a completely new life with a huge staff: cooks, nannies, drivers. Everything weve got I feel is in its own right very unusual and special.. Within a year of meeting, they had a baby and another on the way, and were living a life of luxury in London, Moscow and Paris. Obviously theres her Russian heritage, so we loved the idea of pattern and colour.. State creditors in Moscow pursued him in the British courts, claiming he embezzled hundreds of millions. Tolstoy was educated at Downe House, [2] and then studied for a Master of Arts degree in Russian at the University of Edinburgh, during the course of which she spent a year in Russia. A superficial browse of Alexandras delightfully aesthetic Instagram page evokes the traditional rural cottage idyll; her three young children in shorts and little leather shoes reading or playing outside; carrying a roast goose to a carefully-decorated table for supper in a candle-lit dining room; nursing a cup of tea on a rocking chair beside the aga. "Decorative, colourful, comfortable, quirky, full of pattern and informal," is how Daniel describes the aesthetic. It is not dated and is a little unusual and quirky with the beaded detail. Its a very visually stimulating religion., A Russian painted pine model of the Trinity Monastry of St. Sergius, c. 1900. The Tale of Alexandra Tolstoy. One Countess's trash is another woman's treasure, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex step out for Hollywood date night at exclusive private members club as Harry announces major live event, In Queen Margrethe II of Denmarks last interview before her extensive surgery, she spoke of the royal title drama and Crown Prince Frederiks future on the throne, The Princess of Wales wears delicate brooch with touching connection to the late Queen, Wearing a Dolce & Gabbana dress in Monaco 2011, During Russian Easter wearing a skirt that is a play on Russian traditional shawls. She was born in Poole, Dorset. I just had to pack my suitcase and I could go.'. In Nice, he was visited by the DIA who demanded repayment of the billion dollar loan and threatened his family, saying they could 'cut off his son's finger and send it back to him.'. Simply log into Settings & Account and select "Cancel" on the right-hand side. Now, Alexandra has reclaimed her creative autonomy and a certain intellectual freedom which was repressed during her years spent with the billionaire: We all have different tastes, but if our taste isnt reflecting who we are or where we are in life, that lack of harmony can make you feel not very happy. Her Instagram page has allowed her to present her own image to the world, one which she finds to be truly representative, unlike that of the media which is seemingly always speculating. 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