Following the Russian invasion in Ukraine, an association of the beautiful neighborhoods of London decided to “free” the Cossues villas belonging to the oligarchs. To clean up the real estate park and … welcome Ukrainians.
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At the entrance to Thornwood Gardens, a new residence in the heart of Kensington and Chelsea, London’s most chic borough, activists of the brand new Kensington Against Dirty Money association (KADM) installed on the sidewalk A washing machine, open drum open, vomiting banknotes.
The symbol is transparent: here, we wash dirty money. “In this residence are three properties belonging to the family of the President of Azerbaijan [Ilham Aliev], their value is around 40 million pounds [47.5 million euros] while his salary of President is 175 000 sterling pounds per year, “says Joe Powell, co-founder of the association, at an improvised press conference on March 11th.
Twenty years of inaction
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Johnson government decided to end these twenty years of inaction during which the British capital welcomed the oligarchs of Russia and elsewhere. , without almost asking questions about the source of their huge fortunes, winning the nickname “Londongrad”.
By March 10, the British authorities had frozen the assets in the United Kingdom of 18 oligarchs close to Putin regime, including Roman Abramovich, the owner of the Chelsea Football Club, and Oleg Deripaska, founder, among others, from Basic Element, one of the largest Russian industrial groups. The first has a splendid villa at the 16 Kensington Palace Gardens and a penthouse in the Chelsea Waterfront Tower – the value at all is estimated at more than 150 million pounds sterling. The second would own a house in Belgrave Square, just behind Buckingham Palace.
A real estate market “False”
The KADM association wants to seize this moment to denounce the deleterious influence that these immense fortunes have had locally, which have made their borrough (“arrondissement”) of West London one of their favorite fall points in Europe. “They often come in summer, to do their shopping at Harrods, the rest of the time, their homes remain empty, it’s completely immoral,” says Monica Press, Labor Municipal Councilor of Borrandh and from the neighborhood for twenty-five years .
Enrolerated in the young association, Monica Press denounces a “distorted” real estate market by the oligarchs. Prices have risen to stratospheric levels: the four-room is selling about 10 million pounds sterling around Holland Park. In South Kensington, the studios fries the million pounds.
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