March 29, 2024

Sanctions Block Oligarch From Paying German Employees $1M in Wages: NYT

  • Sanctions have blocked Alisher Usmanov from paying workers renovating his villas in Germany, NYT experiences.
  • The Russian oligarch owes regional contractors close to $1 million, a craftsman advised the outlet. 
  • Usmanov is at present ranked the fifth richest particular person in Russia, with a net value of $20 billion.

Sanctions are preventing Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov from having to pay an believed $1 million in wages to German staff renovating his lakeside getaway residences, a nearby craftsman named Andreas Kitzerow told The New York Occasions.

From Cyprus to Tegernsee, the luxury yachts and villas of sanctioned Russian billionaires are tucked away in different idyllic corners about the entire world. This international financial investment can be a strong resource of area revenue — and some personnel are pissed off that it really is been quickly reduce off. 

Kitzerow, who operates a ceramics small business in the German vacation resort city Tegernsee, advised the Occasions that the sanctions put towards Usmanov are “outrageous.” 

“He has often been reserved, and he has very little to do with the war in any way, as considerably as I can tell,” he advised the outlet. “But they feel just because he knows Putin or mainly because he’s Russian, they can do this. You should not go judgment.”

Kitzerow did not promptly reply to Insider’s request for comment. 

Usmanov, who is at this time rated the fifth richest individual in Russia with a


internet really worth

of $20 billion, built his riches in the steel and mining industries immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He is explained by the EU as “a single of Vladimir Putin’s favored oligarchs” and has permitted various Kremlin officials to use his different residences. 

The shores of Lake Tegernsee

Tegernsee, a luxurious vacation resort town nestled in Germany’s Bavarian Alps. Sanctioned Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov reportedly owns three villas alongside the lake.

Sven Hoppe/image alliance by using Getty Images


The craftsman is not the to start with of Usmanov’s team to reportedly be slash off from wages next Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The crew of the oligarch’s 512-foot superyacht, which was seized by German authorities in April, was fired right after sanctions prevented wages from becoming paid out to the vessel’s personnel, Forbes 1st described in March. 

Although the ban on SWIFT’s international banking technique has built it a lot more hard to go cash out of Russia, specialists earlier explained to Insider that it is continue to achievable for sanctioned individuals to shell out out-of-region workers. 

Holiday vacation places that have created their nearby economies around Russian tourism and financial commitment have responded in different ways to the sanctions. Some nations, like Turkey, have taken edge of the modifying geopolitical landscape by positioning on their own as a refuge for Russian billionaires booted from the EU.

Other people, such as Cyprus, have moved as significantly to retract the “golden passports” linked to sanctioned oligarchs, regardless of their traditionally energetic function in the Mediterranean island’s overall economy. In the meantime, community citizens in Germany’s Tegernsee village are divided over the oligarchs’ fates, for every the New York Periods report.