This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/20/russian-buyers-turn-chiantishire-into-ruscany
The article has changed 3 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| Why Chiantishire has become Ruscany | Why Chiantishire has become Ruscany |
| (1 day later) | |
| The wife of the marquis put down her drink on a silver coaster and sighed. "This area used to be an English colony, but now there is an epochal change under way," she said. "The English? They were gentlemen. Now their place is being taken by the Russians." | The wife of the marquis put down her drink on a silver coaster and sighed. "This area used to be an English colony, but now there is an epochal change under way," she said. "The English? They were gentlemen. Now their place is being taken by the Russians." |
| It's a busy time at Villa Orlando, a gorgeous 17th-century country mansion surrounded by pools, parks and lemon groves outside Lucca, as wealthy Russian buyers looking for a Tuscan bolthole arrive to cast an eye over the Marquis Ludovico Gavotti's massive oil paintings, damask four-poster beds and frescoed ceilings. The house is now up for sale with an asking price of €8m (£6.3m) as Gavotti struggles with taxes and a broken roof, making it the latest Tuscan jewel that could now be sold to millionaires from Moscow. | It's a busy time at Villa Orlando, a gorgeous 17th-century country mansion surrounded by pools, parks and lemon groves outside Lucca, as wealthy Russian buyers looking for a Tuscan bolthole arrive to cast an eye over the Marquis Ludovico Gavotti's massive oil paintings, damask four-poster beds and frescoed ceilings. The house is now up for sale with an asking price of €8m (£6.3m) as Gavotti struggles with taxes and a broken roof, making it the latest Tuscan jewel that could now be sold to millionaires from Moscow. |
| Once content to take over sea resorts like Forte dei Marmi in Tuscany, the Russians are now spreading out from their beachheads, backed by enormous wealth and spurred by the sanctions targeting their homeland following Russia's intervention in Ukraine. | Once content to take over sea resorts like Forte dei Marmi in Tuscany, the Russians are now spreading out from their beachheads, backed by enormous wealth and spurred by the sanctions targeting their homeland following Russia's intervention in Ukraine. |
| The peaceful Russian incursion in Tuscany coincides with the 20th anniversary of the death of Harold Acton, the Florence-based British aesthete who personified upper-crust England's cultural identification with, and colonisation of, Tuscany, dating back to the Grand Tour, a siren call which lured Prince Charles and Tony Blair to take holidays in elegant villas perched on cypress-lined hilltops. In their slipstream came hordes of middle-class Brits who have bought up crumbling farmhouses, learned the rudiments of dry stone walling and pressed olives from their own trees. | The peaceful Russian incursion in Tuscany coincides with the 20th anniversary of the death of Harold Acton, the Florence-based British aesthete who personified upper-crust England's cultural identification with, and colonisation of, Tuscany, dating back to the Grand Tour, a siren call which lured Prince Charles and Tony Blair to take holidays in elegant villas perched on cypress-lined hilltops. In their slipstream came hordes of middle-class Brits who have bought up crumbling farmhouses, learned the rudiments of dry stone walling and pressed olives from their own trees. |
| But now Tuscany is changing its spots, shifting from Chiantishire to what observers are dubbing Ruscany. "We are less interested in the UK market – it spends less," said Dimitri Corti, the head of Florence estate agency Lionard, which specialises in finding Russian buyers for its up-for-sale villas. Lionard's brochure is a two-kilo, hardback collection of stunning mansions and castles, featuring lush photos but no text, apparently giving oligarchs the chance to merely point to a picture and say: "I want that one." | But now Tuscany is changing its spots, shifting from Chiantishire to what observers are dubbing Ruscany. "We are less interested in the UK market – it spends less," said Dimitri Corti, the head of Florence estate agency Lionard, which specialises in finding Russian buyers for its up-for-sale villas. Lionard's brochure is a two-kilo, hardback collection of stunning mansions and castles, featuring lush photos but no text, apparently giving oligarchs the chance to merely point to a picture and say: "I want that one." |
| But Corti said that, 20 years after Russians first hopped off their yachts in Italy, they were more discerning. "They increasingly want to avoid Forte dei Marmi because there are too many other Russians," he said. Russians have already discovered the thermal baths at Montecatini Terme, a spa town halfway from Forte dei Marmi to Florence, where Cézanne and Verdi once took the waters. Since Svetlana Medvedeva, the wife of Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, checked in two years ago, street signs have gone up in Russian and the council has laid on interpreters as visitors from Russia climb to 50,000 year. "This year we brought in an orchestra to play from St Petersburg," said mayor Giuseppe Bellandi. Corti recently sold two €7m villas at the sea resort of Castiglioncello, farther south down the Tuscan coast, where Italian film stars Alberto Sordi and Marcello Mastroianni owned homes. | But Corti said that, 20 years after Russians first hopped off their yachts in Italy, they were more discerning. "They increasingly want to avoid Forte dei Marmi because there are too many other Russians," he said. Russians have already discovered the thermal baths at Montecatini Terme, a spa town halfway from Forte dei Marmi to Florence, where Cézanne and Verdi once took the waters. Since Svetlana Medvedeva, the wife of Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, checked in two years ago, street signs have gone up in Russian and the council has laid on interpreters as visitors from Russia climb to 50,000 year. "This year we brought in an orchestra to play from St Petersburg," said mayor Giuseppe Bellandi. Corti recently sold two €7m villas at the sea resort of Castiglioncello, farther south down the Tuscan coast, where Italian film stars Alberto Sordi and Marcello Mastroianni owned homes. |
| But the real treasures he is talking up on marketing trips to Moscow are the secluded villas dotted around the hills near Lucca, starting with three that were once lived in by Elisa, Pauline and Caroline Bonaparte – Napoleon's sisters – during the French domination of Tuscany at the start of the 19th century. | But the real treasures he is talking up on marketing trips to Moscow are the secluded villas dotted around the hills near Lucca, starting with three that were once lived in by Elisa, Pauline and Caroline Bonaparte – Napoleon's sisters – during the French domination of Tuscany at the start of the 19th century. |
| Caroline's home for eight years was Villa Orlando, where successive owners, including the Marquis Gavotti today, have kept intact Caroline's rich red damask double-poster bed, as well as furniture from the period in the bedroom where she enjoyed views over the villa's gardens. If that's not enough pedigree for the likely Russian buyer of the property, Gavotti's lineage is true Italian blue blood. On his father's side he descends from the Gavottis, a noble family that traces its roots in Genoa in the year 1000. His mother's side were Orlandos, shipbuilding Sicilians who helped bankroll Garibaldi's march to unify Italy and bought the villa in 1899. | Caroline's home for eight years was Villa Orlando, where successive owners, including the Marquis Gavotti today, have kept intact Caroline's rich red damask double-poster bed, as well as furniture from the period in the bedroom where she enjoyed views over the villa's gardens. If that's not enough pedigree for the likely Russian buyer of the property, Gavotti's lineage is true Italian blue blood. On his father's side he descends from the Gavottis, a noble family that traces its roots in Genoa in the year 1000. His mother's side were Orlandos, shipbuilding Sicilians who helped bankroll Garibaldi's march to unify Italy and bought the villa in 1899. |
| Today Gavotti, 72, potters around the villa in shorts and a sweatshirt, but until her death aged 93 in 2011 his aunt Maria Luisa lived in high style, surrounded by servants. "She spent a lot of her life on safaris, hence the animal skulls and horns on the walls down in the servants' quarters," said Gavotti. When Maria Luisa was at the villa, she would host passing English nobles, he added. "The English were at home here in Lucca," said his wife, Luisa. But the year Maria Luisa died, the British consul in Florence also shut down – the victim of budget cuts – after 500 years of serving British travellers on the Grand Tour, a closure seen as reflecting the declining influence of the British community in Tuscany. Tellingly, Prince Harry was partying this weekend at the wedding of a school friend in Italy, but in Puglia – a new favoured destination for well-heeled Brits – not in Tuscany where his father Prince Charles was a regular visitor. | |
| "The Chianti area of Tuscany is still an Anglo-Saxon and northern European holdout," said Ian Heath, an Englishman who works with the Lionard estate agency. "But the prices are overblown," he added. "Who wants to pay millions for a farmhouse, when you can buy a villa with frescoes near Lucca? The Russians aren't stupid, they know a good deal. I heard stories about them arriving here 20 years ago with suitcases of cash and offering triple the price on properties. I don't know how it was then, but it certainly isn't true now." Russians are still, however, considered boorish tourists by many, to the point that a Forte dei Marmi hotelier this year produced a video politely suggesting to Russians that they treat staff more decently and refrain from automatically ordering the priciest wine on the menu. | "The Chianti area of Tuscany is still an Anglo-Saxon and northern European holdout," said Ian Heath, an Englishman who works with the Lionard estate agency. "But the prices are overblown," he added. "Who wants to pay millions for a farmhouse, when you can buy a villa with frescoes near Lucca? The Russians aren't stupid, they know a good deal. I heard stories about them arriving here 20 years ago with suitcases of cash and offering triple the price on properties. I don't know how it was then, but it certainly isn't true now." Russians are still, however, considered boorish tourists by many, to the point that a Forte dei Marmi hotelier this year produced a video politely suggesting to Russians that they treat staff more decently and refrain from automatically ordering the priciest wine on the menu. |
| At the Giglio restaurant in Lucca last week, owner Paola Barbieri said Russians were already catching on. "Gone are the days when they picked the Sassicaia wine because it costs the most," she said. "Now they ask advice. Ten years ago they wanted soup and cucumber salad, because that's what they ate back home. Now they will eat our handmade tortelli and want extra virgin olive oil on their salad, not sour cream." Ian Heath said the proof Russians were getting more cultured was their interest in houses like Villa Orlando. "The new owner will need to spend hundreds of thousands of euros on refurbishment but will not be able to touch the paintings or Caroline Bonaparte's room, which have preservation orders on them," he said. | At the Giglio restaurant in Lucca last week, owner Paola Barbieri said Russians were already catching on. "Gone are the days when they picked the Sassicaia wine because it costs the most," she said. "Now they ask advice. Ten years ago they wanted soup and cucumber salad, because that's what they ate back home. Now they will eat our handmade tortelli and want extra virgin olive oil on their salad, not sour cream." Ian Heath said the proof Russians were getting more cultured was their interest in houses like Villa Orlando. "The new owner will need to spend hundreds of thousands of euros on refurbishment but will not be able to touch the paintings or Caroline Bonaparte's room, which have preservation orders on them," he said. |
| Another vote of confidence came, surprisingly, from Prince Ottaviano de'Medici di Toscana, a modern descendant of the once-powerful Tuscan Medici family and a preservation activist. This summer the prince lambasted the renting out in Florence of a Medici fort for the wedding of reality star Kim Kardashian. But last week he said he positively welcomed the Russian invasion. "In the second half of the 19th century, the English were here, but so were Russian intellectuals," he said. "Dostoevsky wrote The Idiot while staying in Florence, while a Russian prince, Nikolai Demidov, bought the Medici villa at Pratolino, donated art works and restored the gardens, as well as building the Russian church in Florence," he said. | Another vote of confidence came, surprisingly, from Prince Ottaviano de'Medici di Toscana, a modern descendant of the once-powerful Tuscan Medici family and a preservation activist. This summer the prince lambasted the renting out in Florence of a Medici fort for the wedding of reality star Kim Kardashian. But last week he said he positively welcomed the Russian invasion. "In the second half of the 19th century, the English were here, but so were Russian intellectuals," he said. "Dostoevsky wrote The Idiot while staying in Florence, while a Russian prince, Nikolai Demidov, bought the Medici villa at Pratolino, donated art works and restored the gardens, as well as building the Russian church in Florence," he said. |
| "The idea of Tuscany has been transmitted in Russian literature and culture since then, even if the Russian presence here was cut off by the revolution. The English never stopped coming, but then they didn't have communism," he added. "As in the past, it is the British and the Russians who are today most concerned about the preservation of Florence. People who criticise the Russians should read a bit more Dostoevsky." | "The idea of Tuscany has been transmitted in Russian literature and culture since then, even if the Russian presence here was cut off by the revolution. The English never stopped coming, but then they didn't have communism," he added. "As in the past, it is the British and the Russians who are today most concerned about the preservation of Florence. People who criticise the Russians should read a bit more Dostoevsky." |
| • This article was amended on 21 September 2014 to correct a reference to Prince William that should have been a reference to his brother, Prince Harry |