russia The Swing of Things

Let’s say you’re the mayor of the most important city in your country, and you believe golf is a vital economic-development tool. So you ask the city’s corporate elites to build some golf courses, but they can’t do it because their businesses have been ravaged by the recession. Who would you turn to?

If you’re Yuri Luzhkov, you’d turn to your wife.

She is Yelena Baturina, and she’s said to be Russia’s richest woman. As recently as 2008, according to Forbes, she was worth $4.2 billion. The magazine says she’s only worth about a billion today, but jeez, we’re still talking real money.


Baturina plans to spend some of her fortune building a golf course on former farm land in the western suburbs of Moscow. A company she controls owns property near Ulitsa Nizhniye Mnyovniki, and a Russian newspaper says that Jack Nicklaus has been “invited” to build a “world-class” layout on it. Nicklaus hasn’t commented on the reports, but considering the state of the design business these days, it’s hard to imagine him turning down the invitation.

The as-yet-unnamed course won’t be Baturina’s first. She owns Grand Tirolia Golf & Ski Resort in Kitzbuhel, Austria, which features a golf course (Eichenheim Golf Course) designed by Kyle Phillips. The track is said to be among the top golf properties in Austria.

And it may not be her last, either. Another company Baturina controls, Kudla Group, reportedly owns 3,700 acres in Morocco, and it’s got plans to build golf resorts in the towns of Aouchtam and Tetouan. Each of the resorts would have houses, a hotel, a marina, a shopping area, and a nine-hole golf course.

Baturina, the mayor’s second wife, made her money in the construction business. Her firm, Inteco, made out like a bandit when Luzhkov, who was elected in 1992, set out to rebuild Moscow’s aging infrastructure and its decrepit commercial landscape. At one point, Inteco (in Russia, Inteko) was said to be getting 20 percent of the city’s construction projects, a fact so troubling to its competitors that Luzhkov was accused of -– cover your ears, boy and girls -– municipal corruption.

As is so often said, it helps to have friends in high places.

With Inteco’s profits, Baturina amassed substantial land holdings in the Belgorod region of western Russia. She bought hotels in Sochi, the tourist town on the Black Sea that will host the next Winter Olympics. Through Inteco, she began to sponsor golf events, including the Russian Open.

But things haven’t gone well lately for the mayor and his wife. A few months ago, Luzhkov was booted out of office for criticizing the national government. Inteco has reportedly had trouble paying its debts, and last year it couldn’t afford to put its name on the Russian Open, which had to be canceled.

Nevertheless, we’re talking about people who are worth a mint. So, like the gold-plated Russian in the DirecTV commercials, Baturina “jump into it” when she got the opportunity to build a golf course within a short drive of the city. Various reports say she’s purchased 87 acres, but that’s not nearly enough to design an 18-hole course. I suspect that she owns some adjacent property,

In 2006, as you may remember, Luzhkov said he’d open 10 regulation-length golf courses in and around Moscow by 2011 -– sadly, a promise he didn’t keep. Today there are four 18-hole courses in metropolitan Moscow, including one, at Tseleevo Golf & Polo Club, designed by Nicklaus.