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A luxury retreat for Putin's banker: Inside the private estate of VTB president Andrey Kostin and his propagandist mistress
In August 2019, prime-time TV presenter Nailya Asker-Zade found herself at the center of a scandal: journalists discovered her to be in possession of a nearly $33 million plot of land near the village of Razdory in Rublevka, a luxurious residential area outside Moscow. The expensive real estate had allegedly been purchased for her by Andrey Kostin, the head of state-owned VTB — Russia's second-largest bank. Asker-Zade responded by handing over the land to a shell firm called Godovari Development, and the story was largely forgotten. But it didn’t end there: The Insider can report that Kostin still controls the estate, and he even built a luxury villa there for himself and Nailya. According to estimates from the construction crew, the cost of the house — captioned “Villa in the Pines” in the design documentation — exceeds $223 million.
Kostin personally supervised all stages of construction and commissioning, the builders say. He visited the site with Nailya Asker-Zade. Almost always, the banker's car was accompanied by a police vehicle. To impress the client, the managers cleaned up the site and made sure that not a single worker was in sight. Kostin paid attention to every detail, down to mapping the paths on the property.
Kostin and Asker-Zade's new house
The construction took several years, as the owners went for a bespoke British design project and ordered top-tier finishing materials, including precious woods, glass, bronze, brass, and marble. The paint alone — from the American brand Benjamin Moore — cost an average of around $180 per can.
The state of the house in the fall of 2022
The vast plot of 10.6 acres was enough to accommodate the master house and a detached cottage for security and service personnel. The windows of this building are arranged in a way that prevents anyone inside the auxiliary constructions from observing the mansion.
The windows in the personnel house are arranged in a way that prevents anyone inside from observing the mansion
With a floor area of almost 3,000 square meters, the master house is an ambitious project. The front door opens into the hall, which connects to the living room and then to the dining room. The ground floor also holds two guest rooms, a separate family kitchen, a room for dancing classes, several bathrooms, and even a bathroom for pets.
The estate also boasts a huge spa center equipped with a 20-meter swimming pool, jet tub, sauna, hammam steam room, and plunge pool. Adjacent to the spa are a billiard room and an “alpine room.” The house has a separate entrance for personnel and deliveries.
A plan of Kostin and Asker-Zade's house
The 75-square-meter master bedroom is on the second floor, accessible via an ornate spiral staircase. Adjacent to the bedroom are two walk-in closets for Kostin and Asker-Zade and two separate master bathrooms. There is also a two-square-meter “jewelry storage” room and the master's study. The second floor holds two children's bedrooms, two children's studies, and a separate playroom. Above the pool is a gym with an area of almost 170 square meters.
Construction of a spa center with a swimming pool in 2022
The fireplaces in several rooms of the house are tiled with marble, which features prominently in the banker's house decor. Each step on the main staircase was carved from a single piece of marble, and the same material adorns the spa walls and the jet tub. Some rooms have marble flooring, while the decor of other rooms, including the gym, makes ample use of precious woods.
We recreated the look of the spa from the builders' accounts
A Canadian diesel generator is installed in the basement, to be used in the event of a power outage. The property also features a seven-car garage replete with a car wash. The plot is landscaped with expensive species of plants. The house was completed at the end of 2024, suggesting that Kostin, Asker-Zade, and her children are likely planning a visit sometime soon.
A garage with seven gates
The independent publication Proektwrote about the plot near the village of Razdory belonging to Nailya Asker-Zade back in August 2019. As The Insider confirmed, the house has been built on the very same spot. In 2022, its listed owner in the Russian State Register was Godovari Development, which was founded in June 2019. The next month the firm had already acquired one of the most expensive plots in Rublevka. Godovari Development is owned by Cyprus-based Godovari Limited, and Kostin has used this ownership scheme — registration with an offshore shell firm — to buy other assets as well.
What else Kostin presented to Nailya
The love story of the 68-year-old banker and the 37-year-old journalist began in 2011, when Nailya, then working for the Vedomosti newspaper, went to interview the head of VTB Bank. Asker-Zade made a list of 96 questions, and Kostin was going to answer “all of them,” Proekt quoted him as saying. Almost immediately after the interview, Nailya quit her job at Vedomosti.
Almost immediately after the interview with Andrey Kostin, Nailya Asker-Zade quit her newspaper job
As Tatyana Lysova, editor-in-chief of the newspaper, admitted, the reason was a conflict of interest: the outlet regularly wrote about VTB, and Nailya had started an affair with the head of the bank. However, Asker-Zade soon became an anchor at the All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (VGTRK).
Kostin with Asker-Zade
Not only did the couple hide their affair — they also blocked any mention of it in the media. All Nailya has ever said is that there is “a man in her life.” But as the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny revealed in December 2019, Asker-Zade had gifted Kostin a bench with a nameplate dedication in New York's Central Park.
Kostin and Asker-Zade's nameplate in New York's Central Park
According to Proekt, it was Kostin who helped Nailya get her job at the Rossiya 1 TV channel and arrange interviews with oligarchs such as Oleg Deripaska and Alisher Usmanov for her program, “Deistvuyuschie Litsa” (“Main Characters”). Kostin even flew with her to Chechnya so that Nailya could interview Ramzan Kadyrov.
Nailya asks Kadyrov whether there are any gay men in Chechnya
Kostin took the journalist with him on business trips. He bought her a private yacht, a business jet, and apartments worth millions of dollars. Now he has built a house worth no less than $223 million — not counting the value of the land, which was roughly $30 million in 2019 and has risen to almost $56 million today. According to Navalny’s investigation, Nailya previously lived in a less conspicuous house in the Zhukovka-3 gated community — one worth only $2.7 million.
Nailya's house in Rublevka
By all accounts, Nailya could not have afforded even this house without Kostin's help. The Insider can report that her income at VGTRK in 2021 was $72,600. Kostin's income as head of Russia's second-largest state-owned bank was a record $128 million in 2020, according to leaked tax documents.
Official Rosstat data lists the average monthly salary in Russia at $960, meaning Kostin's income would be enough to pay the salaries of 11,000 people for a full year. Such a level of personal income is not uncommon for Kremlin officials. Another head of a state-owned company, Rosneft head Igor Sechin, “earned” $50 million in 2024, according to an investigation by Navalny's team.
As The Insider previously found, the official salary of President Vladimir Putin's mistress Alina Kabaeva — head of the board of directors of the National Media Group — was $8.8 million back in 2018.
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