Three years ago, Natalia Potanina was married to one of Russia’s richest men. She lived in a classical mansion near Moscow, not unlike Versailles. Holidays were spent in the Mediterranean and Cap d’Antibes on one of two luxury yachts.

Now, however, Potanina has fallen on the oligarchic equivalent of hard times after a bitter public battle with her former husband, Vladimir Potanin, in what has been described as the biggest divorce case in history.

In late 2013, she says, he coolly announced over tea that he wanted to split. He had been having an affair with a junior employee, she says, and, by way of settlement, allegedly said: “You don’t need money.”

Potanina declined to sign divorce papers. She is now seeking half of her former husband’s fortune. It was accrued, she points out, after they met and fell in love as penniless Soviet students in the egalitarian 1970s.

In this case, half means $7bn (£5bn). According to the latest edition of Forbes magazine, Potanin, the chairman and president of the mega-consortium Interros, is worth $13.5bn. Once Russia’s richest man, he is currently in fourth place, and is the 78th richest person on the planet.

Potanina, who since February has been stuck in London, says she is not sure what she might do with her billions, should she get them, but says she would help others. So far she hasn’t received a rouble. In 2014, a divorce court in Moscow sided with Potanin and, surreally, agreed that he had few assets.

At the centre of the dispute is the family’s home in the village of Nemchinovo, in fragrant pine forests 17 miles (28km) west of Moscow. The Potanins shared it with their three children, Anastasia, 32; Ivan, 28; and Vasily, 17.

In 2014 the company that formally owns the mansion tried to sell it to another company. According to court documents, it was unable to do so because Potanina was still living there. The company filed a $1.1m writ against her for damages.

Behind these Kafkan legal manoeuvres, she claims, is her ex-husband, to whom the companies are linked. All of his shares, she alleges, are hidden behind complex corporate structures.

“It’s traditional. Deprive me of money and drive me out of the house,” Potanina said in an interview with the Guardian in London, her home of almost two years. “There are many people who end up in this situation. I guess this is true worldwide but especially in Russia. Our society is male dominated. The law is male. The ideology is male.”

Asked if she was a feminist, she said: “Now, I am.”

Potanina says: ‘I did not marry an oligarch who already owned factories and steamships.’ Photograph: Russian Tatler

For the moment, Potanina is separated from her former home with its designer garden, basement casino and spa, and biblical paintings by the 19th-century Russian artist Vasily Polenov. Instead, she is camping out in a three-bedroom flat next to Westminster Abbey.

This may not exactly be penury, but Potanina says she is unable to pay the “artificial debt” outstanding in Russia. If she flies home her passport will be seized and she will not be allowed to travel to New York, where her son Vasily is a student.

Meanwhile, her nonagenarian mother is in Moscow and still living in their former home. In effect, Potanina is in exile. She is now appealing to Russia’s supreme court: “I am hoping for justice from the highest legal body,” she said.

If this fails, the likely next step is to take legal action in the UK, a favourite destination for Russian financial and matrimonial bust-ups. She says she is prepared to use any means available, but would prefer to reach a negotiated agreement. “I would accept any reasonable settlement,” she said.

All of this is a far cry from communist times when Potanina met her future husband at school. They dated, fell in love and got married. Photos show Potanin, the son of high-ranking party officials, with hippyish long hair. “We had absolutely no money,” she said. “I did not marry an oligarch who already owned factories and steamships. We lived in my parents’ apartment.”



Despite the lack of consumer goods, she has fond memories of the Soviet Union. It was, she says, a place of low wages but job security. “There were values: friendship, love, work, good relationships with people. There was an understanding of honour. Now, the only value is money. Money solves everything.”



Potanina admits that being rich had advantages. “It’s easier to solve problems when you have money,” she said. The yachts were pleasant too: the 249 ft (76 metre) Anastasia, named after the Potanins’ daughter, and the 290 ft Nirvana. “Well, who wouldn’t want to holiday on a yacht? I also liked it, of course I did.”

She adds, however: “It’s very difficult to maintain a large amount of money and still remain human. I don’t think it spoiled me. The most important things for me have always been my family, my children, relationships. Money in itself has no inherent value for me.”

She says she is not surprised by the revelations in the Panama Papers, which feature billionaire oligarchs and President Vladimir Putin’s best friend, the cellist Sergei Roldugin. Potanin is known across Russia as the co-owner of Norilsk Nickel, a vast Siberian nickel smelter located above the Arctic circle.

The couple would holiday in the Mediterranean on one of their two yachts. Photograph: Image Broker/Rex

Yet in court he successfully argued the real owner was an obscure firm in Cyprus. “The judge didn’t look at Vladimir’s assets, only mine,” she said.

In 2014, Potanin married his new partner, Katya, with whom he has two small children. He is reportedly building a third yacht. According to Potanina, he has cut off all contact with his two sons from his first family, though he does speak to Anastasia.

Potanin’s original offer, while they were drinking tea, she says, was medical insurance, a driver and maintenance for Vasily.

“It isn’t easy for Vasily,” she said, adding that Vasily was distraught when his father failed to text him on his 16th and 17th birthdays, and on New Year’s Eve. “The children want to talk to him,” she said. “It’s tough for them.”

Potanin declined to comment. Interros has previously said: “The official position of our company is that we do not comment on any private life matters.”

Potanina has given several high-profile interviews, including to Russian Tatler in which she described her former husband of 30 years as a “banal ladies’ man”. She also spoke to the celebrity TV talk show host Ksenia Sobchak.

Potanina’s lawyer and PR adviser came with her to meet the Guardian. She still wears a ring, a large diamond. “I never aimed to have a public life,” she said, before heading back to Westminster in an Uber executive taxi. “This situation was forced upon me.”