Russian spy who is critically ill in hospital seems to be well liked by locals in Wiltshire town

Sergei Skripal has lived a quiet and modest but not completely hidden life in the cathedral city of Salisbury.

Home is a modern redbrick house that he bought under his real name without a mortgage for £260,000 in 2011, a year after the spy swap. He lived there with his wife, Liudmila, until her death from cancer five years ago.

Skripal, who drives a BMW, shops for Polish sausage at the Bargain Stop convenience store where he also indulges his love of gambling, buying up to £40-worth of lottery scratchcards at a time.

He recently joined the Railway social club near the city centre and has developed a taste for local ale as well as vodka.

Skripal lets it be known to locals that he is a retired local government official and people also believe he dabbles in property deals abroad.

After the loss of Liudmila, Skripal came to rely more on his daughter, Yulia, 33, who is in intensive care with him. For a while she worked in a Holiday Inn in Eastleigh, Hampshire, but is believed to have been based in Moscow more recently.

A few weeks ago he asked his cleaner to prepare his daughter’s room for her as she was coming to visit. The cleaner, who asked not to be named, broke down in tears as she paid tribute to him. “He is a lovely, friendly and kindhearted man and I was shocked when I found out it was him who was in hospital,” she said. “I had known his daughter was coming over to the UK from Russia because he had asked me to clean her room the week before.

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“I knew he was in the Russian army as we chatted a bit but he never said he was a spy but at the end of the day he was working for us so I don’t care really. He’s a great guy. He had friends and he loved music and he would go and talk to the neighbours sometimes.”

Ebru Ozturk, 41, who works at the Bargain Stop store, said Skripol comes into the shop once a week. He likes a particular type of Polish sausage and spends between £30 and £40 on Lottery scratchcards in one go. She described him as “like a grandfather”.

She said: “He’s a very kind person. I really look forward to him coming in. Last time I saw him is a few days ago – he came in and bought a scratchcard. He often wins money. He’s very lucky. He was always well dressed and neat.

“He bought lottery tickets a lot. He was very polite. He sometimes came with his daughter. He mentioned that his wife had died a couple of years ago. Whenever I saw him he was happy.

“I think he was doing lots of business things. He knows lots of different languages, he’s very educated. I think he’s been to lots of different countries. We talked a lot. We chatted about different countries and different foods he cooked. I was about to ask if he wanted any Russian food or vodka – next time he comes in.”

Skripal also regularly visits the Polish delicatessen Taste of the World. The owner, Veronika Palaszewska, said: “I have known him since 2012. He shopped here once a week for sausage, ham, fish.

“If he was travelling, he told me about it. He’d been in Poland – I think it was last summer. He said it was nice, he was staying with friends two or three days in Gdansk. He said he used to live in Moscow.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sergei Skripal, who is critically ill in a Salisbury hospital after ‘suspected exposure to an unknown substance’. Photograph: handout

“I saw him on Friday at around one or two o’clock just doing the shopping. It was very busy because of the snow. He bought some sausage and smoked mackerel.”

Skripal came to the UK with his wife. She died on 23 October 2012, aged 59, with her death certificate recording the cause of death as disseminated endometrial carcinoma. Yulia Skripal reported her mother’s death to Wiltshire council’s register office, telling staff that her father was a retired local government planning officer.

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According to Yulia Skripal’s Facebook profile, she spent about six months working at the Holiday Inn in Eastleigh in 2014. Her profile says she had previously worked for Nike in Moscow for two years, before moving to London in 2010 – the year her father was released and transferred to the UK.

Her profile says she also spent time living in Malta when she was about a year old.

Quite why the Skripals arrived in Salisbury is not clear. It may be that he liked the idea of the quiet country life. But Salisbury and the surrounding areas are very much army territory and that may have helped him feel more secure.

Certainly, Skripal had begun to feel at home. He had taken to popping into the Railway social club where he applied to become a member in October and was recommended by a friend called Ross. He liked to drink beer and vodka and was there most weekends, though not on Sunday. One regular said: “It’s pretty hard to imagine someone who comes in the Railway is a Russian spy. We all hope he’s OK.”