Goga Ashkenazi -- warning some nudity

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The Kazakh billionaire who bought the Duke of York's former marital home is the subject of a £380 million money laundering investigation, it was claimed last night.
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Best friends with Prince Andrew and mistress of a £28m London mansion - Goga Ashkenazi hasn't done badly for a 'peasant girl' from Kazakhstan

By Mark Palmer and William Stewart
Last updated at 12:26 AM on 8th March 2010



Well-connected: Goga Ashkenazi and Prince Andrew at her lavish party




Life of luxury: Topless with F1 tycoon Flavio Briatore on his yacht   :shock:




Prince Andrew and Goga Ashkenazi, Mr Kulibayev's girlfriend



Not just Flavio Briatore's yacht candy. Not just mother of an oligarch's son. Not just an Oxford graduate and oil tycoon – Lady Goga's done well...

The marquees were like mini-mansions, the laser light show better than anything Disney could have dreamed up. Even though the speech in honour of the birthday girl was, according to one of the 270 guests, 'ill-judged and lavatorial', the party had its desired effect: it announced that the hostess Goga Ashkenazi had 'arrived'.

As if anyone was in any doubt, guests driving into Tyringham Hall – the 18th century Buckinghamshire pile designed by Sir John Soane and now owned by property developer Anton Bilton and his actress wife Lisa B – only had to gaze at the classical facade to see a huge projected image of Goga's smiling face replete with her characteristic red lipstick.
prince andrew and goga

Well-connected: Goga Ashkenazi and Prince Andrew at her lavish party

Inside there were fire-eaters, peacock-feathered stilt-walkers and a girl swinging on a trapeze pouring vodka into ice sculptures shaped like naked male and female torsos.

A woman suspended in a bird cage directed guests from the Grand Hall into the four marquees. Goga made her appearance in a Swarovski crystal-encrusted, backless lace dress by Australian designers Ralph and Russo.

Goga took her place at the top table – with Prince Andrew on her left and financier Robert Hanson – who made the speech – on her right. It was, said one onlooker, as if 30-year-old Goga had opened her address book and invited everyone she knew – and then a few more for good measure.

They included Duran Duran's Nick Rhodes, Caroline Stanbury (who organised the party), banker Andy Wong and his wife Patti, the Russian model Natalia Vodianova, the property millionaire Nick Candy and his actress girlfriend Holly Valance, Nancy Dell'Olio, Lord Edward Spencer-Churchill and Nicholas Coleridge, managing director of Condé Nast.

But it was, perhaps, telling that the evening's lavish entertainment began with a short, affectionate film about Goga's life. In the closed world of London society, Goga appears to have risen from nowhere.

Until last month, few knew much about her save that she was one of the Duke of York's coterie of female friends and that she is beautiful, young, very wealthy and comes from oil-rich Kazakhstan.
goga and flavio

Life of luxury: Topless with F1 tycoon Flavio Briatore on his yacht

Andrew and Goga are said to be close, but exactly how close has long been a matter of speculation. Certainly, eyebrows were raised two years ago when they were seen enjoying a three-hour dinner together in Ascot only days after she had given birth to a son.

Perhaps disappointingly for the Royal gossips, the child's father turned out to be Kazakh billionaire Timur Kulibayev, who controls the country's oil industry and also happens to be married to the daughter of its autocratic President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Three weeks ago, Mr Kulibayev was revealed to be the mystery buyer who paid Prince Andrew £15million for his dilapidated marital home Sunninghill Park – £3million above the asking price.

Whatever Mr Kulibayev's motives – the house remains empty and forlorn – no one doubts that Goga played a key role in securing the sale. Perhaps as a way of thanking her, Andrew introduced her to the Queen in the Royal Box at Ascot. Goga wore an enormous red hat.

Today, Goga is regarded by those who know her as a social and business phenomenon, travelling the world attending to her various projects, which inevitably lead back to Kazakhstan. But few people know how she became so well-connected.

It is certainly beyond doubt that she lives in considerable style. Goga owns a £28million house in Holland Park, West London, replete with butler, chauffeur, head chef, sous chef, maid, nanny and a £137,000 Bentley Continental Flying Spur. Her dining room – with gold leaf ceiling – was designed by David Collins, creator of fashionable restaurants such as The Wolseley and J. Sheekey.

goga and timur

Influential: Goga with Kazakh oil billionaire Timur Kulibayev

Goga sits on the council of London's Serpentine Gallery. She sponsors debates at the Oxford Union (she graduated with a BA in modern history and economics from Somerville College in 2001) and she entertains with great panache – last year she invited Lord and Lady Lloyd-Webber to dinner, along with 18 other guests.

'She is the real deal,' said Rob Hersov, 48, vice-chairman of luxury flight service NetJets Europe and one of Goga's closest friends. 'She's incredibly generous, kind and definitely not a lady who lunches. She is on the ball and hard-working.

'If I was to describe her business, I would say she is in oil services. She was in the right place at the right time and made a lot of money very quickly.'

Goga seems to have an extraordinary talent for being in the right place at the right time – with the right people. She is clearly extremely bright and extremely ambitious.

She is also keenly aware that her exotic Kazakh origins make her difficult to place in Britain's rigid class system. And she is completely unafraid of using her brains, beauty or any other weapon at her disposal to get noticed and make useful contacts.

Goga's extraordinary story started in the former Soviet Union on February 1, 1980. She was born Gaukhar Erkinova Berkalieva in the remote Zhambyl region of southern Kazakhstan. To this day, women with her dark hair and complexion are snobbishly regarded in the Kazakh capital as unsophisticated peasants from the south.

The fine-boned lighter skinned of northern Kazakhstan are said to be far more highly prized.

Her father, Erkin Zeinullayevich Berkaliev, was a Hydroi engineer trained to work on the giant irrigation projects designed to provide grain to feed the Soviet Union. Her mother Saule Zhilkibayevna Aralbayeva had ambitious plans for both her daughters – the infant Gaukhar and older sister Meruert, then aged ten.

The family's fortunes took an extraordinary turn for the better when Erkin was first appointed head of the Economics and Trade Department of the regional committee of the Communist Party – which would have made him a key link-man for foreign businessmen and the KGB – and was then recruited direct to Moscow's Central Committee under Mikhail Gorbachev.

'He had a meteoric rise and was highly rated,' said a local official who remembers him. 'He also had elite connections.'

As a powerful Party apparatchik, Erkin was one of a small clique who managed to accrue fortunes as the Soviet Union began to crumble. 'He was a wealthy man by Soviet standards even before he left Kazakhstan,' said Marzhan Abdraimova, who worked at the regional committee.
goga and flavio

Pole position: Goga dancing at a party with Briatore

'By the mid-Eighties, Erkin had his own car, which in those days meant you were either very successful or very rich, or had very good connections, or all of those things.

He was also well dressed. Everything about him said "I have money". We were stunned when he was taken to Moscow,' Marzhan added. 'To make such a career move from our remote corner was a stratospheric promotion.'

Goga was seven when the family moved into a prestigious apartment block for the party elite in central Moscow. They bought the flat when the block was privatised, but sold it a decade ago. They still own a £1.5million flat, which they now let, near the Kremlin.

Goga was sent to an exclusive state school, where children were hothoused in English. 'Her father worked for the Central Committee of the Communist Party and Gaukhar went to our school from 1988,' said principal Lydia Studenikina.

'It was perestroika and Gorbachev culled the old guard, bringing in new officials from the regions of the USSR.'

Four years later, after Communism collapsed, the family had enough money to send Goga to one of Moscow's first private academies – Moskvich Lycee – which now charges £600 a month.

Goga's mother is still remembered as a formidable driving force. One person who knew the family said: 'Saule took Meruert everywhere and introduced her to every more or less prominent bureaucrat, saying, "My daughter. She's European standard – a perfect 36-24-36."'
My daughter is European standard - a perfect 36-24-36

Another account says that Goga's sister ruined all her mother's hopes by throwing herself into a quick marriage and a rapid divorce, which left her a single mother. It is said that she and her mother are now 'like adjutants' to Goga.

Saule and Erkin separated and Goga moved to Britain in 1993, while Erkin returned to Kazakhstan, where he is currently head of the central staff of the National Social Democratic Party based in the capital, Astana. He is also an adviser to the chairman of the Senate, the Kazakh upper house that is obedient to President Nazarbayev.

Quite how Saule and Goga obtained entry to Britain, and what happened to the Berkaliev marriage, remains a mystery to this day. But what is clear is that Saule knew exactly how to insert her daughter into the upper echelons of British society.

Goga was sent to Rugby School and in 1998 went up to Oxford, where she modelled for the student calendar, and then into investment banking. She was 22 and a year out of Oxford when she was photographed aboard the yacht of Italian fashion tycoon, former F1 supremo and co-owner of QPR football club, Flavio Briatore.

Again how Goga, fresh out of Oxford, made the acquaintance of the Italian billionaire is a mystery. Topless pictures of her with Briatore in the Sardinian resort of Porto Cervo were printed in magazines around the world, but he reportedly dropped her when he discovered that she was not quite the girl he thought: Flavio had apparently been led to believe that Goga was Nazarbayev's daughter.

Undeterred, Goga disappeared off the public radar while looking for business opportunities. She married California hotel heir Stefan Ashkenazy in April 2004. Stefan's father Severyn founded the boutique L'Ermitage hotel chain. Stefan, 35, runs a boutique hotel in West Hollywood and lives in a Beverly Hills apartment.

Last night, Severyn said: 'I was very sad my son's marriage to Goga didn't work out. I don't really know the reasons why. My son is a very private person. Was he broken-hearted? Who can say? But I wish Goga well. She was always very polite and respectful to me.'

However, it was Goga's meeting with Timur Kulibayev in Moscow in late 2004 or early 2005 that was to transform her fortunes.

'She began working for him in London, doing lobbying work and personal PR,' said a senior Kazakh source in Moscow.

'But what started as business relations turned into a love affair.' Court records in Los Angeles reveal that Goga separated from Ashkenazy in August 2006. He filed for divorce a year later.

According to an article that appeared in a Kazakhstan newsletter in October 2007, it became common for Kulibayev to go on holiday with his wife – the president's daughter Dinara – and Goga at the same time.

The article says: 'As Dinara stays in her hotel room, Goga waits for him on the deck of a nearby sailing yacht. Even the hotel staff laugh at them. Timur's lover puts on jewellery worth £1.5million. She looks like a Christmas tree in all those diamonds.'

The piece was published after it became public knowledge in Kazakhstan that Goga was pregnant with Kulibayev's child.

Kulibayev was instrumental in establishing Goga's wealth and influence. It is said that nothing happens in the Kazakh oilfields without his agreement. He is reported to have registered five per cent of the shares of oil industry engineering companies Altin Almaz and Kazturboremont into her name.

Meanwhile, Goga has established other companies that have won lucrative contracts to build oil pipelines.

She is chief executive of MunaiGaz Engineering Group, a leading oil and gas company which until 18 months ago was run by Kulibayev. She is also on the board of Canadian Robert Friedland's Ivanhoe mining group.

After their son Adam's birth at Great Portland Street Hospital in London on December 27, 2007, Goga and Kulibayev went together to Westminster Register Office on February 5 – he is named on the birth certificate as the boy's father.

However, President Nazarbayev is said to have ordered Kulibayev to step into line after the public humiliation of his daughter. To enforce his co-operation, many of Kulibayev's estimated £2billion worth of business assets were transferred into Dinara's name and he is now being spoken of as the country's next president – as long as he behaves.

It is against that background that Goga, ever the astute businesswoman, saw her opportunity. It is said she was first introduced to the world of high society through her dalliance with Briatore. She has certainly assiduously cultivated contacts and influence ever since.

Prince Andrew frequently visits Kazakhstan, both privately and in his official role as Britain's trade ambassador – the UK is the country's third-biggest trading partner. Kulibayev shares Andrew's love of sports, particularly golf. And he, like Kulibayev, is said to be besotted by the beautiful Goga.

The Duke of York was hard-pressed for cash and weighed down by the financial albatross of his former marital home. Kulibayev had assets he wished to move abroad. At the same time as the Sunninghill purchase, he also spent £44.4million on four adjoining houses in Belgravia.

All of Goga's friends are at pains to stress that she is both brilliant and hard-working.

One party guest said: 'She is a great example of someone who really does work hard and play hard. She prefers the company of men, but you can't escape the feeling that she is rather rootless. Many of her associates are a rubbish lot and she deserves better than that.'

Her sole UK business is a modest consultancy firm called MMG Global, but guests at her birthday party, where an American rapper, a ten-piece Kazakh band and singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor all performed, were left in no doubt over her extraordinary spending power – or that Goga's place in British society is assured.

But in her homeland, many are asking how a girl from the unsophisticated south of the country has come to mix in such company.

Indeed, one local journalist recently wrote: 'The main question torturing every Kazakh girl is: how did this ordinary and not so pretty mamba [peasant girl] manage to get to the top of British society?'

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