Durov’s family signed lease for home in Paris in 2018, ex-partner says

PARIS — Telegram CEO Pavel Durov considered moving his family to Paris in 2018, the same year he met with French President Emmanuel Macron and discussed acquiring French citizenship with him.

Irina Bolgar, Durov’s former partner and the mother of three of his children, told POLITICO that she had signed an agreement to rent a €105,000-per-month house in Neuilly-sur-Seine, an upscale Parisian suburb, where she was planning to settle with their children.

The Telegram founder and CEO was arrested Aug. 24 near Paris and has since been indicted on six charges related to illicit activity on the app. He has been banned from leaving France and must check in at a Paris police station twice a week.

But Durov’s history with Paris long precedes his arrest. The Telegram boss met with Macron in 2018, at a time when the French president was looking to pitch France as a new top destination for entrepreneurs, specifically in the tech sector. He was granted French citizenship by the president himself.

Bolgar said she had been in a relationship with Durov between 2013 and 2022 — first in Russia, and later in a long-distance setting as the tech tycoon moved to the United Arab Emirates, where recognizing their children, born out of wedlock, proved difficult. She then relocated to Europe with her children, she said, but “maintained family relations” with Durov until 2022.

“In 2018, when we came to Europe, we had the idea to settle in France,” Bolgar explained, adding she had researched schooling for their three children, obtained a residency permit in the fall of that year, and then signed a rental agreement on a new home for their family in November. Durov signed a French “notary-certified agreement” to pay for all of Bolgar’s rental fees, she said.

Durov “hadn’t considered to live in that house” but intended to visit Bolgar and their children had they chosen to settle in France.

But Bolgar subsequently changed her mind and cancelled the agreement prior to moving. She ultimately settled in Geneva but continued to meet up with Durov in Paris afterwards, vacationing in palaces in the center of the city, including the Ritz.

The Telegram boss met with Emmanuel Macron in 2018. | Ludovic Marin/Getty Images

Until 2022, Bolgar and Durov continued to discuss plans to buy a house, either in Geneva or in French towns close to the Swiss border. Bolgar also looked into properties in and around Paris, some of which she visited and which they discussed together, she said.

The couple “discussed buying houses for about €50 million,” and “at the same time also considered houses worth €100 million.”

According to her account, Bolgar and Durov’s relationship ended “completely” in 2022, with proceedings ongoing in Switzerland, where she lives.

France has reached out to Switzerland over allegations made in the proceedings between Bolgar and Durov, according to people familiar with the case in France and Switzerland.