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On board with Lord Ashcroft, owner of a 50m Hakvoort

Businessman, author and pollster Lord Ashcroft describes his cruise deep into the Russian waterways on board his 50 metre Hakvoort superyacht

It is the city that will never be allowed to forget its savage past. Although it is 75 years since the end of the Second World War, the bitter, close- quarter fighting that took place in Volgograd from the summer of 1942 through to the winter of 1943 is still easily recalled by the city’s residents, young and old. Soldiers on both sides fought not just street to street, but cellar to cellar, and even sewer to sewer. It was 200 days that the Germans called the “Battle of the Rats”, but you might know it by a different name: Stalingrad.

I have always been fascinated by Russian history. In 2017, we became one of the first foreign-flagged yachts to complete the journey through the infamous White Sea-Baltic Canal, built with slave labour and opened in 1933, travelling from St Petersburg on the Baltic Sea to Belomorsk on the White Sea. At the end of that epic adventure, I vowed to return to Russian waters sooner rather than later, and in the summer of 2019 I seized the opportunity.

Our route back into the country would take us from Georgia in the Black Sea, through the Sea of Azov and deep into Russia’s waterways all the way to Volgograd (the city was renamed in 1961, eight years after Stalin’s death), where I could experience first-hand the city so bitterly fought over by Hitler and Stalin, and learn more about the battle that swung the war for the Allies.

For this second journey through Russian waters, I chose a route that was equally as challenging as my 2017 experience and would require a significant modification to our 50-metre  Hakvoort : its mast would have to be reduced in height by almost one-and-a-half metres to permit it to pass under the lowest bridges on our journey. The work took place at a shipyard in Spain, taking three weeks as it involved the temporary relocation of radar and communication equipment. After the cruise, the mast was restored to its original design.

The key to a successful and enjoyable cruise in Russia and other former Soviet Union countries is meticulous preparation. The captain, working with a specialist travel agent, had spent a whole year looking into the details of our cruise to make sure there were no unwelcome surprises along the way. Not only did we have to to get hold of Russian charts, but they often needed to be translated into English too.

Tensions between some former Soviet countries were, and still are, running high and we knew that if we accidentally strayed into contested military areas, out of the safety of international waters, it could lead to our arrest or seizure. Once again, we employed the services of Igor, our Russian pilot who was indispensable for my 2017 cruise because of his local knowledge and good command of English. Our four-week cruise began in Batumi, Georgia’s third-largest city and a coastal port on the Black Sea. Surrounded by mountains and with its main streets lined with mature palm trees, Batumi is a vibrant city of contrasting architecture: its classical 19th-century buildings could hardly be more different from its modern skyscrapers, hotels and casinos – Batumi is the region’s gambling capital.

We departed the city in darkness at 10pm on a warm evening in early July, knowing it would be only a matter of hours before we encountered the first of many potential hazards. Abkhazia is a self-proclaimed sovereign state (since the 1990s), recognised by Russia and a handful of other countries, but not by the wider international community, particularly Georgia, which still claims the area as part of its territory.

As with all foreign vessels, this meant we had to keep at least 12 nautical miles from land, a shame since we knew that Abkhazia’s rugged coastline was beautiful and that its beaches were once a popular destination for yacht owners. Just to be sure there was no “misunderstanding” over our position from rival Russian and Georgian warships, our captain insisted that we kept fully 15 nautical miles from land at all times and so we passed through the area without incident. After a stunning sunrise, we were greeted the next day, and several other days, by a pod of short-beaked common dolphins, which I learnt are abundant in the Black Sea. There are few more majestic sights than 20 dolphins leaping out of the water within yards of a yacht.

That night, after starting our customs clearance process, we docked at the Russian port of Sochi. Affectionately known as the summer capital of Russia, the city of nearly 500,000 people had streets bustling with tourists enjoying a perfect day of warm weather and blue skies. It was here, too, that we picked up Igor, our Russian guide for the rest of our journey. I spent my day in Sochi touring the Olympic Park, including the magnificent Bolshoy Ice Dome which was designed to resemble a frozen water droplet. I was also driven up into the Krasnaya mountain area, where I enjoyed spectacular scenery: in summer, snow-capped peaks loom above three world-class ski resorts.

Two days later, after a 113-nautical-mile night cruise, we berthed at Novorossiysk, a major Black Sea port and our final stop-off before the Kerch Strait. Here, an eccentric local Russian guide took me on a tour of the city where another brutal Second World War battle was fought: the giant Malaya Zemlya (Little Earth) Memorial pays tribute to a key military victory on 4 February 1943 that paved the way for the liberation of the city from German occupation.

We left Novorossiysk in a thunderstorm for our 260-mile cruise to Rostov-on-Don. Here, our orders from the Russian authorities were to keep within 12 nautical miles of the coast, and we could hear loud firing from military exercises nearby. We sensed that Big Brother was watching us as we approached the disputed Crimea territory that Russia annexed from Ukraine. As we neared the Kerch Strait, the shipping lanes got busier and we enjoyed the spectacular sight of the Kerch Strait (or Crimean) Bridge, the longest bridge in Russia at more than 17 kilometres. In fact, two parallel bridges were built by Russia for vehicles and trains to span the Kerch Strait after the 2014 annexation.

After exiting the Strait, which is 35 kilometres long but less than three kilometres wide in some parts, we followed our route in convoy style along dredged channels. The Sea of Azov is shallow with an average depth of seven metres. Where the silt is built up at its worst, the depth drops to just a metre, meaning the prospect of being grounded is a very real one. Igor remained constantly at the helm, communicating with other vessels and land- based local authorities in his native language. It is a busy shipping lane too, with cargo vessels moving grain, fuel and other raw materials, and with strict speed restrictions in force. By the time we reached Rostov-on-Don, we were five days into our journey. As the name suggests, the city lies on the River Don, the fifth-longest river in Europe. Here the topography was much flatter than we had seen in Sochi and the city was more commercial.

After another spectacular sunrise the next morning, we soon entered the Volga-Don Canal. Opened in 1952, the 101-kilometre waterway is a masterpiece of Soviet engineering and it links the River Don to the River Volga at their closest points. It has 13 purpose-built locks and goes through three large reservoirs. Like the White Sea-Baltic Canal, the Volga-Don Canal only opened recently to foreign-flagged vessels. Some 17 nautical miles after our first lock, we tied up at the town of Konstantinovsk because the crew were in need of rest after a 14-hour journey. The yacht attracted a great deal of attention from the friendly locals, who were clearly not used to seeing many foreign-flagged leisure vessels.

The next day, with just six locks left to tackle, we approached Volgograd, which lies on the River Volga. The final lock was inscribed in Russian: “With gratitude to the Soviet people who built communism.” At nearly 3,600 kilometres, the Volga is the longest river in Europe and drains into the Caspian Sea. I had arranged to stay in Volgograd for five days – much longer than my typical stop-offs but I was convinced that there would be so much to see and do. As a result of my interest in Russian history, I had read widely about the battle for Stalingrad but I wanted to see for myself the location for the relentless fighting that undoubtedly changed the course of the Second World War when the German advance through Russia was finally brought to an end. I had enjoyed Antony Beevor’s splendid book Stalingrad, but I still wanted to fill in some gaps.

The refusal of the Russians to surrender when they were overwhelmed and outnumbered showed astonishing resilience and, as someone who admires and champions bravery (including amassing the world’s largest collection of Victoria Cross gallantry medals), I wanted to understand the layout of the city at the time of the battle.

On arriving in Volgograd, I was able to acquire the services of two local historians who showed me where and how the German Sixth Army, under the command of General Friedrich Paulus, had approached the city. We visited the riverside house that Paulus had sequestrated as his office and accommodation for the duration of much of the battle, as well as his military headquarters in the heart of what was then Stalingrad. Our visit to the State Panorama Museum enabled me to understand – through giant paintings, photographs, drawings and film – the brutal conditions that both the local population and the German invaders endured. The life expectancy of Russian troops entering the battle was just 24 hours, while locals were reduced to sucking lumps of clay pulled from the riverbank to ease hunger pains as conditions deteriorated.

The scale of The Motherland Calls at Mamayev Kurgan, Volgograd’s highest point, has to be seen to be believed. Dedicated in 1967, the 85-metre statue is the tallest in Europe, and a memorial to the heroes of the battle. At the time it was constructed, the goddess-like figure wielding a sword was the tallest statue in the world. At the Stalingrad Museum, I saw the ceremonial longsword that King George VI had commissioned in honour of the defenders of the city. It was presented to Joseph Stalin by Winston Churchill at the Tehran Conference in 1943 and is inscribed with the words: “To the steel-hearted citizens of Stalingrad. The gift of King George VI. In token of the homage of the British people.”

From 23 August 1942 to 2 February 1943, there were an estimated two million casualties in what turned out to be not just the bloodiest but also the most strategically decisive battle of the Second World War. After its defeat, Germany never again regained the initiative and was eventually defeated by the Allies two years later. After five days in Volgograd, it was time to retrace our steps back down the rivers Volga and Don and the Volga-Don Canal, ending at Anapa, a Russian town on the northern coast of the Black Sea. My 26-day adventure was at an end after 1,353 nautical miles and a total of 36 locks.

My gratitude goes out to our captain, pilot and crew for coping so calmly and professionally with any number of potential hazards and pitfalls: it was an experience that I will never forget. My appetite for adventure remains unsated: in 2018, between my two Russian trips, I visited Svalbard, the archipelago between Norway and the North Pole. During that cruise, we achieved the highest latitude ever known for a superyacht. We reached 81 degrees 46.45 minutes north, just 493 nautical miles from the North Pole.

I am already looking on a world map to choose an interesting and remote location for my next adventure. However, wherever I end up, it will undoubtedly struggle to compete with Stalingrad for the sheer brutality of its history. As one German officer wrote in 1942 of the embattled city: “Animals flee this hell; the hardest stones cannot bear it for long; only men endure.” Not for nothing do they say that modern-day Volgograd is the city built on human bones.

Lord Ashcroft is an international businessman, philanthropist, author and pollster. For more information on his work, visit lordashcroft.com. Follow him on Twitter @LordAshcroft

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Apr. 7, 2015 , at 6:41 PM

The Billionaire Baron Who Has Transformed How We Understand The U.K. Election

By Carl Bialik

Filed under U.K. Election

Oli Scarff / Getty Images

A conservative British tycoon and aristocrat is not the typical profile of a man of the people. But Lord Michael Ashcroft has done more than anyone else to find out who the people want to represent them in Parliament. In the lead-up to next month’s big national election in the U.K., Ashcroft has surveyed people in more than 100 electoral districts about who they’ll vote for and why. That may not sound radical, but in British polling, it is. Even more radical: Ashcroft isn’t doing it to bolster his own campaign (he just resigned from his unelected office) or because someone is paying him to do it. Instead, he’s shelling out millions mainly, observers think, because he’s curious.

The U.K. has 650 constituencies, each with about 100,000 people — less than one-seventh the population of the average U.S. congressional district. Each one has its own set of candidates running in the May 7 general election. Until now, British pollsters concentrated on regions, not constituencies, because they considered conducting surveys in so many small places to be too complicated and expensive. If the public wanted to know how much support the candidates in a given constituency had, it usually had to wait until the votes were counted. Most election watchers simply assumed that across regions, voters all moved in lockstep.

Ahead of this year’s election, all that has changed. Ashcroft has shined light on this dark corner of U.K. politics by sponsoring polls in roughly 150 of the most closely contested constituencies, from Airdrie & Shotts to Wyre Forest — some more than once. The British press has dubbed him the Pollfather , Lord of the Polls and Pollster-in-Chief . His finding that Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister and leader of the Liberal Democrats, could lose his seat made headlines in the U.K. this month.

Ashcroft, 69, is a member of the Conservative Party and until last week represented it in the House of Lords. 1 Despite his avowed partisanship, political scientists and other pollsters respect his polls and consider them unbiased. And they’ve influenced forecasts, including the one FiveThirtyEight is publishing , in dozens of races. All told, if Ashcroft weren’t polling locally, our forecast as of Sunday would have shown the most likely leader to be different in 46 races. The polls also highlight the surprising resilience of individual Liberal Democrat candidates despite the party’s collapse in national polls. Without Ashcroft’s polls, our latest forecast would have predicted the Lib Dems to win just 15 seats, a dozen fewer than their projected total when incorporating Ashcroft polls. Ashcroft’s biggest impact could come on election day if people make tactical decisions about who to vote for based on the poll findings.

The rise in constituency polling — fueled by Ashcroft, along with a couple of dozen surveys from pollster Survation — “really has changed the forecasting game,” said Will Jennings, a political scientist at the University of Southampton. “But we don’t yet know how much noise they have added as well as the important extra information.”

But so far, Ashcroft’s track record “seems to be very good,” said Robert Ford, who is a senior lecturer in politics at the University of Manchester and is forecasting the election with Jennings. “He uses reputable pollsters, asks the questions in a sensible way, and the polls have performed pretty well in by-elections , which are actually harder to poll than general elections due to low turnout and unpredictable local dynamics.”

Constituency-level polling is expensive — too expensive for most U.K. media organizations. “Telephone polling on this scale does not come cheap; otherwise everyone would be doing it,” said John Curtice, professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde. Chris Hanretty, a political scientist at the University of East Anglia who is helping produce our forecast with electionforecast.co.uk , estimated that a single constituency poll costs £5,000 to £7,000 (about $7,400 to $10,400). Combine that with Ashcroft’s national polling, and “he’s probably spent about £2 million on polling in the past 12 to 18 months,” Hanretty said in an email last month.

That cost is a small fraction of Ashcroft’s fortune. Forbes estimates that Ashcroft, who spent most of his career acquiring and turning around businesses in various industries, is worth $1.5 billion. In return for investing a few million quid on polling, Ashcroft gets broad media coverage, a platform from which to influence U.K. politics, and the opportunity to satisfy his curiosity about the British electorate, including to answer questions such as which actor should star in a hypothetical biopic about each candidate’s life.

“I don’t think there’s any great mystery,” Curtice said. “He’s got a boatload of money, and he’s got the ability to spend money doing it. I think he genuinely wants to understand what’s going on.”

Ashcroft began sponsoring polling a decade ago. In speeches and rare media interviews, 2 Ashcroft says he became a pollster to fact-check Conservative Party leadership on what he saw as unearned confidence ahead of the 2005 election.

“I suspected that the party I supported was going to delude itself into thinking it was doing better than it really was — and might, as a result, do worse than it would do if it had a realistic grasp of the situation,” Ashcroft said in a recent speech. He eventually became the party’s deputy chairman with a special focus on opinion research, a position he held until after the 2010 election, when he stepped down following a scandal over his choice to retain a residency status that sheltered much of his wealth from U.K. taxes. He has since spent even more of his time and money on polling and on his news commentary site, ConservativeHome . In his statement announcing that he would step down from his position in the House of Lords, Ashcroft said: “My other activities do not permit me to devote the time that membership of the Lords properly requires.” 3 Soon after, Ashcroft signaled his excitement about focusing on polling via Twitter, announcing a new spate of constituency polls with the words, “OK back to fun!!”

Ok back to fun!! Write up on 8 marginal seats completed and will release tomorrow Wednesday at noon with quite a commentary at @ConHome — Lord Ashcroft (@LordAshcroft) March 31, 2015

Professional pollsters and political scientists praise Ashcroft for disclosing the details of his polls and for fessing up when he errs. “He regards transparency as an essential element of polling, which is why all his data is published in full,” his spokeswoman Angela Entwistle said.

Ashcroft’s avowed commitment to transparency doesn’t extend to revealing who conducts his polls for him. Several people in the polling industry said it’s an open secret that the U.K. research company Populus conducts most of his polls. 4 Most, but not all: Ashcroft’s usual pollster didn’t do three polls that turned out to have major methodological errors and that Ashcroft apologized for while vowing never again to use the pollster behind them. 5

Entwistle didn’t answer a question about who conducted the polls. Inquiries to Populus and Survation went unanswered. At a London political event last month, I asked Rick Nye, who directs Populus’s political work, about his firm’s rumored work for Ashcroft, just after Nye had given a speech about the election aided by slides that featured lots of Ashcroft polling. “I really don’t want to get into all that,” Nye responded.

Curtice, who in addition to his academic job is the president of the British Polling Council, 6 said it is common practice in the U.K. for the sponsor of a poll not to reveal who carried it out. “He is doing the polling,” Curtice said. “He is taking responsibility.” When Ashcroft found out about the three flawed polls, “he put his hand up and said he screwed up,” Curtice said.

The big question that we can’t answer for at least another month is how good Ashcroft’s polls are. When they zoomed in on voting intention at the local level, did they get the right picture?

Ashcroft himself, like many pollsters, disavows any role as a forecaster. “As he has often said, his polls are snapshots not predictions, and he is not making a forecast as to which party will control the government after the election,” Entwistle said.

There’s an intriguing possibility that the polls could prove to be bad predictors of voting outcomes without being flawed. That depends on whether the act of observing local voters itself changes their behavior — a sort of uncertainty principle for U.K. politics. The hypothetical scenario goes like this: Voters who favor a hopeless U.K. Independence Party candidate in their constituency might decide to back the Conservative candidate instead if polls suggest that the Conservative candidate is trailing her Labour opponent by just a percentage point or two. That could cost Labour a seat — and not punish the UKIP candidate, who had no real chance of winning.

Ashcroft himself has acknowledged the likelihood that his polls will spur tactical voting.

Political scientists aren’t sure how big an effect this could have. Several pointed to studies of how the Observer newspaper affected the 1997 general election when it polled 16 constituencies. The studies showed that the polls affected few races and that many people who tried to vote tactically had their votes backfire — casting their lots with a candidate who turned out to be less viable than another candidate they could have tolerated. Some also pointed out that many voters are dissatisfied with parties they aren’t planning to vote for and therefore are unlikely to find an alternative candidate they’re willing to back for tactical reasons.

“Many voters seem to have taken a pretty clear view on the government and/or other parties,” Jennings said.

Others say the biggest tactical effect that Ashcroft polls will have is on how parties devote resources to individual constituencies — and how they communicate with voters about the importance of backing their candidates to avoid the likely outcomes suggested by the polls. “Will enough learn about the poll results?” Ford asked. “Will enough believe them? Will learning of them change enough minds? These could be critical questions on May 7, but it’s impossible to say right now.”

In 2000, he was named Baron Ashcroft, of Chichester.

Not with us — he declined to talk to FiveThirtyEight through his spokeswoman Angela Entwistle, although she did answer some of our questions in writing.

He remains Lord Ashcroft .

Among other clues, the Ashcroft and Populus data tables look very similar to each other and use the same short forms of party names. Anthony Wells, research director at YouGov, wrote on his blog earlier this year that “the reality” is that Populus does most Ashcroft polls.

The problem with the polls, according to Anthony Wells of YouGov, was that they improperly weighted respondents, particularly “Don’t Knows.”

Ashcroft doesn’t belong.

Carl Bialik was FiveThirtyEight’s lead writer for news. @CarlBialik

Filed under

Polling (553 posts) U.K. Election (28) Constituency Polling (3) Lord Ashcroft (3) U.K. Polling (3)

Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC is an international businessman, philanthropist, author and pollster.

Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC is an international businessman, philanthropist, author and pollster. He is the former Treasurer and Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party in the UK, the current Honorary Chairman and former Treasurer of the International Democracy Union (IDU), and currently a Privy Council member. He was formerly the Prime Minister’s Special Representative for Veterans’ Transition.

In the UK, he is the founder and Chair of Trustees of both Crimestoppers and the Ashcroft Technology Academy. He is a former Chancellor of Anglia Ruskin University (which awarded him an Honorary Doctorate in 1999), a former Patron of the Forces in Mind Trust Research Centre, a former Trustee of Imperial War Museums and a former President of the West India Committee. He is currently Vice Patron of the Intelligence Corps Museum, a Trustee of the Cleveland Clinic in the US and a Life Governor of the Royal Humane Society. As well as donating tens of millions of pounds to good causes, he signed up to The Giving Pledge in 2013, a commitment by some of the world’s richest people to dedicate the majority of their wealth to charity.

His life-long interest in bravery led to the creation of the largest collection of Victoria Crosses (VCs) in the world, which currently stands at more than 200 such decorations. The collection is on display in the Lord Ashcroft Gallery at Imperial War Museum London.

Lord Ashcroft has varied and substantial business interests around the world in public and private companies. His current business roles include being Chairman of Waterloo Investment Holdings Limited, Non-Executive Chairman of Impellam Group plc from 2014 to 2024 and a Non-Executive Director of Merit Group plc.

He is an award-winning author who has written 28 books, largely on politics and bravery. He was knighted and created a life peer in 2000, but he resigned from the House of Lords in 2015 to concentrate on other areas of his work.

In 2016, Lord Ashcroft was made Knight Grand Cross of the Most Sacred Order of the Holy Trinity (Ethiopia) and a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. In 2017, he was made a Senior Fellow of the International Strategic Studies Association, in 2021 was promoted to Grand Collar of the Most Sacred Order of the Holy Trinity (Ethiopia) and in 2022 was honoured with the hereditary title of Viscount Gondar by the Crown Council of Ethiopia.

Lord Ashcroft carries out extensive polling, mainly linked to his interest in politics, and the quality of his work in this area is widely acclaimed.

Sunday 22 January 2012

• Ashcroft Contribution

      The murmurings this week of a privately financed replacement for Britannia are hugely heartening, even if there is a very long way to go to make this happen. But I would like to be one of the first to offer tangible support to the concept, by offering up to £5m towards the construction costs of building a new, effective and flexible royal yacht.

4 comments :

How about an Earldom for whosoever pays the lot? I'd rather see it solely as a Royal Yacht for the personal enjoyment of the Sovereign, none of this youth learning rubbish. W.

To my mind, HM Government ought to fund it; i.e. the State. It is the least we can do as a measure of our esteem for The Queen's Most Excellent Majesty. furthermore, it should be called HM Yacht Britannia II, or something along those lines.

outrageous idea that the taxpayer should fund it in these times when such numbers of us are facing financial hardship. Thankfully nothing is more certain than that the Queen would decline such an inappropriate extravagance !

Rex, I did suggest re-commissioning HMY Britannia. Re Extravagance, our membership of the EU is more outrageous!

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Book – published by Headline on 13 September 2012

Heroes of the Skies is the fourth book by Lord Ashcroft in his bravery series. The book tells the remarkable stories behind the world’s largest private collection of medals for gallantry in the air that were awarded to more than 80 British, Commonwealth and other Allied airmen.

Heroes of the Skies uses new material from pilots’ log books, eye-witnesses, letters, interviews, citations and other sources to tell the stories of air combat, bombing raids and other bravery displayed by airmen as long ago as the First World War and up to the on-going conflict in Afghanistan. The book was published by Headline on 13 September 2012. Its Foreword is written by Marshal of the RAF Sir Michael Beetham GCB, CBE, DFC, AFC.

Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC , has established himself as a best-selling author with his Heroes series. His previous books (all published in hardback and paperback by Headline) were Victoria Cross Heroes (first published in 2006), Special Forces Heroes (first published in 2008) and George Cross Heroes (first published in 2010).

As well as being a military historian and author, Lord Ashcroft is an international businessman and philanthropist. He has built up the world’s largest collection of Victoria Crosses (VCs), Britain and the Commonwealth’s most prestigious award for gallantry. These decorations are currently on display in the Lord Ashcroft Gallery at the Imperial War Museum London .

Lord Ashcroft is a member of the Privy Council and is the Government’s Special Representative for Veterans’ Transition, working with all departments to ensure military personnel get the support they need when making the transition to civilian life.

All author’s royalties from Heroes of the Skies will be donated to the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund .

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40 facts about elektrostal.

Written by Lanette Mayes

Modified & Updated: 02 Mar 2024

Reviewed by Jessica Corbett

Elektrostal is a vibrant city located in the Moscow Oblast region of Russia. With a rich history, stunning architecture, and a thriving community, Elektrostal is a city that has much to offer. Whether you are a history buff, nature enthusiast, or simply curious about different cultures, Elektrostal is sure to captivate you.

This article will provide you with 40 fascinating facts about Elektrostal, giving you a better understanding of why this city is worth exploring. From its origins as an industrial hub to its modern-day charm, we will delve into the various aspects that make Elektrostal a unique and must-visit destination.

So, join us as we uncover the hidden treasures of Elektrostal and discover what makes this city a true gem in the heart of Russia.

Key Takeaways:

• Elektrostal, known as the “Motor City of Russia,” is a vibrant and growing city with a rich industrial history, offering diverse cultural experiences and a strong commitment to environmental sustainability.
• With its convenient location near Moscow, Elektrostal provides a picturesque landscape, vibrant nightlife, and a range of recreational activities, making it an ideal destination for residents and visitors alike.

Known as the “Motor City of Russia.”

Elektrostal, a city located in the Moscow Oblast region of Russia, earned the nickname “Motor City” due to its significant involvement in the automotive industry.

Home to the Elektrostal Metallurgical Plant.

Elektrostal is renowned for its metallurgical plant, which has been producing high-quality steel and alloys since its establishment in 1916.

Boasts a rich industrial heritage.

Elektrostal has a long history of industrial development, contributing to the growth and progress of the region.

Founded in 1916.

The city of Elektrostal was founded in 1916 as a result of the construction of the Elektrostal Metallurgical Plant.

Located approximately 50 kilometers east of Moscow.

Elektrostal is situated in close proximity to the Russian capital, making it easily accessible for both residents and visitors.

Known for its vibrant cultural scene.

Elektrostal is home to several cultural institutions, including museums, theaters, and art galleries that showcase the city’s rich artistic heritage.

A popular destination for nature lovers.

Surrounded by picturesque landscapes and forests, Elektrostal offers ample opportunities for outdoor activities such as hiking, camping, and birdwatching.

Hosts the annual Elektrostal City Day celebrations.

Every year, Elektrostal organizes festive events and activities to celebrate its founding, bringing together residents and visitors in a spirit of unity and joy.

Has a population of approximately 160,000 people.

Elektrostal is home to a diverse and vibrant community of around 160,000 residents, contributing to its dynamic atmosphere.

Boasts excellent education facilities.

The city is known for its well-established educational institutions, providing quality education to students of all ages.

A center for scientific research and innovation.

Elektrostal serves as an important hub for scientific research, particularly in the fields of metallurgy, materials science, and engineering.

Surrounded by picturesque lakes.

The city is blessed with numerous beautiful lakes, offering scenic views and recreational opportunities for locals and visitors alike.

Well-connected transportation system.

Elektrostal benefits from an efficient transportation network, including highways, railways, and public transportation options, ensuring convenient travel within and beyond the city.

Famous for its traditional Russian cuisine.

Food enthusiasts can indulge in authentic Russian dishes at numerous restaurants and cafes scattered throughout Elektrostal.

Home to notable architectural landmarks.

Elektrostal boasts impressive architecture, including the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord and the Elektrostal Palace of Culture.

Offers a wide range of recreational facilities.

Residents and visitors can enjoy various recreational activities, such as sports complexes, swimming pools, and fitness centers, enhancing the overall quality of life.

Provides a high standard of healthcare.

Elektrostal is equipped with modern medical facilities, ensuring residents have access to quality healthcare services.

Home to the Elektrostal History Museum.

The Elektrostal History Museum showcases the city’s fascinating past through exhibitions and displays.

A hub for sports enthusiasts.

Elektrostal is passionate about sports, with numerous stadiums, arenas, and sports clubs offering opportunities for athletes and spectators.

Celebrates diverse cultural festivals.

Throughout the year, Elektrostal hosts a variety of cultural festivals, celebrating different ethnicities, traditions, and art forms.

Electric power played a significant role in its early development.

Elektrostal owes its name and initial growth to the establishment of electric power stations and the utilization of electricity in the industrial sector.

Boasts a thriving economy.

The city’s strong industrial base, coupled with its strategic location near Moscow, has contributed to Elektrostal’s prosperous economic status.

Houses the Elektrostal Drama Theater.

The Elektrostal Drama Theater is a cultural centerpiece, attracting theater enthusiasts from far and wide.

Popular destination for winter sports.

Elektrostal’s proximity to ski resorts and winter sport facilities makes it a favorite destination for skiing, snowboarding, and other winter activities.

Promotes environmental sustainability.

Elektrostal prioritizes environmental protection and sustainability, implementing initiatives to reduce pollution and preserve natural resources.

Home to renowned educational institutions.

Elektrostal is known for its prestigious schools and universities, offering a wide range of academic programs to students.

Committed to cultural preservation.

The city values its cultural heritage and takes active steps to preserve and promote traditional customs, crafts, and arts.

Hosts an annual International Film Festival.

The Elektrostal International Film Festival attracts filmmakers and cinema enthusiasts from around the world, showcasing a diverse range of films.

Encourages entrepreneurship and innovation.

Elektrostal supports aspiring entrepreneurs and fosters a culture of innovation, providing opportunities for startups and business development.

Offers a range of housing options.

Elektrostal provides diverse housing options, including apartments, houses, and residential complexes, catering to different lifestyles and budgets.

Home to notable sports teams.

Elektrostal is proud of its sports legacy, with several successful sports teams competing at regional and national levels.

Boasts a vibrant nightlife scene.

Residents and visitors can enjoy a lively nightlife in Elektrostal, with numerous bars, clubs, and entertainment venues.

Promotes cultural exchange and international relations.

Elektrostal actively engages in international partnerships, cultural exchanges, and diplomatic collaborations to foster global connections.

Surrounded by beautiful nature reserves.

Nearby nature reserves, such as the Barybino Forest and Luchinskoye Lake, offer opportunities for nature enthusiasts to explore and appreciate the region’s biodiversity.

Commemorates historical events.

The city pays tribute to significant historical events through memorials, monuments, and exhibitions, ensuring the preservation of collective memory.

Promotes sports and youth development.

Elektrostal invests in sports infrastructure and programs to encourage youth participation, health, and physical fitness.

Hosts annual cultural and artistic festivals.

Throughout the year, Elektrostal celebrates its cultural diversity through festivals dedicated to music, dance, art, and theater.

Provides a picturesque landscape for photography enthusiasts.

The city’s scenic beauty, architectural landmarks, and natural surroundings make it a paradise for photographers.

Connects to Moscow via a direct train line.

The convenient train connection between Elektrostal and Moscow makes commuting between the two cities effortless.

A city with a bright future.

Elektrostal continues to grow and develop, aiming to become a model city in terms of infrastructure, sustainability, and quality of life for its residents.

In conclusion, Elektrostal is a fascinating city with a rich history and a vibrant present. From its origins as a center of steel production to its modern-day status as a hub for education and industry, Elektrostal has plenty to offer both residents and visitors. With its beautiful parks, cultural attractions, and proximity to Moscow, there is no shortage of things to see and do in this dynamic city. Whether you’re interested in exploring its historical landmarks, enjoying outdoor activities, or immersing yourself in the local culture, Elektrostal has something for everyone. So, next time you find yourself in the Moscow region, don’t miss the opportunity to discover the hidden gems of Elektrostal.

Q: What is the population of Elektrostal?

A: As of the latest data, the population of Elektrostal is approximately XXXX.

Q: How far is Elektrostal from Moscow?

A: Elektrostal is located approximately XX kilometers away from Moscow.

Q: Are there any famous landmarks in Elektrostal?

A: Yes, Elektrostal is home to several notable landmarks, including XXXX and XXXX.

Q: What industries are prominent in Elektrostal?

A: Elektrostal is known for its steel production industry and is also a center for engineering and manufacturing.

Q: Are there any universities or educational institutions in Elektrostal?

A: Yes, Elektrostal is home to XXXX University and several other educational institutions.

Q: What are some popular outdoor activities in Elektrostal?

A: Elektrostal offers several outdoor activities, such as hiking, cycling, and picnicking in its beautiful parks.

Q: Is Elektrostal well-connected in terms of transportation?

A: Yes, Elektrostal has good transportation links, including trains and buses, making it easily accessible from nearby cities.

Q: Are there any annual events or festivals in Elektrostal?

A: Yes, Elektrostal hosts various events and festivals throughout the year, including XXXX and XXXX.

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Lord Ashcroft used offshore trust to shelter wealth while Tory peer

Brexiter caught up in 2010 row over ‘non-dom’ status has trust in Bermuda, putting Theresa May in awkward position

Lord Ashcroft, one of the Conservative party’s biggest donors, faces fresh questions over his offshore affairs after the Paradise Papers revealed a previously unknown trust sheltering his vast overseas wealth.

Scores of emails and financial statements chart the inner workings of the Bermuda-based Punta Gorda Trust from its creation in 2000, just after he became a peer.

The documents run until 2016, when the offshore law firm Appleby, which acted as trustee, terminated the relationship, a decision questioned at the time by Ashcroft’s representatives.

The value of the trust fluctuated, but a leaked financial statement recorded it as having assets of $450.4m (£341m) in 2006.

Several emails show concern being expressed by Appleby, the firm at the centre of the Paradise Papers, about the way the trust was being run. The concern was that Appleby, as trustee, was in effect being asked to rubber-stamp decisions it believed it should have been informed about in advance.

In an email in 2010, a senior lawyer for Appleby wrote: “There have been very large sums of money involved and I am very concerned that there has been inadequate supervision of both transactions and distributions … To put it bluntly, we seem to be told nothing, whereas we carry the responsibility of acting as trustee.”

There is nothing illegal about the trust, but its existence could prove awkward for Theresa May. She faces having to square donations from Ashcroft with the Conservative pledge to bring transparency to the offshore industry. Labour is also calling for wide-ranging changes.

Ashcroft, 71, is a former party treasurer and deputy chairman who has given millions to the Conservatives, including £500,000 towards the party’s most recent campaign. The pro-Brexit peer is influential in British politics through his polling company and the website ConservativeHome, a centre-right blog aimed at grassroots party activists.

Ashcroft is also one of the largest individual donors in Australian political history, with gifts to the Liberal party including a single donation of A$1m in November 2005.

Ashcroft’s spokesman, Alan Kilkenny, said the peer had never engaged in tax evasion, abusive tax avoidance or tax avoidance using artificial structures, and “any suggestion or implication that he has will be vigorously challenged”.

Kilkenny declined to pass a series of questions from the Guardian to Ashcroft, dismissing them as “scraps of information, which do not amount to evidence, gained from stolen documents. Lord Ashcroft would not read such a communication and there is no point in attempting by other means to communicate with him.”

George Turner, a spokesman for the Tax Justice Network, which campaigns for reform of the offshore industry, said: “The idea of a trust is that a person gives up their property to a trusted person to manage for the benefit of a third person: a family member, say, or a charity. The fact that the original owner of an asset gives it away and technically no longer owns it can have tax ‘advantages’.”

As a high-profile Tory supporter for more than 20 years, and a man whose businesses have been based in tax havens, Ashcroft remains one of the most divisive figures in British politics.

He was turned down for a peerage in 1999 and 2000 because he was a tax exile in Belize. He gained his title after saying he would take up permanent residence in the UK again.

There was a political storm in 2010 when he confirmed he was still a “non-dom” and did not pay tax in the UK on his earnings abroad. Ashcroft then promised that he would abandon his non-domiciled status to comply with a change of law in 2010 introducing curbs on such individuals sitting in parliament. Ashcroft remained in the Lords until 2015, when he resigned his seat but retained his peerage.

The Punta Gorda Trust was set up in April 2000 when he was a “non-dom”, with his three children named as beneficiaries. Ashcroft was named as the settlor and a beneficiary, the only one entitled to income for life.

The trust became the focal point for a series of multimillion-pound capital distributions, loans and share transactions. Typical of trust activity is a document in March 2002 saying the trustees agreed to forgive a loan of $29.5m to Ashcroft.

The original trustee was the Reid Trust Company, which was taken over by Appleby Services (Bermuda) Ltd.

Concern about the running of the trust emerged within six months of it being set up. Reid warned an Ashcroft adviser: “I would like to emphasise at this point that it is imperative at all times that the trustees are aware of any and all transactions to be entered into prior to transactions occurring.

“To do otherwise will only serve to undermine the integrity of the trust as the trustees are being advised of actions taken in connection with trust assets, which should be under their control, after the event.”

Ashcroft appears to have taken this on board, with the trustee considering and agreeing to various requests.

In a review of the trust in 2009, Appleby expressed further concerns. “My analysis of the final last July indicated that there are very significant payments being made from time to time and we must ensure that these are properly considered and recorded by the trustees,” it said.

Although the children were named as beneficiaries, they seem to have been unaware of this. Minutes of an Appleby meeting in 2010 state that one of Ashcroft’s advisers had “indicated that the settlor’s wife and children were not aware of the existence of the trust”.

The children were replaced in 2010 as beneficiaries by the Cayo Foundation, which distributes money to charities linked to medical research, the military, fighting crime, education, the arts and young people.

The subject of tax surfaces in several of the emails and documents. Appleby drew attention to a law change by the Labour government in 2008 that could have had tax implications if any of the trust beneficiaries were resident in the UK.

The decision of Appleby Services (Bermuda ) Ltd to end the relationship with Ashcroft was taken at a 2016 meeting in Hamilton, Bermuda.

Appleby declined to comment about Ashcroft. But in a statement published on 24 October, in response to a series of allegations about this matter and others, the company said it had “thoroughly and vigorously investigated the allegations and we are satisfied that there is no evidence of any wrongdoing, either on the part of ourselves or our clients”.

• Michael Ashcroft
• Paradise Papers
• Conservatives
• Party funding
• Tax avoidance

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Princess Michael’s Russian tycoon friend shot dead in Moscow

A wealthy Russian businessman who became friends with Princess Michael of Kent has been murdered in an apparent contract killing.

Mikhail Kravchenko, who owned a large chain of furniture stores, was shot at least six times in the chest and head when his car was ambushed yards from his home in the village of Peredelkino, just outside Moscow. Police are investigating whether he could have been the victim of a business dispute with rivals.

Mr Kravchenko, 46, was returning to his house in the early hours of Sunday morning when his Mercedes was overtaken by another vehicle, which then blocked the road in front of him. Police said that two men with handguns opened fire on his car.

Mr Kravchenko was hit in the chest