The Telegram billionaire, the yoga instructor and a very messy split
Crime as a cornerstone of Russia
For almost a decade, Irina Bolgar and Pavel Durov enjoyed an extravagant lifestyle. After his arrest, the dream is unravelling
A photo provided by Bolgar shows her with Durov in Venice, Italy, in April 2013. Bolgar, the mother of three children with Durov, has poked holes in the Russian tech titan’s carefully managed image through a criminal complaint and her account of their opulent lifestyle. — Irina Bolgar via The New York Times
GENEVA: For many of their nearly 10 years as romantic partners, Irina Bolgar said, she and Pavel Durov enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle. The extravagance grew as Telegram, the messaging app Durov created, became a worldwide hit and cemented him as a billionaire and one of the world’s most powerful tech executives.
During the summers, they would spend about US$1mil (RM4.22mil) for a month at a 116-acre resort in Sardinia. In Dubai, United Arab Emirates, they stayed in a beachside penthouse with its own elevator. Private planes ferried them to Paris, Italy and Monaco.
But something changed during that period, according to Bolgar, who is now entangled in a legal dispute with Durov. She said he morphed from a principled entrepreneur whom she admired into an increasingly arrogant, controlling and finally abusive adversary.
According to a Swiss criminal complaint Bolgar made last year against Durov, he abused their youngest son five times in 2021 and 2022. On one occasion, Durov struck the child in the back, sending him across the room, she said. In another, he shook him so hard, the boy’s shoes came off. Later, he grabbed the child by the leg and said he would kill him.
The details are included in public documents related to the criminal case, which was previously reported by Forbes. The files do not list the names of Durov, Bolgar and the children, but there are a number of identifying factors, including the case number for a civil child custody complaint made by Bolgar.
A spokesperson for prosecutors in Geneva confirmed that an investigation was underway but declined to comment further. Durov’s spokesperson said in a statement that the incidents “never occurred” and that the accusations “lack substance”.
Bolgar, in a four-hour interview in Geneva, where she now lives with the three children she had with Durov, said she could not elaborate on the child abuse charges because of the investigation. But she provided other details about their relationship, which now threatens to further complicate Durov’s already significant legal troubles in Europe.
In France, Durov faces criminal charges related to the spread of illicit content on Telegram in a case that rocked the tech world. It is one of the first examples of a democratic government holding a top social media leader criminally accountable for what was spread on their platform.
Bolgar provided other details about their relationship, which now threatens to further complicate Durov’s already significant legal troubles in Europe. — The New York Times
French authorities detained Durov in August after he landed near Paris on a private plane from Azerbaijan. Prosecutors have accused Durov, an outspoken defender of free speech and privacy, of crimes including enabling the distribution of child sexual abuse material, drug trafficking and fraud. He could face years in prison.
Bolgar’s allegations include unpaid child support, according to the documents related to the criminal complaint. That could mean that even if Durov finds a way to overcome the charges in France, he faces further legal trouble elsewhere.
Her account, along with the case she filed against him, also opens a window into the rarefied life of the highly private Durov, who remains one of the world’s least understood tech magnates. Although Telegram has amassed nearly one billion users, Durov has avoided the same kind of scrutiny directed at his peers in Silicon Valley. Guessing the loyalties of the Russian-born entrepreneur has become a parlor game among the tech cognoscenti of Russia, where Telegram dominates.
“The carefully crafted image of Durov as a defender of freedom collapses when faced with his personal life,” said Bolgar, a trained lawyer originally from St. Petersburg, Russia. “It reveals a stark contrast between his public declarations of freedom and his private actions.”
Durov’s spokesperson said that Bolgar and Durov had “never been a couple” and that she laid personal claim to millions of dollars he provided as child support and spent profligately on luxury goods and other extravagances.
“Mr Durov has many children, and he supports each of them equally at a rate of US$10,000 (RM42,277) per month per child,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement. “Mr Durov now hopes that the Swiss justice system will resolve this dispute so that the funds misappropriated by Ms. Bolgar can be used for their intended purpose: supporting the children.”
Bolgar denied misusing money she received from Durov.
His comments contrasted with evidence of their relationship provided by Bolgar, including receipts for lavish vacations; a notarised document promising up to €150,000 (RM699,410) per month in financial support; years of photos that include the couple smiling on a private jet, celebrating birthdays and spending time together in Italy, the UAE, Russia and other locales; as well as other materials.
A former employee of Durov, who saw the two together frequently from 2013 to 2018, described a loving couple who lived in an apartment in central St. Petersburg. The person, who declined to be identified out of fear of retribution, reported seeing Durov give lavish gifts to Bolgar, including Cartier jewellery.
Swiss prosecutors have not decided whether to bring formal charges against Durov. A child protection tribunal in Geneva, however, suspended Durov’s right to personal contact with the children after Bolgar’s complaint. Making a false criminal complaint is illegal under Swiss law and can carry a prison term or a financial penalty.
The spokesperson for Durov said that he became aware of the charges this summer and that he had hired lawyers to “present the true facts to the Swiss authorities”.
Yoga, Bitcoin and a rental lion
Bolgar, 44, said she met Durov, 39, through a friend in the summer of 2012 in St. Petersburg. She said their friendship bloomed over a shared interest in yoga. Things turned romantic on a winter holiday at the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai. She described him as charming and said she was impressed by his libertarian views.
When they returned to Russia, Bolgar said, they lived together at the W Hotel in St. Petersburg before getting an apartment within walking distance of his company’s headquarters. At the end of 2013, she had their first child.
According to Durov, the relationship was transactional. “Ms Bolgar, who was Mr Durov’s yoga coach at the time, suggested to Mr Durov that they have children together,” his spokesperson said in a statement. “He agreed, and three children were born.”
In the ensuing years, Bolgar said, their continuing romance afforded her a ringside seat as Durov’s career took off. When he began building what would become Telegram in 2013, she said, the two texted each other on an early version of the app. She shared pictures of Durov from this time, almost always dressed in black, hunched over a laptop or phone.
In 2014, Durov sold his stake in his first social media company, VKontakte, claiming he was left with no choice after Russian authorities demanded access to user data that he refused to turn over. As a result, he said, he would leave the country. The story would become an anecdote Durov often repeated to trumpet his commitment to privacy.
Bolgar described the truth as more complicated. After several months outside Russia, Durov returned to the country with Bolgar, despite his public disavowals, she said. The two resumed a life together in St. Petersburg.
“When we decided to come back to Russia, I asked him, ‘So you said you would like not to come back to Russia, but now you have the opposite intention’. He said, ‘Why not come back to Russia?’” she said.
The spokesperson for Durov said that he lived primarily outside Russia after 2013 but that he had never concealed returns to the country.
Bolgar said Durov was not always truthful. When she asked him about a news report in 2014 that said Durov had a separate family, he denied it. Later, Bolgar learned the truth when the couple’s driver brought a bag of presents to celebrate the new year that seemed to be for Durov’s other family.
“The driver mixed up the lists and brought the gifts for older children,” she said.
Durov has often projected an ascetic persona. But Bolgar said he enjoyed the opulent lifestyle. In one message to her, he mused about the cost of a US$20,000 (RM84,554)-a-night Dubai hotel and which suite to stay in.
“I can do it because I made tens of millions of easy money on bitcoins,” he told her.
He also focused on his image, she said, obsessing over fitness and having a friend who owns an agency representing swimsuit models take photos of him for social media. He told her to “come see how people on the Forbes rich list live” and, another time, sent her a picture of him holding a rented baby lion.
Durov’s spokesperson disputed that Durov lived anything other than an austere life. “Mr Durov has been consistently critical of the extravagant lifestyles of the ultrawealthy and advocates for creating rather than consuming,” the spokesperson said.
Pressing charges
Durov’s behaviour changed in 2021, Bolgar said. He became psychologically abusive toward her and began to lash out at their children.
“Either you do everything my way and then you have the moral right to complain, or you do everything your own way and don’t complain,” Durov said in 2021.
In April that year, he struck his son, who was three at the time, knocking him “across the room”, according to Bolgar’s statement to the police. In November 2021, in Paris, he struck the child again and shook him violently. As a result, the child suffered a concussion and, for several months, experienced bed-wetting and nightmares, according to the complaint.
Around this time, Bolgar said, Durov began asking her to move to Dubai. She refused. She said she was concerned about laws in the UAE, where Durov had become a citizen, that could give the him rights to take custody of the children.
The last time they saw each other was September 2022. She warned him that if he did not change his abusive behaviour, she would go to the police. He threatened to cut off financial support. He did, starting in November 2022, she said.
In 2022, Durov said he discovered that Bolgar had abused the use of cards linked to his bank accounts by spending several million dollars on luxury clothes and expensive jewelry. Durov, according to his spokesperson, “believes that the display of excessive wealth is especially harmful to children, as it often diminishes their motivation and creative drive.”
Bolgar, now working as a project manager, said Durov had never complained about her spending habits.
In March 2023, she went to a police station in Geneva to make the official complaint against Durov.
“Why I didn’t do it before? It was quite hard for me to make a complaint against the person who I spent 10 years of my life with,” she said. “It was some inner barrier in my mind I had to jump over to go to police,” she added.
The Geneva Public Prosecutor’s Office initially declined to accept her complaint because it was made more than three months after the most recent violent episode. A court allowed the case to move forward after she appealed. This year, Bolgar also brought a civil child support case against Durov in Switzerland, which seeks nearly 125mil Swiss francs (RM620.37mil or about US$145mil).
In recent months, their dispute spilled onto social media. In July, after Bolgar made her first public comments about Durov being the father of their children, he posted that he had more than 100 children across many countries as a sperm donor.
Bolgar responded on Instagram by posting a portrait with herself and the three children. “We must always stay responsible for our children,” she said. “That’s the difference between a sperm donor and a parent.” – The New York Times
