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Legends Tour hits new landmark with biggest schedule and record €18million prizepool

The Legends Tour has unveiled plans for a record-breaking 2024 season, headlined by its busiest schedule to date – including nine new events - and an eye-watering €18million prize pool.

Running from April to December, this year’s globetrotting schedule will feature 20 events - featuring new tournaments set to debut in Barbados, Kenya, Mexico, Spain, the UK and Zambia, with even more additions still to be announced.

They join Legends Tour staples such as the flagship Staysure PGA Seniors Championship - which will return to Trump International Golf Links in Aberdeen following the success of last year’s event – and the Irish Legends at Seapoint Golf Links.

Many of the Legends Tour’s brightest stars will be eyeing up Major victory in 2024 at the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship at Harbor Shores Golf Club, the US Senior Open at Newport Country Club and The Senior Open presented by Rolex at Carnoustie Golf Links.

The season will culminate with the MCB Tour Championship Mauritius at Constance Belle Mare Plage, where qualifying players will contest for the John Jacobs Trophy, which was won in 2023 by former Ryder Cup player Peter Baker.

As well as the tournament silverware, some of golf’s biggest names will also be competing for the largest prize pool in Legends Tour history. The €18million (more than €8.6million of which will be assigned outside of the Majors of senior men’s golf – the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship, the US Senior Open and The Senior Open presented by Rolex) represents a 100 per cent increase since the tour returned to a full schedule in 2022 following the covid pandemic, with $2million to play for in the final two events on the Road to Mauritius and a bonus pool of $100,000 for the top five players in the final standings.

Complementing the drama of the professional events will be the unique Celebrity Pro-Am, which sees stars from the world of sport and entertainment competing to raise money and awareness for their chosen charities. Meanwhile, passionate amateurs can tee off alongside their heroes in the Legends Experience, the tour’s one-of-a-kind pro-am experience.

The announcement suggests the global growth of the Legends Tour - which hit new heights in 2023 - is set to continue. At the end of the season, the brand announced record figures for amateur participation, spectators and social media engagement, with the latter taking total reach across all channels to over 100million people for the first time.

In November, the inaugural Vinpearl DIC Legends Vietnam - the competition’s first foray into Vietnam - embodied the expansion into new markets, including Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and Central America, that has characterised the Legends Tour’s first three years.

Phil Harrison, CEO of the Legends Tour, said: “We have been working hard behind the scenes, and 2024 promises to be another incredible year for the Legends Tour.

“Securing new events in some truly spectacular venues around the world is always a key objective of ours, and we are thrilled with the additions to the schedule for this season, as well as the prestigious venues we are honoured to return to.

“Everything - from the standard of competition to the number of amateurs getting involved – has been growing year on year, and this year will be no exception. We cannot wait to see it all unfold.”

For more information on the Legends Tour and to book, click HERE

Follett-Smith targeting third career Cape Town crown

Defending champion Benjamin Follett-Smith is targeting a third career victory at Royal Cape Golf Club when he tees it up in the Bain’s Whisky Cape Town Open this week.

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Legends Tour to break new ground in 2023

The JCB Championship will return from August 3-5 after a glorious debut in 2022, when a host of superstars including Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, Darren Clarke and Paul Lawrie descended upon the spectacular Uttoxeter venue, with Germany’s Alex Cejka finishing two shots clear of Ireland’s Paul McGinley to lift the title.

Among the other returning highlights on the new-look schedule are July’s Swiss Seniors Open at Golf Club Bad Ragaz, the WINSTONgolf Senior Open in Germany in September, the Italian Senior Open in October and November’s Farmfoods European Senior Masters in Spain.

A new English event, the Legends Players Championship, will be held for the first time in 2023, joining the JCB Championship and the Jersey Legends in a triumvirate of confirmed England-based tournaments.

Major glory may be on the cards for the biggest stars of the Legends Tour, with the Senior Open Championship visiting Royal Porthcawl in 2023, while the US PGA Senior Championship will be played at PGA Frisco, Texas and the US Senior Open will take place at Wisconsin’s SentryWorld Golf Course.

The Tour will once again close with the MCB Tour Championship Mauritius, which has provided a fitting finale to the popular competition for more than a decade. At the 2022 edition of the event, staged in December, South African James Kingston lifted the John Jacobs Trophy as the Order of Merit leader despite an impressive display by tournament winner Thomas Bjørn.

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Legends Tour: Bigger prize funds with new venues in Scotland and Ireland

The Legends Tour will continue to build on its star quality with a global 2023 schedule which features exciting debuts for two stunning links venues, in Scotland and in Ireland, and increased prize funds across the board for many of the game’s most decorated players.

The 2023 season will feature at least 18 tournaments with a record-breaking prize fund – with final numbers set to be released shortly - which will be a significant increase on the 2022 campaign.

Among the exciting developments for 2023 is the news that the spectacular Trump International Golf Links Aberdeen will host the Tour for the first time when the Staysure PGA Seniors Championship is played from August 24-27.

The Scottish venue is joined on the schedule by another breath-taking links newcomer, with Seapoint Golf Links - a rising star in the ranks of Irish links courses and located on the East coast, just an hour north of Dublin - set to host a major international professional event for the first time from June 23-25 when the Irish Legends comes to town.

Major glory may be on the cards for the biggest stars of the Legends Tour, with the Senior Open Championship Presented by Rolex visiting Royal Porthcawl Golf Club in 2023, while the KitchenAid US PGA Senior Championship will be played at PGA Frisco, Texas and the US Senior Open will take place at Wisconsin’s SentryWorld Golf Course.

Many golfers hoping to make their mark on the Legends Tour in 2023 will have to first prove themselves at the Tour’s Qualifying School this month, which returns for the first time in three years. The venue for the high-stakes event will be Gloria Golf Resort in Belek, Turkey, where players will battle it out to earn one of five spots on the Tour.

RELATED: Legends Tour Qualifying School to make glorious return in 2023

Phil Harrison, Legends Tour CEO, said: “Since rebranding as the Legends Tour in 2020, our central ambition has been to keep growing, and this 2023 schedule is another incredibly exciting step forward in the evolution of our Tour.

“We have some stunning new venues to add to the long list of world-class golf courses which we visit on an annual basis. We are thrilled that, for the first time, our players will compete on two spectacular links venues in Trump International and Seapoint, while the addition of the English Masters means another big event for the famously passionate British golf fans.

“We extend our thanks to all of our host venues, sponsors and partners for being part of this journey and we look forward to welcoming them back in 2023 for what is set to be an exhilarating season for our players, our celebrities and our fans.”

The Legends Tour is the brainchild of entrepreneur Ryan Howsam, who bought a majority stake in the then-named European Senior Tour and set about rebranding the Tour in 2020. A prestigious competition featuring some of golf’s finest players aged 50 and over, the reimagined Legends Tour became a fan favourite and promises to be better than ever in 2023.

Full schedule: www.legendstour.com

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2023 Legends Tour: Bigger Prize Funds with New Venues in Scotland and Ireland

Golf in uae, golf in uae world.

At least 18 tournaments with a record-breaking prize fund

The 2023 season will feature at least 18 tournaments with a record-breaking prize fund – with final numbers set to be released shortly - which will be a significant increase on the 2022 campaign.

The JCB Championship will return from August 4-6 after a glorious debut in 2022, when a host of superstars including Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, Darren Clarke and Paul Lawrie descended upon the spectacular Uttoxer venue, with Germany’s Alex Cejka finishing two shots clear of Irish star Paul McGinley to lift the title.

The Tour will once again close with the MCB Tour Championship Mauritius, which has provided a fitting finale to the popular competition for more than a decade. At the 2022 edition of the event, staged earlier in December, South African James Kingston lifted the John Jacobs Trophy as the Order of Merit leader despite an impressive display by tournament winner Thomas Bjørn.

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Legends Tour unveils record-breaking schedule

12.29pm 9th February 2024 - Sponsorship & Events

The Legends Tour has unveiled a record-breaking tournament schedule for 2024 which includes nine new events and an €18 million prize pool.

Running from April to December, this year’s globetrotting schedule will feature 20 events – featuring new tournaments set to debut in Barbados, Kenya, Mexico, Spain, the UK and Zambia, with even more additions still to be announced.

They join Legends Tour staples such as the flagship Staysure PGA Seniors Championship – which will return to Trump International Golf Links in Aberdeen following the success of last year’s event – and the Irish Legends at Seapoint Golf Links.

As well as the tournament silverware, some of golf’s biggest names will also be competing for the largest prize pool in Legends Tour history. The €18m (more than €8.6m of which will be assigned outside of the Majors of senior men’s golf – the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship, the US Senior Open and The Senior Open presented by Rolex) represents a 100 per cent increase since the tour returned to a full schedule in 2022 following the covid pandemic, with $2m to play for in the final two events on the Road to Mauritius and a bonus pool of $100,000 for the top five players in the final standings.

The announcement suggests the global growth of the Legends Tour – which hit new heights in 2023 – is set to continue. At the end of the season, the brand announced record figures for amateur participation, spectators and social media engagement, with the latter taking total reach across all channels to over 100million people for the first time.

In November, the inaugural Vinpearl DIC Legends Vietnam – the competition’s first foray into Vietnam – embodied the expansion into new markets, including Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and Central America, that has characterised the Legends Tour’s first three years.

Phil Harrison, CEO of the Legends Tour, said: “We have been working hard behind the scenes, and 2024 promises to be another incredible year for the Legends Tour.

“Everything – from the standard of competition to the number of amateurs getting involved – has been growing year on year, and this year will be no exception. We cannot wait to see it all unfold.”

For more information on the Legends Tour, click HERE .

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Tom Watson hopes players ‘do something’ and mend the PGA Tour-LIV Golf split

Tom Watson hits the ceremonial tee shot during the first round of the Masters at Augusta National Golf Course.

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The professional golf world is bumping along down two separate paths, the PGA Tour and LIV Golf , and those have converged at the Masters .

This is the first time since last year’s U.S. Open that all of the game’s best players have convened to compete against each other.

Noticing that, two-time Masters winner Tom Watson felt the urge to say something about it this week at the annual Champions Dinner, which was honoring defending champion Jon Rahm , who since has defected to the LIV tour.

“We were sitting down and we were having great stories about [late Masters champion] Seve Ballesteros and people were laughing and talking,” Watson said Thursday, after opening tee times were pushed back an hour for inclement weather.

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Watson and fellow legends Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player participated in the traditional start to the tournament, hitting their ceremonial tee shots on No. 1.

At the dinner on Tuesday night, Watson wanted to say a few words, so he asked Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley if that would be OK. Ridley said, “Please do.”

“I got up and said, ‘I’m looking around the room, and I’m seeing just a wonderful experience everyone is having,’” Watson said. “They are jovial. They are having a great time. They are laughing. I said, ‘Ain’t it good to be together again?’

“And there was kind of a pall from the joviality and it quieted down… In a sense, I hope that the players themselves took that to say, ‘You know, we do have to do something.’”

Watson said Thursday that golf has been “fractured” by the two competing tours fighting over the best players in the game.

There are 13 LIV players competing in this year’s Masters, including Rahm; Phil Mickelson and Brooks Koepka , who tied for second in last year’s tournament; and Patrick Reed , who finished fourth.

Defending Masters champion Jon Rahm is among the LIV Golf players competing at Augusta National Golf Club this weekend.

“We want to get together like we were at the Champions Dinner, happy, the best players playing against each other,” said Watson, flanked at a news conference by Nicklaus and Player. “The bottom line, that’s what we want in professional golf, and right now we don’t have it.”

Of the many issues that need to be resolved, sorting out who is invited to the Masters is a big one. Players who defect for LIV cannot play in PGA Tour events. They can compete in the Masters and the other three major championships if they qualify.

One of those ways to qualify involves their world ranking, but players don’t receive Official World Golf Ranking points for LIV events. So the field of LIV golfers in the Masters could dwindle by the year.

That means even fewer chances for the world’s best players to compete against each other.

“There’s a lot of people a lot smarter than me that could figure this out in a much more efficient way,” Rahm said. “But the obvious answer is that there’s got to be a way for certain players in whatever tour to be able to earn their way in.”

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Ridley noted that because the Masters is an invitational event, the tournament has the leeway to invite players who might not otherwise qualify, as is the case with some up-and-coming international golfers.

“If we felt there were a player or players, whether they played on the LIV tour or any other tour, who were deserving of an invitation to the Masters,” he said, “we would exercise that discretion with regard to special invitations.”

By late Thursday afternoon, Bryson DeChambeau was leading the tournament at seven under par. He’s a LIV golfer. This isn’t going away.

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Oligarchs on the Rise: Everything You Need to Know About the Agalarovs

At a Glance:

Russian billionaire real-estate and golf-course developer with ties to the Russian government and President Vladimir Putin
Has undertaken large state-funded projects, including the construction of two stadiums for the 2018 World Cup, through his company the Crocus Group; the two stadiums reportedly cost 36 billion rubles
After reportedly meeting with the Prosecutor General of Russia, facilitated a meeting between Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian government attorney, and Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner at Trump Tower in New York on June 9, 2016
After taking on unprofitable Kremlin projects and serving as a key interlocutor to Trump, Aras Agalarov is an oligarch on the rise
Aras Agalarov’s son, a Russian entrepreneur and pop star who serves as the executive vice president of the Crocus Group and has cultivated a relationship with Donald Trump and the Trump Organization
Through his publicist, Rob Goldstone, reached out to Donald Trump Jr. and helped set up the June 9 meeting at Trump Tower
Previously married to Leyla Alieva, the daughter of the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev

Who are the Agalarovs:

The June 9, 2016, meeting has become a focal point for Congressional investigators and the Special Counsel’s office as they continue the probes into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Given the above events, the Agalarovs’ involvement is of particular interest to investigators. Aras Agalarov, who was once referred to as “the Donald Trump of Russia,” is a Russian billionaire and real-estate developer whose willingness to take on beleaguered government projects as a display of unwavering loyalty to the state has earned him a spot in President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. Agalarov, who was born in Baku, Azerbaijan, founded the Crocus Group in 1989 and began building his business empire in Moscow in the 1990s. According to Forbes , he is currently worth an estimated $1.7 billion, a fortune he has amassed over decades of building commercial and residential real estate in Russia. Many of his undertakings have been government contracts ; others relied on funding from Russian state banks that the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned in 2014, most notably Sberbank . After years of taking on state contracts for challenging projects, such as Vladivostok’s Far East Federal University , Agalarov won a spot at the conference table during Putin’s annual meeting with Russian oligarchs in December 2017. The timing of his ostensible foray into Putin’s good graces also coincides with his reported role in Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, when Agalarov helped set up a meeting between the Trump campaign and the Russian government attorney, Natalia Veselnitskaya, promising “dirt” on Trump’s political opponent.

Agalarov’s son, Emin , was educated and partly raised in New Jersey. He is now a Russian entertainer and was formerly married to the prominent daughter of the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev. He is the Executive Vice President at his father’s real-estate development company. During the 2013 Miss Universe pageant held in Moscow, Donald Trump filmed a cameo in the music video for Emin’s song “In Another Life.” The music video was set in the Moscow Ritz-Carlton, which has since become infamous due to allegations in the Steele Dossier. Emin once stated that he considered Trump to be his friend, and indicated that they saw each other several times a year. In 2015, Trump sent Emin a recorded birthday message calling him a “winner” and a “champ.”

Both Emin and his father have relatively close relationships with Trump, dating back to the 2013 Miss Universe pageant the Agalarovs hosted in Moscow. They paid Trump between $14 million and $20 million to bring the competition to Russia, and both father and son regularly attended business meetings and social events with Trump throughout the weekend of the pageant. Together with Herman Gref, Putin’s former economy minister from 2000 to 2007 who now heads the Russian bank Sberbank, Agalarov organized a two-hour dinner with Trump and a dozen of Russia’s top businessmen. Agalarov also reportedly “acted as a liaison between [Trump and Putin], even delivering a gift to Trump from Russian President Vladimir Putin after the latter canceled a planned meeting” prior to the pageant . The Agalarovs’ business dealings with Trump extend far beyond the Miss Universe pageant, however, and the three have remained in close contact since Trump’s trip to Russia.

Through Emin’s publicist, Rob Goldstone , the Agalarovs were instrumental in setting up the pivotal June 9, 2016, Trump Tower meeting. According to communications that have since come to light, following an alleged meeting Agalarov had with the Prosecutor General of Russia (a position equivalent to the United States Attorney General), he and Emin helped arrange a meeting between Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, and a Russian government attorney, Natalia Veselnitskaya, who promised damaging information on Hillary Clinton, Trump’s campaign rival (Agalarov has denied the meting with the Prosecutor General). This overture, eagerly received by Trump’s camp, was described as part of the Russian government’s support of Donald Trump’s campaign for the presidency of the United States. Others present at the meeting were Goldstone, Crocus Group executive Irakly “Ike” Kaveladze, Russian lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin, and a translator. The full significance of the Agalarovs’ involvement in this meeting can be better understood through a closer look at their burgeoning business empire and increasingly close ties to the Russian state.

Russian Government Funding and State Contracts Dispensed to the Agalarovs

One measure of a given oligarch’s or private conglomerate’s standing with the Russian state is the volume of their state contracts . Even though the Crocus Group does not work in the strategic sectors of extractives such as oil and gas, the Agalarovs’ development holding company nevertheless enjoys state patronage in the form of lucrative government contracts and favorable loans from state-owned banks, particularly in recent years. Taken together, these indicators point to the Agalarovs’ ascendancy in Russia’s oligarchic circles and power structures.

Business overview: The Crocus Group was founded in 1989 and, according to the company website , is “responsible for over 4 million total square meters of developed property.” Agalarov serves as the president of the company, with Emin as the executive vice president. The Crocus Group’s work includes both commercial and residential real estate: major commercial projects include Crocus Expo and Crocus City Hall (where the 2013 Miss Universe pageant was held); major residential projects include Agalarov Estate and Sea Breeze, “an elite housing development in Azerbaijan.” The company has numerous subsidiaries, including Crocus Invest, Crocus International, and Crocus Bank .

Sberbank Loans: The Crocus Group has a deep relationship with Sberbank, one of the largest Russian state-owned banks, which is currently under U.S. Treasury sanctions. The Crocus Group and Sberbank have signed numerous funding agreements over the years, including a 53-billion-ruble loan, part of a total 76-billion-ruble investment package in 2013 that, at the time, was reportedly the largest loan Sberbank had ever given for a development project. In a 2015 interview with the Russian business journal Vedomosti , Agalarov said that his company had an outstanding debt to Sberbank in the amount of $1 billion. The Crocus Group holds debt in both rubles and dollars. Some of their most extensive commercial projects are the “Vegas” mega-malls; construction for the fourth Vegas mall, also financed by Sberbank, is currently underway .

The Crocus Group has received many Russian government contracts, which have traditionally signaled the recipients’ favorability status and proximity to the Russian state.

Eurasion Economic Union: In 2014, the Crocus Group was reportedly included in a “bilateral treaty with the government of Kyrgyzstan to help the Central Asian country integrate into Russia’s regional alliance, the Eurasian Economic Union,” which was founded in 2015 as Russia’s alternative to the European Union, seeking to advance “regional economic integration” between the member states of Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan. The deal designated Agalarov’s company as the supplier of services “to integrate the two countries’ bureaucracies and reinforce the new customs common border, by, for example, building new border posts.” The Crocus Group’s contract included plans for developing infrastructure and constructing new customs checkpoints. According to reports, the Crocus Group has received between $127 million and $ 145 million for construction work related to the border posts. Granting the contract to the Crocus Group was largely seen as an example of favoritism by the Kremlin, as the contract was given to a company deemed close to Putin and there was reportedly no competitive bidding process.

Moscow Central Ring Road: The Crocus Group has continued to receive a steady stream of government tenders in recent years. In 2015, they received a contract for the first section of the highly anticipated Moscow Central Ring Road, an ambitious project that will eventually encircle the entire city. The Central Ring Road is a complex endeavor that has garnered a lot of coverage in the Russian press. It has, however, proven to be more problematic than originally expected. The portion of the road that the Crocus Group is building was initially assigned to StroyGazConsulting, a construction company partially controlled by state-owned Gazprombank, an entity U.S. Treasury sanctioned along with Gazprom in 2014. Reported financial difficulties prompted a reassignment of the contract to the Crocus Group. They reportedly received 42.1 billion rubles of government funding for the road, which is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2018. Agalarov has conceded that the project may not be as profitable as he had initially hoped. Among other things, the Crocus Group’s section of the project has run into issues with pipelines and other transmission lines that run across the land on which the road is being built.

Gazprom Expo: Russian public records yield additional examples of government contracts awarded to the Crocus Group and its subsidiaries. For instance, in 2016, the company received 992 million rubles in contracts from Gazprom Expo, a subsidiary of the state giant Gazprom, apparently to rent out a space for an exhibition. Gazprom has recently come under criticism following a recent report alleging that its “enormous capital expenditures and slow-growing revenues” stem from the company prioritizing benefitting its contractors over its shareholders (one of the authors of the report was fired after publication). According to the report, Gazprom and its contractors “are thought to be better connected to the ultimate node of power in Russia than anyone who might possibly be interested in running Gazprom for shareholders.” The report was issued by Russian state bank Sberbank, whose chief executive said “the report drew conclusions based on ‘unverified, unconfirmed data’ and was ‘unprofessional’” (Gazprom has not commented on the report.)

Far Eastern Federal University: Until this year, perhaps the highest-profile project the Crocus Group executed was the new campus of the Far Eastern Federal University, built on Russkiy Island off the coast of Vladivostok for the 2012 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. The original state contract awarded to the Crocus Group was in the amount of 42 billion rubles. Agalarov claims he spent an additional 3.6 billion rubles of his own funds to complete the project. The Crocus Group later appealed to recover 1.9 billion rubles in court, and was eventually awarded less than a billion rubles from the various state ministries in total. Although Agalarov has been up front about the fact that the Crocus Group did not profit from the APEC project, the undertaking has arguably endeared him to the Kremlin. His success with this project helped him win their next biggest prize, contracts to build two stadiums for the 2018 World Cup hosted in Russia.

2018 World Cup Construction, the Steele Dossier, and Corruption

In 2014, soon after the Miss Universe pageant the Agalarovs hosted together with Trump, the Kremlin reportedly “handpicked” the Crocus Group to build two stadiums, one in Rostov-on-Don and one in Kaliningrad, for the 2018 World Cup. In a 2016 interview with Kommersant , Agalarov admitted the possibility that the stadiums may not make for a profitable undertaking; however, he noted that it was an honor to be chosen by the Kremlin for what was widely perceived to be a challenging project. Agalarov claims that he considered turning down the commission, in part because of the project’s short timeframe, but in the end he “could not say no.”

The Crocus Group has received all funding for these stadiums from the Russian state. In the aforementioned 2015 interview with Vedomosti , Agalarov said that his company had not taken any bank loans to finance the World Cup construction projects. In a 2018 interview, Agalarov stated that the two stadiums, in Kaliningrad and Rostov-on-Don, yielded contracts worth a total of 36 billion rubles (approximately $580 million in accordance with June 2018 conversion rates).

Kaliningrad stadium

Rostov-on-Don stadium

The Crocus Group’s construction of the World Cup stadiums is especially interesting in light of a portion of the Steele Dossier, compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, which alleges that “the Kremlin’s cultivation operation of Trump also had comprised offering him various lucrative real estate development business deals in Russia, especially in relation to the ongoing 2018 World Cup soccer tournament. However, so far, for reasons unknown, Trump had not taken up any of these.” Trump’s existing relationship with the Agalarovs—namely when hosting Miss Universe together as well as negotiating a deal for a Trump tower in Moscow—raises the question of whether they may have served as conduits for the propositions alleged in the dossier. To date, no evidence to support this has come to light, and Trump has denied the allegations in the dossier.

The Crocus Group’s involvement in the World Cup is also interesting in the context of earlier work done by Steele. It was reported that the English Football Association hired Steele to investigate whether other nations competing to host the 2018 World Cup were bribing Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) officials. Steele found considerable evidence that Russia engaged in a widespread influence campaign and reported this to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), which helped prompt the indictments of of several members of FIFA’s leadership. Given this earlier investigation, it is possible that before working on the Trump dossier, Steele already had a source network in place from the FIFA investigation that may have shed light on any possible World Cup-related offers to Trump.

The World Cup is the second high-profile international sporting event Russia has hosted in recent years. The construction in anticipation of the first, the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, weathered dramatic allegations of corruption linked to the exorbitant overspending on the infrastructure. At the time, the Sochi Olympics were the most expensive Olympics in history. Russian opposition leaders alleged that Russian officials stole up to $30 billion in funds through “kickbacks and embezzlement.” Critics also alleged “that the most expensive sports facilities built for the Games were commissioned without competition or public tenders.” (Neither Crocus Group nor the Agalarovs have been involved in construction related to the Sochi Olympics.)

Four years later, Russia is facing a new wave of criticism as they prepare to host the World Cup, including allegations of worker abuse and labor exploitation; although these allegations do not specifically name the Agalarovs or the Crocus Group, several focus on strikes protesting labor violations at the two stadiums built by the Crocus Group. There have also been several corruption and other financial scandals centered around Russian World Cup contractors. In 2017, a former deputy governor in St. Petersburg admitted to fraud related to a subcontractor for the World Cup stadium in his city. On another occasion, a subcontractor for the stadium in Samara reportedly received 2.6 billion rubles in payments, “but only [did] a fraction of the work before declaring bankruptcy.”

Though no corruption-related charges against the Crocus Group have been raised, the broader pattern of corruption in Russia and a reported tendency for the Kremlin to award contracts without proper bidding procedures provides troubling context and warrants scrutiny.

While not all of the government contracts have turned out quite as lucrative for Agalarov’s companies, the projects’ high profile and strategic importance have apparently raised his standing in the eyes of Putin. After the 2012 APEC conference, Putin even awarded Agalarov the Order of Honor. Among other things, Agalarov’s recent ascent into Putin’s inner circle is evidenced by his attendance at Putin’s most recent oligarch dinner, his first time attending the event . Agalarov’s public statements have also fallen strictly in line with the Kremlin talking points; he has, for example, stated that he is not opposed to taking on future projects in Crimea, the Ukrainian territory Russia annexed in 2014.

In addition to his apparent willingness to take on whichever project Putin tosses his way, his standing with the government may have even gotten a boost as a result of his relationship with Trump. As Mother Jones noted, the Crocus Group was granted approval by Moscow’s city-planning and land commission “to begin constructing a sprawling shopping and entertainment complex in the Moscow suburbs” just two days after the Agalarovs’ role in arranging the Trump Tower meeting was revealed. Agalarov has not commented on the timing of this approval.

A New Frontier in Luxury Consumption: the Agalarovs and Golf Courses

Another parallel between Trump and the Agalarovs is their affinity for building opulent golf courses, a concept relatively novel in Russia. This commonality is worth considering in light of questions raised about the possible Russian sources of funding for Trump’s golf courses during the recession.

The Crocus Group’s most well-known residential project and golf course is the Agalarov Estate, an exclusive community for the nouveau riche Russians. The Agalarov Estate has been at the center of some controversy , as the owners of a village adjacent to the development originally refused to sell their land to the Crocus Group, accusing Agalarov of attempting to force them off their property. Despite these issues, Agalarov boasted of the estate’s amenities in a 2007 interview , which include a private school, artificial lakes, waterfalls, a spa resort, and most interestingly, a golf course.

In 2008, Agalarov signed a contract with Troon Golf under which the American company would manage a golf course on the Agalarov Estate for 15 years. Agalarov’s golf course is considered one of Russia’s most luxurious . As The Wall Street Journal reported , “the central idea behind this course wasn’t necessarily to play golf. It was as much to harness the image of the sport—the aura of exclusivity and argyle that Russia’s ultra elite have begun to desire.”

Historically, golf has not been especially popular in Russia, which makes it easy to believe that Agalarov’s interest in the golf course stemmed more from the “aura of exclusivity” than from his interest in the game itself. Other oligarchs have built luxurious golf courses, including Oleg Deripaska, Vladimir Potanin, and Roman Abramovich, whose luxury Skolkovo golf course cost $25 million.The concept of using golf as a symbol of wealth and status has, of course, also been used by Trump, who owns seventeen golf courses around the world. The question of whether Russian money was used to fund these golf courses was raised after a 2014 quote from Eric Trump surfaced. He reportedly told a golf reporter that the Trump Organization was able to finance their golf courses during the recession because “We don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.” He reportedly continued, “We’ve got some guys that really, really love golf, and they’re really invested in our programs. We just go there all the time.” Trump has since denied making this statement.

Congressional investigators have also raised questions about the possibility of Russian money in Trump’s golf courses. More recently, this has come up in the Glenn Simpson testimony and the Washington Post article on Trump’s pivot to spending cash on assets, including golf courses, after 2006. In his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee in January 2018, Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson noted concerns around Trump’s golf courses in Scotland and Ireland. Simpson mentioned the above quote from Eric Trump and observed the lack of public disclosure around the financing of these projects. While financial statements for the Irish and Scottish courses did not show Russian involvement, Simpson claimed they did show “enormous amounts of capital flowing into these projects from unknown sources.” Simpson also noted that the courses have not been profitable, and that he believed it was unlikely that Trump himself had the money to finance these projects. Although Trump once proclaimed himself the “King of Debt,” he began making massive cash purchases in 2006. This streak continued for years, culminating in his $79.7 million payment for the golf courses in Scotland and Ireland, which have since cost Trump another $164 million in cash “to keep them running.”

Corporate and Personal Footprints in the United States

In addition to his Russian real estate empire, Agalarov also has business interests in the United States. Florida state corporate records list Aras Agalarov as an “Authorized Person” at Saffron Property Management LLC and link him to an address in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Florida property records indicate that, through Saffron Property Management LLC, Agalarov owns a condo at Palazzo Del Sol (as well as one at a neighboring property). Agalarov reportedly paid $10.7 million for this condo, which is located in “one of South Florida’s wealthiest ZIP codes.”

Agalarov’s U.S. business interests are likely handled by Irakly Kaveladze, a U.S.-based Vice President of the Crocus Group. Kaveladze was previously scrutinized by Congress for his financial activity. Specifically, in 2000, the New York Times reported on the findings of a Congressional inquiry and a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report explaining the ease with which foreigners could hide their identities and use shell companies to launder money through American banks. This inquiry examined the activity of Kaveladze, who had created more than 2,000 corporations in Delaware for various Russian individuals and subsequently opened bank accounts for these anonymous corporations. Former Senator Carl Levin, who requested the initial inquiry, referred to Kaveladze as a “poster child” for using shell companies to launder money; however, Kaveladze was not charged with any crimes as a result of the inquiry and has denied any wrongdoing.

Kaveladze , Agalarov, and Emin are associated with several companies incorporated in the United States, a number of which are linked to the same address in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Public records link the above address to entities like Corsy International , IBC Group, Inc ., CI Publishing Inc., PB Consulting, Russian Art Mall, and RJI Properties. It is unclear which of these entities remain active, or even what their purposes are or have been; some are listed as banking and investment-consultant companies, while others are listed as business-consulting services.

Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow, November 2013

Both Aras Agalarov and his son Emin have a longstanding relationship with Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and the Trump Organization. Even before their relationship began, Trump had already attempted to do business with one of Agalarov’s close associates. In June 2011, Trump and Ivanka met with Igor Krutoy , a Russian entertainer and entrepreneur well acquainted with the Agalarovs , to discuss “plans to build a glitzy hotel and entertainment complex” in Riga, Latvia. Krutoy was later questioned by Latvia’s Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau as part of a criminal investigation, although no charges were filed. The prospective deal ultimately fell through, but Trump would later go on to collaborate with Krutoy’s acquaintances, the Agalarovs, on the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow.

In a 2017 interview, Emin Agalarov recounted how he and his father wanted to bring the pageant to Moscow and hold it at their venue , Crocus City Hall. The two men flew to Las Vegas in June 2013 for the Miss USA pageant, also owned by Trump at the time, “with the ambition to sign a contract [for the pageant].” Trump reportedly took a liking to them, incorrectly identifying Aras Agalarov as “the richest man in Russia.” During that trip, the Agalarovs and Irakly Kaveladze dined with Trump, his personal attorney Michael Cohen, and Emin’s publicist Rob Goldstone. Trump subsequently announced that the next Miss Universe pageant would be held in Russia, signing the contract with the Agalarovs during that Vegas trip.

On November 8 and 9, 2013, Trump visited Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant, for which he was reportedly paid as much as $20 million. During this trip, Trump acquainted himself with numerous Russian businessmen and politically-connected individuals. He dined at Nobu with Herman Gref, chief executive of Sberbank and former Russian Minister of Economics and Trade from 2000 to 2007, and “a dozen of Russia’s top businessmen.” That weekend, Trump also filmed a scene for one of Emin Agalarov’s upcoming music videos in the Moscow Ritz-Carlton.

While Trump was in Moscow, Agalarov reportedly attempted to facilitate a meeting between Trump and Putin. He delivered a private message “from the Kremlin” stating that Putin wanted to meet Trump, and then delivered a second message stating that Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov would soon be calling Trump. Although Peskov did reportedly call Trump (on Agalarov’s cell phone), the meeting between Trump and Putin never happened, much to Trump’s disappointment. However, after Trump returned to New York, Agalarov’s daughter reportedly brought “a gift for Trump from Putin,” consisting of a box with a sealed letter inside.

During the Miss Universe pageant, Trump and Agalarov began discussions about a Trump Tower Moscow project. While there, Trump and Agalarov reportedly met with Alex Sapir and Rotem Rosen, Trump’s partners in Trump SoHo, about the possibility of launching a Trump development in Russia. The following year, Ivanka reportedly traveled to Moscow to look for potential development sites with Emin Agalarov. Emin has claimed that he and his father chose land and signed a letter of intent for Trump Tower Moscow (Agalarov has also stated that there was an agreement that the Crocus Group would build a Trump Tower in Moscow), but both men indicated that this deal was “sidelined” after Trump launched his presidential campaign. Ivanka has stated that she was unaware of a Trump Tower Moscow project until after the letter of intent was signed and was “minimally involved.”

Trump’s 2013 Moscow trip often comes up in the context of the Steele Dossier, which alleges that Russia obtained kompromat on Trump during his time in Russia. (This allegation has been neither corroborated nor disproven, although the Trump administration denies that it occurred.) Allegations of kompromat aside, it is clear that the trip allowed Trump to deepen his connections to Russia through his friendship and business partnership with the Agalarovs, and that the trip, which would not have been possible without the Agalarovs, solidified Trump’s high opinion of Russia and Putin.

The Relationship with Trump Culminates In a Controversial Campaign Meeting on June 9

It is against this background of Trump’s relationship with the Agalarovs that the meeting—today at the center of the Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russia’s attempts to meddle in the 2016—took place. On June 9, 2016, Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian government attorney who was described as having “dirt” on Hillary Clinton as part of the Russian government’s effort to support the Trump campaign, met with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort at the Trump Tower in New York.

The idea of another meeting, between Trump and Putin, had been tossed around for over a year prior. Just one month after Trump initially announced his candidacy, Rob Goldstone emailed Trump’s assistant , Rhona Graff, asking whether Trump “would welcome a meeting with President Putin,” although there is no indication anyone from Trump’s team followed up on this offer. Almost one year later, Goldstone emailed Donald Trump Jr. with the subject line “Russia – Clinton – private and confidential” stating that “the Crown prosecutor of Russia” ( reportedly a reference to the Russian Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika, a powerful government official and close Putin ally) “offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.” Goldstone added, “this is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” Trump Jr. responded , “If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.”

On June 7, 2016, Trump Jr. and Goldstone set up the meeting for June 9, 2016, in Trump Tower. Trump Jr., Kushner, and Manafort attended, as did Goldstone, Kaveladze, Russian lawyer and Magnitsky Act opponent Natalia Veselnitskaya, and lobbyist and rumored former counterintelligence officer Rinat Akhmetshin, along with a translator. Kaveladze reportedly attended this meeting as a representative of the Agalarovs, and has claimed he was unaware of the purpose of the meeting. According to the Trump campaign, the group discussed “adoptions,” believed to be code for the discussion of the American sanctions bill known as the Magnitsky Act, to which Putin responded by banning America adoptions of Russian orphans.

Yuri Chaika: One of the strongest links between the participants in this meeting and the Russian government may be Yuri Chaika’s purported involvement, which Trump Jr. has denied . Chaika’s role raises the question of whether the Russian government was directly involved in orchestrating the meeting through convenient intermediaries. In fact, the June 9 meeting would not have been the first time Chaika had allegedly tried to pass Russian materials to U.S. individuals; months before the Trump Tower meeting, Chaika’s office reportedly gave U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher a memo that was similar to the memo that Veselnitskaya reportedly brought with her to the June 9 meeting (Veselnitskaya has reportedly said she and Chaika are acquaintances). This memo contained a narrative suggesting that Clinton had benefited from what Veselnitskaya alleged to be large-scale fraud in Russia and advocating for the repeal of the Magnitsky Act. It is interesting to note that the relationship between Aras Agalarov and Chaika extends beyond this encounter. After Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny published a 2015 investigation into alleged corruption by Chaika and his family (this corruption is unrelated to the individuals linked to the June 9 meeting,) Agalarov penned a lengthy op-ed defending Chaika in the Russian publication Kommersant. In this piece, Agalarov stridently defended Chaika, in some instances using his background in construction to defend the validity of Chaika’s alleged investments. Chaika has denied all wrongdoing.

Agalarov’s Birthday Gift: Trump received another message from Agalarov the day after the meeting. According to a report published by the Minority Members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in March 2018, “the very next day, on June 10, 2016, Aras Agalarov delivered to candidate Trump an expensive painting for the candidate’s birthday.”

According to the minority’s report , Trump sent Agalarov a thank you note on June 17, 2016, in which he wrote, “There are few things better than receiving a sensational gift from someone you admire—and that’s what I’ve received from you. You made my birthday a truly special event by your thoughtfulness— not to mention your remarkable talent. I’m rarely at a loss for words, but right now I can only say how much I appreciate your friendship and to thank you for this fantastic gift. This is one birthday that I will always remember.”

December 2016 Business Venture: The Agalarovs continued to keep in touch with Trump associates throughout the campaign and the transition. In December 2016, Emin Agalarov texted Trump Jr. about a potential business venture, saying “Hi Don! Hope all is well, quick question for you. I’ve been in discussion with the Trump furniture producers from Turkey to open a store and a distribution Chanel [ sic ] in Moscow. Just wanted to check with you if you are ok with us partnering up with them and launching the project. Wanted to check with you before committing.”

Conclusion: The Enduring Centrality of the Agalarovs

In order to fully evaluate the significance of Trump’s relationship with the Agalarovs, one must first understand who the Agalarovs are, the depths of their relationship with Trump, and the strength of their ties to the Kremlin. Just like Trump, the Agalarovs have built an extensive real-estate empire, working on both commercial and luxury residential projects as well as golf courses. Many of their projects have been funded by state banks and represent government contracts, both indicators of government patronage and a close relationship with the Kremlin.

The Agalarovs’ relationship with Trump began during the 2013 Miss Universe pageant and deepened in the intervening years, culminating in their assistance in setting up the June 9 Trump Tower meeting. Participants in the meeting have been interviewed by both Congressional investigators and Mueller’s team , and a list of questions Mueller reportedly wants to ask Trump, obtained by The New York Times , contains the the following: “During a 2013 trip to Russia, what communication and relationships did you have with the Agalarovs and Russian government officials?” This meeting linked high-ranking Trump campaign officials to the Russian government and illustrated their eagerness to obtain political “dirt” on their opponent from the Russians, and has since been established as one of the clearest examples of cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russia-linked agents.

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June 13, 2018

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The Moscow Project is an initiative of the Center for American Progress that is dedicated to uncovering the truth about Trump’s involvement in Russian attacks on our democracy.

As the Masters begins, golf grapples with a Trump problem in the post-Tiger era

The splintering of the sport could not have come at a worse time as generation beige fail to move the needle.

Donald Trump: thanks to the exaggerated tales of his exploits, he can legitimately claim to be the most famous golfer in America. Photograph: Rob Carr/Getty Images

Brian Jack served as hype man at a Republican presidential campaign rally in Rome, Georgia last month. One-time political director of Donald Trump’s White House turned candidate for a Congressional seat in his home state, he unfurled quite the yarn.

“I’m not sure if I should say this,” said Jack. “But, just a few weeks ago, president Trump put to shame two professional golfers. I ain’t gonna mention their names but just know he shot a 70 on 18 holes.”

Not long after, Trump declared he had won both the club championship and the senior club championship at his eponymous course in West Palm Beach, Florida.

To lend credibility to his braggadocio, Jack Nicklaus, who you would wrongly assume might know better, was on hand to present the 77-year-old with the Trump International 2024 most improved golfer of the year award. Like former Roman emperor Commodus once claiming to have a record of 12,000 wins and 0 defeats as a gladiator at the Colosseum, it’s true because he says it is.

Mount Juliet estate up for sale with €45m price tag for hotel and golf resort

Rory McIlroy bested by Aberg but remains in contention at Heritage Classic

Séamus Power makes impressive start to RBC Heritage

Rory McIlroy dismisses report that he was on the verge of shock move to LIV Golf

The most famous golfer in America (a boast Trump can legitimately make since Tiger Woods’ decline) certainly got the star treatment when he turned up at Doral last Sunday. Spontaneous rounds of applause from adoring fans and some of the sport’s biggest names taking time out to chat with him on the putting green and driving range.

Proffering obsequious handshakes and simpering smiles, the likes of Dustin Johnson, Bubba Watson and Bryson DeChambeau slobbered all over him as if he isn’t the same man daily spewing so much hateful bile and racist rhetoric into the political atmosphere.

Just like strangely gullible 27-year-old Rory McIlroy when he chose to golf with him back in 2017, perhaps they remain somehow ignorant of what he truly stands for. They haven’t heard him comparing people to animals, accusing immigrants of poisoning the blood of the country, or saying African Americans love him because of his mug shot.

Maybe DeChambeau et al were all just relieved Pele, his nickname for kicking the ball so much when nobody’s looking, wasn’t teeing it up at the LIV event in case he’d embarrass them with his prowess.

Last time their Tour swung through one of his courses he took on the same tough Bedminster track a fortnight later and managed a 67. His score bested 47 of the 48 pro cards in the final 18 holes of that competition. Indeed, only six of the 144 rounds played by the LIV roster that week were better than his. A statistic to make the late Kim Jong-il (of 11 holes-in-one in a single outing fame) blush. Surely the charming Saudis must soon consider paying Trump to play in as well as to host their Potemkin tournaments.

Jack Nicklaus presents Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump with the Trump International GC most improved player award in West Palm Beach, Florida. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Given there’s a good chance he will be elected to a second presidential term next November , it shouldn’t be a surprise that many from the most Republican of sports still lickspittle around him. No matter how extreme his political positions are getting. The right side of the green is always far more important to these lads than the right side of history. But this is only part of golf’s ongoing Trump problem. The other is the recognition factor. He’s more box office than anyone else in the game right now.

Most casual sports fans can tell you the 45th president won two club championships the other week and have seen the photos of him and Nicklaus. The same people couldn’t name the winners of many PGA Tour events so far this year. Austin Eckroat? Jake Knapp? Chris Kirk? Mathieu Pavon? Fine players. Incognito champions.

The Masters represents the one weekend in the calendar when golf has the undivided attention of Americans. March Madness has finally ended, the NFL is in hibernation, baseball is only sputtering into gear, and the endless NBA play-offs haven’t started.

With Rae’s Creek dyed with food colouring, various other botanical sleights of hand, and Stalinesque television coverage, Augusta National looks sumptuous on screen and, to many, the familiar theme music represents the sound of springtime. People want to be lured in. Yet, beyond the existence of rival tours, the game has a major identity crisis as it rounds Amen Corner.

Tiger Woods and Justin Thomas walk down the first fairway during a practice round prior to the 2024 Masters Tournament at Augusta National in Augusta, Georgia. Photograph: Andrew Redington/Getty Images

Many of those drawn to the sport by Woods, and, to a lesser extent, Phil Mickelson, have no rooting interest in the crop who came after them. Generation beige doesn’t move the needle. Scottie Scheffler has been the number one player in the world for nearly a year, and he can walk down the streets of New York city unrecognised.

A wonderful talent, too milquetoast to impact beyond the cognoscenti. Most casual fans couldn’t tell you the difference between Scheffler and Xander Schauffele. And, elsewhere in the top 10 rankings, they’d struggle to pick Jon Rahm, Patrick Cantlay, and Wyndham Clark out of a line-up either.

As it tried to come to terms with the inevitable post-Tiger swoon in interest, the splintering of the sport could not have come at a worse time. And herein lies golf’s true major problem. This is why the PGA Tour created the mortifying $100m Player Impact Program (PIP) to reward those who generate most interest in it through, among other criteria, Google searches and media mentions.

A desperate measure but they need characters and storylines to capture the imagination that badly. If only there was one larger-than-life, headline-generating golfer in America who relishes feuding and relentlessly self-promotes.

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Why Didn't Trump Build Anything in Russia?

The art of the deal runs into the reality of “a really scary place.”

A silhouette of Donald trump is seen in contrast against Moscow buildings.

Updated on September 25, 2017.

Thirty years ago, in July 1987, Donald and Ivana Trump flew to the Soviet Union, apparently at the invitation of the Soviet ambassador to the United States, in order to scout locations for a Trump hotel in Moscow. “It was an extraordinary experience,” Trump wrote in The Art of the Deal . “We toured half a dozen potential sites for a hotel, including several near Red Square.” He came away “impressed with the ambition of the Soviet officials to make a deal.”

And yet a deal was never struck, neither then nor in 1996, when the Moscow real-estate market really cranked up and Trump tried to bid on a renovation of Hotel Rossiya near the Kremlin. Nor did anything come to fruition in 2008 when Trump announced plans to build in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Sochi; nor in 2013, when he visited Moscow and said he was going to build a Trump Tower there with the help of Russian mega-developer Aras Agalarov. In June 2015, shortly before declaring his presidential candidacy, Trump bragged to Bill O’Reilly that, “I was over in Moscow two years ago and I will tell you—you can get along with those people and get along with them well. You can make deals with those people. Obama can’t.” At the time, it has since been reported , Trump’s surrogates Felix Sater and Michael Cohen were actively pursuing another real-estate development on Trump’s behalf in Moscow, but, by winter of 2016, that project was moot, too.

The American president has often bragged about his ability to cut deals and about how well he gets along with the Russians . The press and investigators have speculated about the extent of his connections to the Russian business and political elite. And yet, Trump never actually built anything in Moscow. When the president said, shortly after his inauguration, “I don’t have any deals in Russia,” he wasn’t wrong.

The question is why. When just about every other major hotel chain in the world was able to build in Moscow and beyond, why didn’t Trump close a deal in Russia?

The absence of Trump real estate in Russia, it turns out, is a revealing reflection of the disconnect between the image Trump projects and the reputation he and his surrogates have established in Russia.

In part it was because, as Donald Trump Jr. once said himself, Russia “really is a scary place.” In a 2008 interview with a small trade publication, Trump Jr. said that he had taken “half a dozen trips to Russia in the last 18 months” and that “several buyers have been attracted to our projects there.” But there was something getting in the way of those trips adding up to a Trump Tower Moscow. “It is definitely not an issue of being able to find a deal,” Trump Jr. said, “but an issue of ‘Will I ever see my money back out of that deal or can I actually trust the person I am doing the deal with?’ As much as we want to take our business over there, Russia is just a different world. … It is a question of who knows who, whose brother is paying off who, etc.”

Trump Jr., who did not respond to request for comment, was right: The world of Russian business is a dark and treacherous place, and Moscow real estate is one of its darkest corners. “Moscow is like New York in many ways, just way more corrupt,” says a Western real-estate developer in Russia, who asked for anonymity in order not to jeopardize local partners and ongoing business deals. “To pull a building out of the ground, you need so many permits, so many authorizations—the mind reels. And all of it is so corrupt, it’s insane.” To navigate all this, the Trump Organization would have needed a local partner that was not just a capable developer, but had the right political connections to secure all the necessary permissions. “You need a good Russian partner, otherwise there’s no way,” says Mark Stiles, an American businessman who had extensive real-estate holdings in Russia.

In 2013, Trump worked with Agalarov , who had stellar connections at the very zenith of Russian political and business life. But that deal went sour after it caused a scandal in Kyrgyzstan— long story —and after the Russian economy took a nosedive in 2014.

But at other times, Trump’s man on the ground was Felix Sater, a Russian-born wheeler and dealer from the Russian-immigrant enclaves of Brooklyn. Sater, who declined to comment on the record for this story, once served a year in an American prison on an assault conviction after he stabbed a man in the face with the stem of a broken margarita glass. Not long after he got out of jail in the mid-90s, he was charged with securities fraud. Sater struck a deal to avoid prison time by becoming an FBI informant—a role that included providing the U.S. government with Soviet-era weapons purchased from an arms dealer.

In 2002, Sater, who was renting office space in Manhattan’s Trump Tower, worked his way into Trump's inner circle. In 2004, Sater started traveling to Moscow and tried to put together Russian real-estate deals for Trump. One potential deal, a Trump building on the territory of Moscow’s Soviet-era Sacco and Vanzetti Pencil Factory, fell through when the Russian partner was unable to get the right permits.

In late 2007, in addition to his work for Trump, Sater also began serving as an adviser to the real-estate developer Sergei Polonsky, a flamboyant builder who has called himself Russia’s Donald Trump. (“And yet he’s gone bankrupt twice,” Polonsky said of Trump, according to the Russian news agency RIA Novosti , “and I haven’t, ever.”) Polonsky, who named his son after his development company, Mirax, was behind some of Moscow’s hottest developments. Sater was tasked with helping Polonsky develop international projects, but only one ever came to fruition.

This didn’t exactly surprise Polonsky’s lieutenants. Alexey Kunitsin, who at the time was chairman of the board at Mirax, told me that Polonsky had been warned about Sater and his past, but Polonsky didn’t care. “I would never hire somebody like that,” Kunitsin said. “You can’t trust him in any way, not in a professional setting, not in a personal setting. You could see it very clearly. He was telling constant crazy stories, wild fantasies about all the people he knew. He was not a balanced dude. He’s very emotional and gets into conflicts very easily.” Kunitsin recalled that Sater would also brag to his coworkers at Mirax about how good he was at spending all the money he allegedly earned. “It didn’t really inspire confidence, especially when he described it all so colorfully,” Kunitsin said. Another former Mirax employee who dealt with Sater paints a similar portrait. “He’s not a serious person,” the former Mirax employee said. “He’s not a total bullshitter, he can do some things, but he’s also a bullshitter. He tries to create the impression of someone who is extremely well-connected and very busy.”

That Sater raised suspicions and turned Moscow businessmen off with tales of conspicuous consumption, in a city where it is practically a sport, is deeply telling. “You really have to be very talented to do that,” said a prominent Russian real-estate consultant, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he worried that speaking to a journalist would jeopardize his professional relationships in Moscow. “And most people didn’t take him seriously. He was ready to pay for a few bottles of Cristal in the club, but was not someone you want to make a serious deal with.”

Polonsky was hard hit by the 2008 financial crisis, which also killed off Trump’s plans for building Trump buildings in Russia. But this didn’t derail Sater, who ditched Polonsky and, in 2010, became a senior adviser to Donald Trump, according to his business cards and email signature. That year, he was working on Trump’s development plans in Russia, again. And he ran into trouble, again. Sater told people in Moscow he had a signed authorization from Trump to enter into negotiations on his behalf, but because of Sater’s flamboyant manner, few people believed the document was authentic. “He was walking around with a power of attorney or something from Trump,” the Russian real-estate consultant said of Sater. “It was a very suspicious-looking document.”

Sater’s reputation continued to haunt him, even in Russia. “In 2010 when you Googled him you got a story form The New York Times about his past and it made things difficult for him,” says the former Mirax employee, referring to a 2007 article by Charles Bagli . The piece was the first to dredge up Sater’s checkered history and to put it in one, reputable place. Sater tried spelling his name “Satter” but it didn’t help.

A boutique Moscow PR agency offered to help rehabilitate his image. “Nice people [in Moscow] didn’t want to do business with him,” says a representative of the now-defunct agency. His assessment of Sater’s dilemma, which he shared with me on condition of anonymity, was stark. “Your mass media image today is the classical negative image of businessperson who is likely to be connected a criminal,” the PR agency wrote to Sater in September 2010. “Your media image is created by a third party, not you. You [sic] story is covered by media sources in a negative fashion. As a result, it affects even neutral news on your persona.” (Sater did not end up hiring them.)

It also didn’t help that Sater was a freelancer, and an outsider. He may have been born in Moscow, but he had left as a child. Despite a stint in Moscow in the 1990s , his return visits were brief and sporadic, his Russian accented by his long life in America. He would have read to Russians as an American, a foreigner. He had no obvious krysha , or “roof”—political protection as insurance against things going sideways. “The first question when you’re doing business in Russia is: who’s your krysha ?” says one longtime Western investor in Moscow, who asked for anonymity because of the sensitivities of doing business in such a treacherous environment. “No krysha , no deal.” Polonsky had provided one such krysha , but by the time Sater tried in 2015 to build a Trump Tower in Moscow City, the capital’s modernist financial district, Polonsky was in prison and on trial for embezzlement. (He has since been released.) Trump, whom Sater claimed to be representing, was not a good krysha either: He was a foreigner, lived in New York, and had no pull within the various power structures in Russia. (The White House referred queries about this story to the Trump Organization. In response to repeated inquiries, a spokesperson for the Trump Organization underscored that it “has never had any real estate holdings or interests in Russia,” but declined to address questions about the president’s previous business relationship with Sater.)

In the fall of 2015, months after Trump declared his presidential candidacy, Sater was at it again, according to reports in The Washington Post and New York Times . In emails obtained by the Times , he bragged to Michael Cohen, Trump’s lawyer and unofficial campaign surrogate, that he had lined up financing for a Trump Tower in Moscow City from VTB, a bank under U.S. sanctions. (VTB denies that any such negotiations ever took place, saying through a spokesperson that “that not a single VTB group subsidiary had any dealings with Mr.Trump, his representatives or any companies affiliated with him.”) He also bragged that “I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected.” That year, Trump signed a non-binding letter of intent, and Cohen told the Times that he spoke with Trump three times about the deal.

Again, the deal went nowhere. According to the Times , for all his blustery promises of getting Putin involved, Sater did not even have the connections to get the proper permits to get the project going.

But there were two other factors. One was the sad state of the Russian economy. 2014 had brought the twin shocks of plummeting oil prices and Western sanctions, and the ruble collapsed. The sanctions cut off access to cheap financing, including to banks like VTB, known as the wallet of the FSB , one of Russia’s intelligence services. Real-estate development ground to a halt; vacancies rose. It was a punishing, prohibitive environment in which to build a new luxury high-rise.

The other factor was that Sater’s Russian partner, Andrei Rozov , did not have the economic heft or the political connections to overcome these obstacles. Sater knew Rozov when they worked together at Mirax, but he was the wrong partner for a Trump Tower Moscow. Rozov mostly developed residential projects in a sleepy, shabby bedroom community far from Moscow’s center. It is not, in other words, the kind of prime real estate where one would build a ritzy hotel. Moreover, by 2015, Rozov was trying to rescue his money and invest it in the United States, in the shale boom towns of the Dakotas. According to two sources who know Rozov, he was scheduled to attend Trump’s inauguration but didn’t make it. Rozov declined to comment for this article.

With the project hopelessly stalled, Cohen tried to nudge it forward in January 2016 by calling in the big Russian political guns Sater had bragged about. But Cohen seriously misfired, and instead emailed Putin’s mustachioed, bon vivant spokesman Dmitry Peskov for help with the Trump Tower project. Moreover, Cohen told me, he sent the email to the general inbox for press inquiries listed on the Kremlin website. Peskov confirmed to the Russian press that his office had received the email and chose to ignore it. “As far as we don’t respond to business topics, this is not our job, we did not send a response,” Peskov said.

Some Western observers saw this as evidence of high-level contact between the Trump Organization and the Kremlin, but to veterans of the world of Moscow real estate, it was nothing but a rookie mistake. They see the story as emblematic of why Trump could never build anything in Moscow, despite three decades of talk. “That is like the stupidest, most absurd thing ever,” says the Western real-estate developer of Cohen’s email. Nor were they surprised that the Trump team committed this error, given who was on the team. “The Russians that he associates with, I would never do business with,” says the Western real-estate developer of Trump and his business partners from the former Soviet Union, like Sater. “I’ve been involved with Russia for 25 years. ... A genuine developer could’ve done a lot with that brand.”

Yet the brand, for all its potential appeal to Moscow’s gaudy nouveau riches, didn’t have much cachet in Russia. It was not well-known enough for Moscow developers to pay a premium to license the name. “The Trump brand, which in America is very strong, in Russia it doesn’t have that kind of pull,” the former Mirax employee said. “Russians won’t agree to pay 30 percent more for elite real estate” just because it was branded “Trump,” because “no one in Russia watched The Apprentice .” The Russian real-estate consultant voiced a similar sentiment. “In Russia, Trump’s name was never that interesting or notable so that someone would be willing to invest and license it,” he said. “Everything that was built in Russia appreciated well without Trump’s name, so there was no need to pay for his name. There was no business sense in licensing his name.”

Hotel brands like the Ritz Carlton or the Four Seasons are paid not just for their names but to actually run the hotel built by a developer. All Trump offered was his name, and at a hefty mark-up at that. The Russians were skeptical, especially given that Trump was not investing anything in any of these projects. “Trump didn’t invest anything,” says Kunitsin, the former Mirax board chair, “and in my opinion, the brand is a little too expensive.”

“Trump wants a fee for branding and doesn't put money in, so most developers’ in Moscow responses are ‘so what the fuck do we need him for?’” says one person familiar with the various licensing talks. This was especially the case with Polonsky, who felt that his name was worth more in Moscow than Trump’s. Says the source familiar with the talks, “Developers were all looking for people to bring money there, and Donald doesn’t write checks, he takes checks. They said, ‘Why should we pay Donald Trump 10 or 15 percent, plus you had to write a check for a million up front to show you were serious, when we could pay three percent to Hyatt or four percent to Ritz Carlton? What’s the big deal about Trump?’” (The catch, of course, is that Trump’s brand is far more recognizable in Russia now that he is president, but given the suspicions about Trump’s ties to Russia, any potential deal would also attract negative attention.)

And for all Trump’s talk of being able to negotiate with the Russians in a way that Obama couldn’t, Trump’s people inspired no respect at Moscow’s real-estate negotiating table. “Trump wants everything and he’s dealing with the Russians, who aren’t stupid,” says the Western investor in Russian real estate. “If you want everything from the Russians, they’re not going to give it to you. Trump’s way of negotiating is to ask for every fucking thing. The Russians have a different philosophy of negotiation: He who asks is the weak party.”

Owner Mik Bergersen and his wife Nicole took over The Baso in 2021 after being loyal punters for decades.

‘Hundreds will come out on a weeknight in Canberra’: is the Baso Australia’s best music venue?

A rare constant in the national capital’s changing live music scene, the Baso fosters an intimacy that can bring music lovers of all stripes together

Tell us: what is Australia’s best music venue?
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T ucked away in a sleepy suburb of Canberra , opposite an Officeworks and behind a pet shop, is a nondescript, boxy building. But walk through its doors and you’ll find yourself in the Baso, one of Canberra’s most beloved music venues and host of some of the capital’s wildest nights, when rock and metal legends such as US star Phil Anselmo, Ukrainian band Jinjer and Australian group Wolfmother have taken to the stage. Although the Baso has long been a place of pilgrimage for metalheads, it now hosts gigs of all genres and attracts music lovers of all stripes – and across cultures.

“Canberra has a big Nepalese community and they love rock and roll,” says co-owner Mik Bergersen, who bought the venue in 2021 with his wife, Nicole. “Sabin Rai and the Pharaoh - he’s described as the Bryan Adams of Nepal, and every single person in the crowd was singing along.

“I didn’t know the music, I don’t know the language, but it didn’t matter. The joy in the room was amazing.”

Having opened in 1985, the Baso is Canberra’s longest-running independent live music venue and one of its largest, with a capacity of 700 people. It hosts roughly 200 gigs a year, split between its main stage and a smaller room for more intimate concerts. In the central space, the crowd moshes underneath a ceiling studded with electric guitars signed by the musicians who have played there through the decades.

The Baso (formerly The Basement) - the iconic live music venue in Canberra.

The Baso is a rare constant in the national capital’s changeable live music scene. Canberra had multiple buzzing venues throughout the 1990s, when bands such as Cat Power, Nirvana, Public Enemy and Sonic Youth performed in the city. These international acts took to the stage in places such as the Gypsy, which closed in 2001; ANU Bar, which was demolished in 2018 as part of a redevelopment of the Australian National University; and the Phoenix, possibly Canberra’s most famous venue, which closed in 2019 after a drawn-out dispute between its landlord and property managers.

Several new venues have opened in the wake of those closures and the chaos of the Covid-19 pandemic, but none have the capacity of the Baso, meaning that it hosts many of the national and international acts that pass through the city. However, there aren’t as many of those as there used to be either.

“When touring bands used to drive between Sydney and Melbourne, it made sense to break that up with a show in Canberra, but now people fly,” explains Mik, who grew up in Canberra and attended gigs at The Baso for more than a decade before buying it. “But I think probably the main reason Canberra doesn’t get so many bands is because it doesn’t have a great reputation in Australia or overseas.”

When bands do come, the Baso’s owners say they don’t regret it. “Hundreds of people will come out on a weeknight to check out a band in Canberra because it’s a privilege for us to get them to come through here,” says Mik.

Clockwise from top left, Deprivation, Regurgitator, Witchskull and Northlane perform at the Baso in Canberra

And bands often return to the Baso: Australian singer Clint Boge played sets at the Baso in 2021 and 2022, then came back earlier this year with his band, the Butterfly Effect, for a sold-out gig.

“They’re used to playing bigger venues than ours, but Clint told us that one of his idols said that on a tour you should always play a smaller venue where you can really connect with the crowd, which you can do here,” says Nicole. “The band hung around at the end of the night, met all the fans. It was fantastic.”

The phenomenon of the supportive Canberra crowd has also been experienced by the team at Sideway, a live music venue with a capacity of roughly 120 that opened in the city centre in 2019.

“The kids don’t act too cool. They don’t stand with their arms folded at the back, nodding their head,” says Aaron Crowe, Sideway’s band booker. “When a cool band comes to Canberra, the crowd is really down to have a great time.”

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Sideway is located inside the heritage Sydney Building, which used to be home to the Phoenix. Coincidentally, Sideway opened the week after The Phoenix closed. “It was sad to see it go, but it was great we opened because there was still a venue in town for bands to play at,” says Jonathan Corcoran, Sideway’s sound engineer. “One door closed and another opened.”

Like the Baso, Sideway hosts bands and musicians of all kinds. Among the bands who have played at Sideway are Chinese indie trio Carsick Cars, Australian punk group Shady Nasty and US rock band the Garden.

This mixing of styles in both Sideway and the Baso is partly out of necessity: the local scene isn’t large enough for venues to limit themselves to one genre and remain profitable. But one positive side effect of this is that unlike in larger cities, where fans of different styles of music might be siloed in specialised venues, both Sideway and the Baso reach music lovers of all kinds – and sometimes bring them together.

“The Baso is a metal bar, and there’s a community in that, but a lot of the young bands are more punk or indie or folk,” says Mik. “They all have their own scenes, but on a night when we have three or four bands on, they will bring all their friends, all their communities, and they’ll all support each other.”

This is part of a new series turning the spotlight on the best live music venues around Australia. What’s your favourite? Let us know here and we’ll share your stories and memories.

Australia's best music venues
Australian Capital Territory (ACT)
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