Background and career
Yelena Nikolayevna Baturina (Russian: Елена Николаевна Батурина; born 8 March 1963) is an international billionaire businesswoman and a philanthropist of Russian origin. She is based in Austria. She was married to Yury Luzhkov, mayor of Moscow (from 1992 to 2010), until his death in 2019. In 1991, she founded Inteco, an investment and construction company. According to Forbes, with a fortune of $1.2 billion, she was the richest woman in Russia, until Tatyana Bakalchuk overtook her spot in February 2020 with $1.4 billion. As of 2025, Baturina ranks 2,479th on the Forbes Billionaires List with a net worth of $1.3 billion. Her sources of wealth are listed as “investments, real estate, self-made.” She holds the 100th position among Russian billionaires and ranks 4th among the wealthiest women in Russia.
Baturina is a Moscow native who began working as a design-technician at the Frezer industrial tool plant (where her parents worked) after graduating from high school.
1980–1982: the Frazer plant, technician-designer, then senior design engineer of the Chief Technologist Department; 1982–1989: Institute of Integrated Economic Development of Moscow, researcher; Russian Union of United Cooperatives, head of the Secretariat; the Mosgorispolkom Commission on cooperative activity, senior specialist. since 1989 engaged in private business activities; 1991–1994: LLP "Inteco", director; 1994–2011: CJSC "Inteco", president; 2006–2011: deputy head of the interdepartmental working group on the priority national project "Affordable and Comfortable Housing to Russian citizens", a member of the commission on the development of affordable housing under the President of the Russian Federation on the implementation of priority national projects and demographic policy. Baturina met her future husband, Yury Luzhkov, in 1987 when they were both serving at Mosgorispolkom, a Soviet-era municipal commission. At the period of their co-working the relationships were purely professional. In one of her interviews Baturina remembers: "We never even thought about anything like that when we were working together, it all happened much later". Baturina and Luzhkov married in 1991. The next year, he became mayor of Moscow. In 2010, he was dismissed by President Dmitry Medvedev amidst still unproven accusations of corruption and mismanagement voiced on state run television. After her husband's dismissal, Baturina moved to London. She explains the choice of the city by the fact that her two daughters decided to study in London In November 2010, Luzhkov gave an interview to the Telegraph newspaper stating that the couple was sending their daughters to study in London to protect them from possible persecution from the Russian authorities. He also said that a house had been rented in the west of the city for them and that he and his wife intend to visit them regularly. Luzhkov also claimed that the Russian authorities were planning to break up Baturina's business empire and that the couple would fight the attempt: "We will not give up. My wife will battle for her business and for her honour and self-worth. That is for sure". In September 2009, The Sunday Times erroneously stated that Witanhurst, a large house in Highgate, North London, had been bought by Baturina, via an offshore front company. Baturina sued the papers owners, Times Newspapers, a subsidiary of News International. Times Newspapers apologized for the story and paid damages to her in October 2011.
In 1989, Baturina launched her first enterprise with her elder brother Victor, primarily dealing with computer software and hardware. In 1991 Baturina founded her company, Inteco ("Inteko" (Интеко) in Russian), which focused on construction though it began as a plastics business. In 1994, Inteco purchased a plastic factory. In 1998, the company won the contract for producing 85,000 seats for Luzhniki Stadium, Moscow's largest stadium. The critics claimed that the decision was affected by Luzhkov as Mayor of Moscow, though Inteco stated that their price was 50% less than their nearest competitor's. In the middle of 1990s, Inteco entered the construction business focusing on development of advanced materials and technologies for facade work, cement, brick and poured concrete construction, architectural design and real estate business. In 2001, Inteco acquired from a private person the controlling stake in one of the leading housebuilding factories in Moscow DSK-3. Following modernization the construction plant provided 500,000 square meters of housing per year. This acquisition, according to Baturina's interviews, became the starting point for the company's major construction activity. "DSK-3 is my first real step into construction. I had been viewing the market for a long time. I saw how quickly and dynamically it was developing, how many opportunities it was offering. Still the deal took place sort of accidentally. The lawyers of the former main owner's widow came to me and said that some unfriendly entities were questioning her property rights and trying to simply rob her of her stake. And the frightened woman had decided to sell all the shares to Inteco on the condition that we defend her rights in court. We have successfully managed that and just like that, almost by accident, became the owners of the plant." At one point, Inteco was said to control 20% of construction in the capital. However, according to experts, quoted by media, from 2000 to 2010 of construction activities Inteco's share in the state order was no more than 2%. While the main contractors for the implementation of the Moscow government orders were construction companies MFS-6 (24.5%) Glavmosstroy (20.7%), SU-155 (13.7%) and MSM-5 (12.2%). In 2002, Inteco created a subsidiary "Strategy Construction Company", whose main objective was the construction of monolithic buildings. Such cement plants as "Podgorensky cementnik" and "Oskolcement", one of the largest cement producers in the central Russia, were also bought at that time. In 2005, Inteco sold its cement works for estimated US$800 000 to Eurocement Group in order to consolidate financial and administrative recourses that the company needed for the implementation of perspective construction programs. In 2006, Baturina was appointed Deputy Head for the inter-ministerial group under the national project "Affordable and Comfortable Housing for Russian citizens". Shortly afterwards, Inteco sold DSK-3, a producer of prefabricated buildings, as well and fully concentrated on the construction of monolithic housing and commercial real estate. Part of the proceeds from the sale of these assets were directed by Baturina to buying some high-yield "blue chips" of the largest Russian companies such as Gazprom and Sberbank. This step allowed the visionary businesswoman to later sell the shares in the crisis year of 2009 at a significant profit and return Inteco's earlier business development bank loans ahead of schedule, which allowed to keep the businesses afloat. The interest rate on loans at that time sprang up from 10.8 to 18 percent, which led to the ruin of a significant number of Russian developers. At the same time, as part of a new cement project, Inteco purchased Verkhnebakansky Cement Plant and the Atakaytsement cement factory located in the Krasnodar region. As of 2007, the company owned such entities as Inteko Plast (55%), Bistro Plast (50%), construction firms SK DSK-3 (100%), Styre (100%), Inteco CENTER (100%), Inteco Chess (Elista, 100%), Intekostroy (70%). The company also owned enterprises in the city of Sochi - Park (100%), The Matrix (100%), Sochi AO (75.58%), Horizont (50%), Selectioner (Belgorod region., 100%) and Uspensky Agromashplast (Moscow reg., Uspensky, 38%). Inteco Group also included Russian Zemelny Bank and trading house Moscow River involved in the supply of grain. In 2007, the company's revenue, according to its own data, amounted to $1 billion. At the end of 2008, along with Gazprom and Russian Railways, Inteco was included into the list of 295 strategic enterprises of the country. In 2009, the company begins cooperating with an outstanding Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill as part of the programme aimed at creating fundamentally new systems for mass housing in Russia. In 2010, Inteco launched the construction of the second academic building for the Moscow State University named after Lomonosov. In 2010, Baturina was named one of the largest taxpayers in Russia, the taxes to the state budget for 2009 amounted to 4 billion rubles. As of 2009, 99% of the company is owned by Baturina, 1% is on the balance sheet of the Company itself. The project development portfolio is more than 7,000,000 square meters, the cement capacities exceed 0.6 million tons per year. At the end of 2010, Baturina sold its Russian Zemelny Bank (RZB) to foreign investors. The most significant completed projects of Inteco in Moscow (in the period of company Baturina's ownership) are: the residential quarter "Shuvalov" (270,000 square meters), the residential quarter "Grand Park" (400,000 square meters), the residential site "Volga" (400,000 square meters), the multifunctional complex "Fusion Park" with the "Autoville" - museum of unique cars from private collections (100,000 square meters), the Fundamental Library (60,000 square feet), and the academic building for Humanities (100,000 square meters) of the Moscow State University. After her husband's resignation, Baturina started selling her assets in Russia. The best offer was filed by Mikail Shishkhanov and Sberbank Investments. They bought the 95% and 5% shares of Inteco correspondingly. The exact amount of the transaction was never disclosed, but the report of Sberbank stated that according to the experts that participated in the preparation of the deal, the market value of Inteco, its projects and structures was around 1.2 billion dollars. The deal did not include the cement plants of Inteco. One of them was later sold to Lev Kvetnoy for estimated 17 billion rubles.
The first development in the new hotel chain was the five-star Grand Tirolia Golf & Ski Resort, located in the Grand Tirolia Golf & Ski Resort in Kitzbühel, Austria. In 2009, the hotel achieved honorary status as the "Home of Laureus" awards in Austria, and became the official venue for the annual ceremony. In 2018, the hotel was sold to an Austrian investor. In 2010, Baturina opened the New Peterhof Hotel in Saint Petersburg, which received a number of architectural awards. In 2012, following reconstruction work, Baturina opened the Quisisana Palace in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic. The hotel is a member of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World association. Three years later, Baturina opened the Morrison Hotel in Dublin, Ireland, which she purchased in 2012 for €22 million. It was sold in 2022 to Zetland Capital for €65 million.
In late 2015, Baturina opened an office in New York to oversee her US$10 million investment into commercial buildings she acquired in central Brooklyn, and look into the prospects of developing a construction project. In November 2016, Baturina's structures launched a construction and development project in Europe. Her company acquired a land plot on the coastline of Limassol, Cyprus. The construction of high-end apartment building Symbol Residence was launched in 2019 and was completed in 2021.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
