Russian Wineries “WinePark”, “Château de Talu” and “Abrau-Durso” accepted by GWTO at Wine Tourism Forum

The wineries “WinePark”, located in Russian-occupied Crimea, as well as “Château de Talu” and “Abrau-Durso”, both located in the Krasnodar region, have been officially accepted by the GWTO. The reception took place at the First Wine Tourism Forum organized by GWTO on May 12 in the village of Abrau-Djurso, Krasnodar region of Russia.

“Abrau-Durso” is owned by Boris Titov, who is the former commissar for business rights of the President of Russia. Titov started his business career in the 1990s in the Russian-Dutch oil trading company “Urals”, where he collaborated with Gennady Timchenko, a close friend of Vladimir Putin. Business relations between Titov and Timchenko have not weakened over the years. In 2018, companies belonging to Timchenko bought the company “Lazurnaya Yagoda” from “Abrau Group”, which owns the vineyards located in Putin’s palace in Gelendzhik. Great Britain imposed sanctions on Titov for his close relations with Timchenko and Putin.

“Château de Talu” belongs to Olga Tkacheva, the wife of the former governor of the Krasnodar region and former Russian Minister of Agriculture Alexander Tkacheva. Tkachev is one of the largest landowners in Russia – before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the area of ​​agricultural land owned by him reached 1.1 million hectares. An investigation by the “Wall Street Journal” shows that after the full-scale war in Ukraine, Tkachev’s agricultural complex seized more than 160,000 hectares of agricultural land in the occupied territories of Ukraine, previously owned by Ukrainian farmers. Tkachev has been sanctioned by Australia, Great Britain, the European Union and Canada.