[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]
For many of their almost 10 years of romantic relationship, according to Irina Bolgar, she and Pavel Durov enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle. The extravagance grew as Telegram, the messaging app created by Durov, became a global success and established him as a billionaire and one of the most powerful technology executives in the world.
During the summers, they spent about a million dollars a month on a 47-hectare resort in Sardinia. In Dubai, they stayed in a beachside penthouse with its own elevator. They traveled to Paris, Italy and Monaco on private planes.
But something changed during that period, according to Bolgar, who is now locked in a legal dispute with Durov. According to her, Durov went from being a principled businessman whom she admired to becoming an increasingly arrogant, controlling and ultimately abusive adversary.
According to a Swiss criminal complaint that Bolgar filed last year against Durov, he abused his youngest son on five occasions in 2021 and 2022. On one occasion, Durov hit the boy on the back, throwing him across the room, she said. . In another, she shook him so hard that his shoes came off. Later, he grabbed the boy by the leg and told him he would kill him.
The details are contained in public documents related to the criminal case, which Forbes previously reported. The names of Durov, Bolgar and the children do not appear in the files, but there is a series of identifying information, including the file number of a civil complaint for child custody filed by Bolgar.
A spokesman for the Geneva prosecutor’s office confirmed that an investigation was underway but declined to comment further. Durov’s spokesman said in a statement that the incidents “never occurred” and that the accusations “lack substance.”
Bolgar, in a four-hour interview in Geneva, where he now lives with the three children he had with Durov, said he could not give more details about the child abuse allegations because of the investigation. But he gave other details about their relationship, which now threatens to further complicate Durov’s already significant legal problems in Europe.
In France, Durov faces criminal charges related to the spread of illicit content on Telegram, in a case that shocked the technology world. It is one of the first examples of a democratic government that holds a senior leader of a social network criminally responsible for what was disseminated on its platform.
French authorities detained Durov in August after landing near Paris on a private plane from Azerbaijan. Prosecutors have charged Durov, an outspoken advocate of freedom of expression and privacy, with crimes including allowing the distribution of child sexual abuse material, drug trafficking and fraud. He could face years in prison.
Bolgar’s allegations include failure to pay child support, according to documents related to the criminal complaint. This could mean that even if Durov finds a way to overcome the charges in France, he faces more legal problems in other countries.
Bolgar’s account, along with the case he brought against him, also opens a window into the rarefied life of the highly secretive Durov, who remains one of the world’s least-known tech magnates. Although Telegram has amassed nearly a billion users, Durov has avoided the same kind of scrutiny aimed at his Silicon Valley counterparts. Guessing the loyalties of the Russian-born businessman has become a parlor game among technology experts in Russia, where Telegram dominates.
“Durov’s carefully crafted image as a defender of freedom collapses when we face his personal life,” said Bolgar, a lawyer by training originally from St. Petersburg. “It reveals a stark contrast between his public declarations of freedom and his private actions.”
Durov’s spokesman said Bolgar and Durov had “never been a couple” and that she personally claimed millions of dollars he provided in child support and spent lavishly on luxury items and other extravagances.
“Durov has many children, and he supports each of them equally at a rate of $10,000 per month per child,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement. “Durov now hopes that the Swiss judicial system will resolve this dispute so that the funds improperly spent by Bolgar can be used for their intended purpose: supporting the children.”
Bolgar denied misusing the money he received from Durov.
Her comments contrasted with evidence of their relationship provided by Bolgar, including receipts for lavish vacations, a notarized document promising up to 150,000 euros a month in financial support, and years of photos that include the couple smiling on a private jet, celebrating birthdays. and spending time together in Italy, the United Arab Emirates, Russia and elsewhere, as well as other materials.
A former Durov employee, who frequently saw the two together from 2013 to 2018, described a loving couple living in an apartment in central St. Petersburg. The person, who declined to be identified for fear of retaliation, reported seeing Durov give lavish gifts to Bolgar, including Cartier jewelry.
Swiss prosecutors have not decided whether they will file formal charges against Durov. However, a Geneva child protection court suspended Durov’s right to personal contact with children following Bolgar’s complaint. Filing a false criminal report is illegal under Swiss law and can lead to prison sentences or financial penalties.
Durov, according to his spokesman, became aware of the charges this summer and had hired lawyers to “present the true facts to the Swiss authorities.”
Yoga, bitcoin and a lion for rent
Bolgar, 44, said he met Durov, 39, through a friend in the summer of 2012 in St. Petersburg. He said their friendship blossomed over a shared interest in yoga. Things got romantic on a winter holiday at the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai. She described him as charming and said she was impressed by his libertarian views.
When they returned to Russia, Bolgar said, they lived together at the W Hotel in St. Petersburg before getting an apartment within walking distance of his company headquarters. At the end of 2013, she had her first child.
According to Durov, the relationship was transactional. “Bolgar, who was Durov’s yoga coach at the time, suggested to Durov that they have children together,” her spokesperson said in a statement. “He accepted, and three children were born.”
In the years that followed, according to Bolgar, their continuing romance allowed him to see Durov’s career take off up close. When he started building what would become Telegram in 2013, he said, the two texted each other in an early version of the app. He shared photos of Durov from that time, almost always dressed in black, hunched over a laptop or phone.
In 2014, Durov sold his stake in his first social media company, VKontakte, saying he was left with no choice after Russian authorities demanded access to user data, which he refused to hand over. As a consequence, he said, he would leave the country. The story would become an anecdote that Durov often repeated to trumpet his commitment to privacy.
Bolgar described the truth as more complicated. After several months outside Russia, Durov returned to the country with Bolgar, despite his public denials, he said. The two resumed their life together in St. Petersburg.
“When we decided to return to Russia, I asked him: ‘You said you didn’t want to return to Russia, but now you have the opposite intention.’ He replied: ‘Why not go back to Russia?’”
Durov’s spokesman said he lived mainly outside Russia after 2013 but had never made a secret of his return to the country.
Bolgar said Durov was not always sincere. When she asked him about a 2014 news story that said he had an estranged family, he denied it. Bolgar later learned the truth when the couple’s driver brought a bag of gifts to celebrate the new year that appeared to be for Durov’s other family.
“The driver mixed up the lists and brought the gifts for older children,” he said.
Durov has often projected an ascetic image. But Bolgar said he enjoyed an opulent lifestyle. In a message he sent her, he talked about the price of a $20,000-a-night hotel in Dubai and which suite to stay in.
“I can do it because I made tens of millions of easy money with bitcoin,” he told him.
She also focused on her image, she said, becoming obsessed with fitness and having a friend who owns an agency that represents swimsuit models take photos of her for social media. He told her to “come see how people on the Forbes rich list live” and, on another occasion, sent her a photo of himself holding a rented baby lion.
Durov’s spokesman denied that Durov lived in any way other than austerely. “Durov has consistently criticized the extravagant lifestyles of the richest and advocates creating rather than consuming,” the spokesperson stated.
File charges
Durov’s behavior changed in 2021, according to Bolgar. He became psychologically abusive towards her and began lashing out at her children.
“Either you do everything my way and then have the moral right to complain, or you do everything your way and don’t complain,” Durov said in 2021.
In April of that year, he hit his then-3-year-old son, causing him to fall “across the room,” according to Bolgar’s statement to police. In November 2021, in Paris, he hit the child again and shook him violently. As a result, the boy suffered a concussion and, for several months, wet the bed and had nightmares, according to the complaint.
Around this time, according to Bolgar, Durov began asking him to move to Dubai. She refused. He said he was concerned about laws in the United Arab Emirates, where Durov had become naturalized, that could give him the right to take custody of the children.
The last time they saw each other was in September 2022. She warned him that if he did not change his abusive behavior, she would go to the police. He threatened to cut off her financial aid. She did so starting in November 2022, according to her.
In 2022, Durov said he discovered that Bolgar had abused the use of cards linked to his bank accounts by spending several million dollars on luxury clothing and expensive jewelry. Durov, according to his spokesperson, “believes that the display of excessive wealth is especially harmful to children, as it often diminishes their motivation and creative drive.”
Bolgar, who now works as a project manager, said Durov had never complained about her spending habits.
In March 2023, he went to a Geneva police station to file the official complaint against Durov.
“Why didn’t I do it before? “I found it quite difficult to file a complaint against the person I spent 10 years of my life with,” he said. “It was some internal barrier in my mind that I had to jump over to go to the police,” he added.
Initially, the Geneva Prosecutor’s Office refused to accept the complaint because it had been filed more than three months after the last violent episode. A court allowed the case to move forward after she appealed. This year, Bolgar also filed a civil lawsuit in Switzerland against Durov for child support, for which he claims almost 125 million Swiss francs, about $145 million.
In recent months, the dispute has spread to social media. In July, after Bolgar made his first public comments about Durov being the father of his children, he posted that he had fathered more than 100 children in many countries as a sperm donor.
Bolgar responded on Instagram by posting a portrait of herself and the three children. “We must always remain responsible for our children,” he said. “That’s the difference between a sperm donor and a father.”
Adam Satariano is a technology correspondent for the Times based in London. More from Adam Satariano
Paul Mozur is the Times’ global technology correspondent based in Taipei. He previously wrote about technology and politics in Asia from Hong Kong, Shanghai and Seoul. More by Paul Mozur