Over a dozen Russian actors, social media influencers, models and media personalities descended on Courchevel, a French ski resort, earlier this month to attend a four-day anniversary celebration hosted by Russian fashion brand Rendez-Vous.
Guests were reportedly flown in by helicopter and photographed drinking expensive champagne and tucking into dinner at the luxury gathering costing around one million Russian rubles (€11,000).
Among those partying the night away was Ksenia Sobchak, a prominent Russian media personality who comes from a family with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Sobchak, sometimes referred to as Putin’s “goddaughter,” has been critical of the Kremlin in the past and ran against Putin in the country’s 2018 presidential election.
Several attendees, including prominent Russian actress Elizaveta Bazykina posted images online of themselves enjoying high-end restaurants and skiing at the resort where rooms start at €8,600 a night.
Other high-profile guests included influencer Oksana Samoylova who has 17 million Instagram followers, supermodel Lena Perminova and her Ukrainian model boyfriend Taras Romanov, as well as celebrity stylist and host on Russia’s propagandist Channel One Alexander Rogov.
‘Send scum to a gulag’
Pro-Kremlin Russian lawmaker Vitaly Milonov called the lavish gathering “an orgy of Ukrainian pigs” and called for Russians to boycott Rendez-Vous and support “patriotic” businesses instead, adding that spending money in France helps Paris send aid to Ukraine.
Milonov told Russian pro-Kremlin news outlet Life.ru that such events support countries waging a “hybrid war” against Russia, claiming, without providing evidence, that such parties are sponsored by France, which sends arms deliveries to “Ukrainian bandits.”.
A Russian soldier on the front lines in Ukraine said in a video: “While we are here spilling blood for the motherland we see that personalities like Sobchak are holding parties in Courchevel. Are you not ashamed? What have you done for the front?”
Russian MP Alexander Tolmachev also lashed out at the celebration, saying that “foreign travel and an outrageously expensive hotel for influencers alone were enough to provoke public anger.”
Pro-Kremlin Telegram channel “Voice of Mordor” called for what it referred to as “scum… walking around in the Alps” to immediately be sent “to a gulag” in a post that received tens of thousands of views on Jan. 15.
Pressures of a wartime economy
International sanctions on Russia over its war in Ukraine have strained the country’s economy and slowed its growth, contributing to price increases of goods such as food.
Moscow last year announced a tax increase in an effort to increase funding toward the war, which began with Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly four years ago.
As the conflict grinds on, military and security spending continues to dominate state expenditures, with 38% of the 2026 federal budget earmarked for “national defense” and “national security.”
Western sanctions have also curtailed Moscow’s energy revenues, further straining Russia’s economy.
The bulk of the financial burden has fallen on everyday Russians, with the country’s finance ministry in October dismissing calls to tax Russia’s wealthiest citizens, saying such a move would be “simply excessive.”