Arian Romanovsky on Instagram last January in Courchevel, the French resort that was, until recently, an oligarch favorite.

Gulag for the Glitterati

The arrest of a socialite known to some as “Moscow’s Truman Capotski”—and the flight of Putin’s own goddaughter—signals a purge of the Kremlin-coddled plutocracy

By Andrew Ryvkin

“I get invitations to dinners and art openings as much as before,” Arian Romanovsky told an interviewer five months after Russia invaded Ukraine. “Places of attraction haven’t changed; our Tatler people are everywhere: from the Patriarch Ponds [Moscow’s Mayfair] to Saint-Tropez.... After all, balls were thrown even in the most difficult times.”

Until his arrest this week, Arian Romanovsky was a fixture in Moscow’s glittery circles. A Truman Capotski of the late Putin era, Romanovsky edited the Russian version of Tatler magazine and threw debutante balls for the children of some of the most sanctioned individuals on earth. He made his mark helping the wives of Russia’s business and political establishments spend money on some of the best boats, manor houses, and restaurants the world had to offer.