goga ashkenazi

Goga Ashkenazi enters the immaculate lavender-painted room, her face devoid of make-up and hair pinned back in a tight chignon.

She sighs and apologises for being tired. ‘I only flew back from Kazakhstan at 3am this morning. I’ve had so little sleep.

‘Angelo, the stocky Bulgarian butler, hovers anxiously in his formal morning suit, snapping to attention when she politely orders her ’special drink’ – a cloudy concoction of lemon juice, sparkling water and vitamins.

He returns with the glass on a little silver tray, along with the day’s menu, sent up from the kitchen by Goga’s French chef Michel for her approval.

‘Michel is absolutely marvellous,’ Goga trills. ‘He left us to work for a hotel in the Maldives, but thankfully he came back after four months.’ It’s 11am and despite her jet-lag, Goga has already been busy managing her business empire on her personalised laptop.

It’s 11am and despite her jet-lag, Goga has already been busy managing her business empire on her personalised laptop.

The chatelaine of this impressive £28?million mansion in Holland Park, London, is reed thin and strikingly attractive, with flawless skin and a smoky voice (she enjoys the occasional cigarette) tinged with a faint accent.

In recent months this glamorous and exotic- looking tycoon from Kazakhstan has become a fixture on the London social scene.

Whether it’s entertaining Prince Andrew in her striking copper-lined dining room, meeting the Queen at Buckingham Palace, or supporting long-time family friend, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev – as she did by attending last night’s Raisa Gorbachev Foundation charity ball – Goga is emerging as something of an enthusiastic party animal.

But appearances can, as we all know, be remarkably deceptive. For despite her good-time girl image and passion for high fashion, Goga is not some Holly Golightly figure, as one glossy magazine has recently suggested.

She is, instead, that very rare thing: a bona fide female oligarch, a woman with a pathological need to make her mark as a successful entrepreneur.
Despite embracing student life with gusto, she was on course for a top- class degree. But by the second year she was being drawn increasingly to the bright lights of London. Having fun took precedence over her studies.

When she was 19 she met her first serious boyfriend, Dino Lalvani, who came from the super-rich Indian family that created the electronics giant, Binatone.

His sister Divia is a successful restaurateur who set up then sold the fashionable Knightsbridge eaterie Zuma and married chocolate heir Joel Cadbury in 2006.
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‘Dino was gorgeous and very well connected,’ says Goga. ‘I made many friends who I am still in touch with during that time. In the summer holidays I worked at Merrill Lynch as an intern because I wanted to become an investment banker.’

It came as no surprise to her tutors when she ended up with a third-class degree. She hid the truth from her parents, who were only told she had passed. At that stage, relying on her beauty and social skills – she is also an accomplished pianist – Goga might have become a trophy wife and society hostess.

Through Dino she ran with a jet-set crowd, which included former Formula 1 chief Flavio Briatore – at 22 she was photographed topless aboard his yacht – and Robert Hanson, heir to billionaire British businessman Lord Hanson.

However, Goga was no rich man’s plaything and took a job as a financial analyst with Morgan Stanley.

Then on a visit to Moscow in 2003, she met wealthy American hotel heir Stefan Ashkenazy. He was, she gushes, ‘beyond gorgeous and the most wonderful human being’. Three months later Goga had left her job and moved to Los Angeles, where Stefan had taken over the running of one of his family’s luxury hotels, and they decided to marry.

UN Targets Women And Girls On World No Tobacco Day | Tobacco Harmful For Young Indian Girls

1.5 million Women die by use of tobacco in the whole world. As UN’s warning this number could rise up to 2.5 million in the next two decades.

World Health Organization (WHO) theme for the global anti-smoking day, “sex and tobacco and the harmful effects of tobacco advertising and smoking in women and girls.

WHO says tobacco companies spend a lot of enticing marketing aimed at women because they have purchasing power and independence, particularly in the booming Asian economies.

In India, the sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products to persons fewer than 18 prohibited. But the Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) 2009 for India showed that 8.3 percent of girls in the 13-15 age groups, consumer or other form of tobacco. About 2.4 percent of girls eating cigarettes and 7.2 per cent consume other tobacco products.

As per National Family Health Survey (NFHS), over 54 million women using some form of tobacco. Apart from smoking, women in India, especially from rural areas, use snuff products gutka, paan masala with tobacco, mishri and yellow.

According to World Health Organization, the number of girls and boys who smoked was about equal in half of the 151 countries studied. This is disturbing because young people who smoke are likely to continue into adulthood.

“Suggest that the prevalence of smoking among women is rising in some countries,” the statement said.

iPads Which Is Bought By British Are Costliest In World

IPAD cost more in Europe and the UK than elsewhere in the world, according to recent reports. Prices in the UK and Europe is about a quarter higher than in the U.S., says a new study. Australia CommSec IPAD Index notes that there are savings from Europeans traveling to Asia, America or Australia.

The Financial Times app is a good way to get access to FT content, but while the program itself is free, you have to pay to see the contents of a miserly three articles. Do not miss the wonderful Guardian eyewitness app (free), which serves the best of our image, complete with lyrics and notes about how and why the image was created.

A place where IPAD emerge unexpectedly well in the kitchen. The Epicurious app contains thousands of recipes, organized thematically and searchable based on ingredients or keywords. You can also search based on what you have in the refrigerator program creates a shopping list based on the recipes you have selected, and when you are back in the kitchen, it makes it easy to follow cooking instructions on the screen.

But if you’re outside the UK should BBC News app (free) makes up for it. It sets up the news in a format better suited to the IPAD than just go to the BBC website – VCR (which is not on the website), and the layout is clear and intuitive.

joe mcginniss

Joe McGinniss Becomes Palin’s New Gotcha-Journalist Neighbor

Spring has sprung in Alaska, and with this beautiful season comes the news today that the Palins have a new neighbor! Welcome, Joe McGinniss!

Yes, that Joe McGinniss. Here he is – about 15 feet away on the neighbor’s rented deck overlooking my children’s play area and my kitchen window. Maybe we’ll welcome him with a homemade blueberry pie tomorrow so he’ll know how friendly Alaskans are.
We found out the good news today. Upon my family’s return this morning from endorsement rallies and speeches in the Lower 48 states, I finally got the chance to tackle my garden and lawn this evening! So, putting on the shorts and tank top to catch that too-brief northern summer sun and placing a giddy Trig in his toddler backpack for a lawn-mowing adventure, I looked up in surprise to see a “new neighbor” overlooking my property just a stone’s throw away. Needless to say, our outdoor adventure ended quickly after Todd went to introduce himself to the stranger who was peering in..