THE NEW YORK TIMES: It’s a key refuge for Moscow’s wealthy, including the record producer Iosif Prigozhin. He insists he still loves President Vladimir V. Putin, no matter what you’ve heard.
Iosif Prigozhin, a Russian music producer, scrolled to the bottom of the contacts app on one of his iPhones and showed me the tally of entries: 11,801.
He and his wife, the pop star known as Valeriya, “know everyone,” he told me. That includes the “generals and criminals” who once harmoniously shared a table at a concert of hers in Crimea.
“That’s Russia, my friend,” Mr. Prighozin said.
We were tucking into chicken and sea bass on the 25th floor of the skyscraper-resort in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where Mr. Prighozin and Valeriya own two apartments. There was a three-story “longevity hub” somewhere above us and a “global street food” spot through a tunnel of faux graffiti somewhere below us. Later, on the pool deck, suspended between two skyscrapers and 300 feet above vast roads and malls and building sites, Valeriya lip-synced for Instagram. » | Anton Troianovski | Photographs by Katarina Premfors | Reporting from Dubai, United Arab Emirates | Friday, July 11, 2025
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