Alexandra Tolstoy

Countess Alexandra Nikolaevna Tolstoy-Miloslavsky (; born 14 July 1973)

Early life Tolstoy is the daughter of Count Nikolai Tolstoy and Georgina Brown. She was born in Poole, Dorset. and then studied for a Master of Arts degree in Russian at the University of Edinburgh, during the course of which she spent a year in Russia.

She next moved to London, joining Credit Suisse First Boston's graduate scheme as an Eastern European Equities broker. She resigned after a year and spent the next two years working and travelling abroad, including six weeks walking the old Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route through Spain.

Tolstoy was reported in 2009 to be considering making a series about high society in contemporary Russia. in Bayswater, London, after which they set up their home in a small Moscow apartment. While filming Horse People with Alexandra Tolstoy in 2008, the BBC objected to Galimzyanov accompanying Tolstoy, and this was later reported to have tested the marriage.

While living in Moscow, Tolstoy taught English to the families of several "oligarchs" and befriended the billionaire Sergei Pugachev.

Tolstoy's marriage to Galimzyanov broke down in 2009, shortly after the birth of a baby boy. Tolstoy decided not to return to her former home in Moscow and in April 2009 established herself with her son at a house in Chelsea.

In the summer of 2009, Tolstoy was staying with Pugachev at a villa in the South of France and was also helping him to find a country estate in England. In December, she acquired a farmhouse near Malvern in Herefordshire for herself.

By 2011, Tolstoy and Pugachev were reported to be a couple, with homes in Monaco, London, and Moscow, but Pugachev, by then living in exile in London, remained married to his wife Galina, with whom he has children and grandchildren. In 2010, the couple had another son, and in 2012 a daughter.

In 2017, Tolstoy described Pugachev as controlling and feared that he might kidnap the children. In October 2018, she said in an interview that she was a single mother and stated that Pugachev had not supported her or the children financially for three years.

In 2023, Tolstoy announced that her bank account was closed by NatWest without any explanations.

Filmography Horse People with Alexandra Tolstoy (2009)

Publications The Last Secrets of the Silk Road: Four Girls Follow Marco Polo Across 5,000 Miles (London: Profile Books, 2003) The Horses of Heaven (2009)