Sherlock Holmes’ house in London belongs to the Nazarbaevs
No other house in the world is as famous as 221B on Baker Street, London. This is the very same house in which the famous writer Arthur Conan Doyle settled his world famous characters – the detective Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Dr. Watson. Now, the address “221B, Baker Street” has once again resounded throughout the world, but this time thanks to the first President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbaev and his family.
According to the British newspaper “The Times”, the owners of Sherlock Holmes’ house are the daughter of Nursultan Nazarbaev, former Senate Speaker Dariga Nazarbaeva, and her son Nurali Aliyev.
“The name of the owner of London estate at 221B Baker Street, which served as the fictional house of Sherlock Holmes, is a mystery worthy of a novel of Arthur Conan Doyle. For five years, there have been rumors about the identity of the apartment’s owner. Now, The Times can reveal that the building – together with other real estate and land between 215 and 237 Baker Street worth £ 140 million – belonged to the daughter of the former President of Kazakhstan and her son,” the newspaper writes.
The article notes that, according to records in the Land register, in 2015, Dariga Nazarbaeva and Nurali Aliyev were the owners of real estate on Baker Street. At the same time, the daughter of the first President of Kazakhstan owned 90% of the property, and the remaining 10% were assigned to her son Nurali.
Now the official owner of these houses and land is a certain company Farmont Baker Street Limited. The article reports that it purchased the property in 2005. Meanwhile, the law firm Mishcon de Reya, which represents the interests of the Nazarbaev family, declined to comment on the information which The Times had obtained.
However, in fairness, it should be noted that The Times was not the first who published the data on the owners of the house of Sherlock Holmes. So, in April 2017, The daily beast (the American online news) wrote the following:
“A new investigation by London transparency watchdog Global Witness suggests that Rakhat Aliyev (former son-in-law of Nursultan Nazarbaev, committed suicide in February 2015 in a prison in Vienna, Austria – ACCA), together with his very influential son Nurali, could be the ultimate legal owners of the famous Sherlock Holmes’ house at 221B Baker Street, or rather the place where this house would have been if it existed (there is Sherlock’s Museum with this exact address located in the wrong place, a few doors away). In total, the Global Witness report concludes that the companies and people, who may be directly or indirectly associated with Rakhat Aliyev and Nurali Aliyev, are behind a portfolio of British companies owning real estate in Baker Street worth £ 137 million and the mansion worth £ 9.3 million in Highgate (Karl Marx’s last house),” was reported in the article titled “Does the late head of the Kazakh State Security Committee own Sherlock’s house?”
A year later (in April 2018), the online edition Quartz also turned its attention to real estate on Baker Street:
“The court documents that Quartz saw, and the files, leaked into the Panama Papers, suggest that the property belonged, at least in part, to one or more family members of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev. In 2015, Global Witness suggested that Rakhat Aliyev was the owner. However, the lawyers of BCL Burton Copeland, which represents the nominal director of the holding company that owns the real estate, absolutely denied that Rakhat Aliyev ever owned it. Could it belong to other members of Aliyev’s family – his son Nurali or his ex-wife Dariga?
“This is a £ 130 million question,” says Tom Mine, who researched the Global Witness’ real estate report. “The company eliminated Rakhat. So, Nurali and Dariga remain,” wrote Quartz in the article “Undiscovered mystery: Who owns Sherlock Holmes’ house for £ 130 million”.
In March 2020, The Telegraf published an article about property owners on Baker Street.
“Farmont Baker Street company, which owns 215-237 Baker Street, has among its former directors two men, who were repeatedly mentioned in legal documents released this week by the High Court: Massimiliano Dall’Osso and Mukhamed-Ali Kurmanbaev. According to the written arguments of the defendants in the case, Dall’Osso was Dariga Nazarbaeva’s “personal assistant” who may have been involved in the purchase of two properties confiscated by the NCA,” was reported in the material “Sherlock Holmes and the mystery of who owns 221B Baker Street”.
It is worth noting that this publication was appeared against the background of the scandal that erupted in the UK, when the authorities seized the property of Dariga Nazarbaeva and Nurali Aliyev on suspicion that it was purchased with money obtained by criminal means. However, the Nazarbaevs’ lawyers subsequently managed to allay all suspicions and drop all charges. Dariga Nazarbaeva and her son were returned all the arrested real estate worth over $ 100 million.
