Remember me
Until recently, the Rendez-Vous boutique was doing a busy trade in chi-chi ski wear and shoes here on the smartest street in the achingly cool ski resort of Courchevel.
On the next floor up, the five-star Hotel Des Grandes Alpes was also having a busy season, with guests paying up to £16,000 a night for a suite (including butler), plus access straight on to the piste.
Then, at the start of the year, something curious happened.
In the early evening of January 27, a fire broke out in the hotel and raged through the night, making headlines around the world. The blaze was especially shocking, coming just a month after the horrific scenes at a bar in the Swiss ski resort of Crans Montana, where 41 people perished.
Fortunately, everyone in Courchevel was safely evacuated. The site is now barricaded off, its charred penthouse open to the elements and the boutique closed, while the authorities have called the fire 'an accident'. Hmmm.
The blaze at the Hotel Des Grandes Alpes was not the first time Courchevel had made headlines that month.
Less than a week earlier, there had been an outcry in Moscow after Instagram footage emerged of top Russian models, celebrities and influencers jetting in for four days and nights of cocktail and caviar-fuelled partying.
VIPs – including TV presenter Ksenia Sobchak (daughter of President's Putin mentor, Anatoly Sobchak, and described as 'Russia's Paris Hilton') – were shown enjoying £5,000 jeroboams of champagne while a red carpet was rolled out (literally) across the snow. Social media feeds captured every last tray of oysters, every Botox-enhanced pout. One starlet in a fur coat posed astride a horse.
Instagram pictures (like the one above) of Russian VIPs enjoying themselves at the ski resort of Courchevel in France caused an outcry in Moscow, with senior politicians denouncing their four days and nights of cocktail and caviar-fuelled partying when the nation is still at war
Emergency units respond to a fire at the five-star hotel Les Grandes Alpes at the Courchevel ski resort in the French Alps on January 28, 2026
The Mail's Robert Hardman beholds the debauchery on display at La Mangeoire restaurant and club in Courcheval
Vladimir Putin loyalists lined up to denounce the tastelessness of it all at a time when their fellow countrymen were at war.
'An orgy of Ukrainian piglets,' declared Moscow hardliner Vitaly Milonov, slamming the VIPs as 'gold diggers'. Another politician, Amir Khamitov, deplored the 'disregard for our soldiers'.
A rebuke from one of the troops, posted from his bunker, went viral: 'While we are here spilling blood for the motherland, we see that personalities like Sobchak are holding parties in Courchevel. Are you not ashamed?'
And the host of this woefully ill-judged display of bling? None other than that smoke-damaged Rendez-
Vous boutique under the same hotel. Though little-known in Western Europe, Rendez-Vous is a big name in Russia and had been celebrating its 25th birthday in style (or so it thought). Now it's the target of a 'patriotic' boycott.
So, what a stroke of bad luck that, just days after upsetting the Kremlin, it should be closed down by a raging fire. The coincidences do not stop there. And as I discover, the upper-floors neighbour which caught fire, the Grandes Alpes, is the only hotel in Courchevel in Ukrainian hands.
Now, I am not Sherlock Holmes or, this being France, Jules Maigret. Nor am I a conspiracy theorist. However, it does all strike me as the teeniest bit suspicious.
Though some pro-Russian trolls have gleefully described the fire as 'karma', neither the French media nor the local authorities have pointed to a connection. 'It's just a coincidence,' says a spokesman for the Courchevel tourist office.
Robert Hardman visited the ski resort to see first hand how the wealthy and famous Russian visitors spent their money. Pictured: Robert outsde the Rendez-Voud boutique and apartment block that caught fire
The resort has becone a magnet for the Russian super rich - but their luxury lifestyle has not gone down well with everyone in their homeland
The resort, which costs as much as £16,000 a night for a suite, even has its own Louis Vuitton
A chic skier dressed in an fashionable all-white ensemble stands in front of the Louis Vuitton store
'It was just a chimney fire,' says the head of the local hoteliers' association. Nothing to see here, monsieur – just move along now.
Everyone would like this story to disappear. This, after all, is a very big year for Courchevel – its 80th anniversary – which is why I am here in the first place.
Courchevel was purpose-built for skiing, expanding from a few post-war huts to a much-loved destination for French and British skiers.
Then came a new gazillionaire clientele after the fall of the old Soviet Empire, most of whom then vanished after the invasion of Ukraine. The recent inferno now raises an intriguing question: are the Russians back in Courchevel? Indeed, did they ever really leave at all?
Locals still talk of the New Year's Eve party which former Chelsea boss Roman Abramovich booked at the Chalet des Pierres in the 1990s. Having made a £40,000 downpayment, he later changed his mind and told the owner to keep the cash – whereupon she simply sold the reservation to another oligarch. I remember coming to the resort in those days and finding every menu in English, French and Russian.
The Russians even developed their own form of partying here and gave it a name – 'Courchevelski'. Rather than tumbling out of expensive restaurants in search of a nightclub – with paparazzi lying in wait – they found restaurants where they could dance around (or on) the table.
The idea caught on. Restaurants up on the mountain started doing the same, with well-refreshed lunchtime diners gyrating in their ski boots.
Old family-run three-star hotels started selling up to four or five-star corporate investors. Local shops gave way to big names such as Hermes and Fendi. The price of everything rocketed.
Courchevel also, naturally, has its own Rolex store where tourists can spend thousands on a luxury timepiece
One of the creative window displays at the Courchevel luxury ski resort
One of the club's performers spoirts a Russian hat as she dances on a table
Then two seismic world events intervened. In 2020, Covid struck. The big spenders had only just started to return when, in February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. As the West imposed sanctions, a lot of Russian money suddenly vanished. Menus went back to just French and English.
There were reports that the good times were now over for Courchevel – except that they were not. New super-rich visitors from the Gulf, Asia and Brazil started filling the gaps, while one veteran Courchevel staffer tells me that lots of Russian regulars rebranded themselves as Bulgarian, Israeli or 'from Dubai'.
As I discover, the 'Courchevelski' legacy is alive and well. On a sunny afternoon, it is party time on the terrace of the Cap Horn (where pizzas start at £40 and it's £200 for a dollop of the cheapest caviar) with dance anthems booming out at 3pm.
By teatime, the apres-ski is rocking at Baies, another mountain restaurant, with bouncers charging £140 just to hear the 'famous' DJ inside (plus drinks on top, starting at £10 for water).
Come nightfall, I find the original 'Courchevelski' restaurant, La Mangeoire. It has no sign on a door, just a couple of heavies. Inside, the speakeasy decor is so dimly lit that people use mobile phones to read the menu. You must book in advance (it's a £140-a-head penalty for a no-show) and the 10pm second sitting is the popular slot.
The wine list runs from £100 to £6,000. A steak Rossini (foie gras on top) is £70 (plus £15 for chips). Both food and service, it must be said, are good. A cabaret singer serenades us until 11.30pm and a heavily tattooed young woman in little more than a bikini starts touring the tables doing a fire-eating routine (a tad surprising post-Crans Montana).
The music switches to a thudding dance beat and a troupe of girls in bulging black basques and fishnets are soon leading the table dancing. Interestingly, all are wearing Russian military hats.
It must be said, the biggest foreign nationality here has always been the British by a mile. Even when the Russians peaked at 6 per cent in 2019, they were still in third place, far behind the French and UK.
Firefighters battle the flames at the five-star Lana hotel in Courchevel in January
I meet Claude Pinturault, the president of the association of hoteliers, whose family run the five-star Annapurna and the delightful Hotel Les Peupliers down in Courchevel Le Praz. He laughs at the media's fixation with the Russians. 'Yes, you have Russian billionaires here but you have even more British and French billionaires,' he says. Russia's presence, he adds, is now matched by the Middle East.
However, there is one key difference. Most Saudi and Gulf visitors don't drink, whereas Russians do. And for proof of that, says M. Pinturault, look at the Cap Horn on January 6 – Christmas Day in the Orthodox Church. Packed with Russians, it took £400,000 in a single lunch sitting.
'The English like good value, the Brazilians want colour and the Russians want whatever is most expensive,' laughs Patrick Lepeudry, owner of many ski and clothes shops here.
Veteran local ski guide Jean Louis Perales tells me that his clients over the years have included Saudi and Qatari royalty and famous names like the late Formula One boss Eddie Jordan while growing numbers are coming from Asia, particularly India.
However, he remains very fond of his Russian clients: 'They were always very good to me.' Many left post-Ukraine – with some decamping to St Moritz in no-questions-asked Switzerland – but a lot are back in town, even if they are now identifying as being from Monaco or Switzerland – or Britain.
The main thing is to remain low key. As those preening, pouting vulgarians at the Rendez-Vous party discovered, you might be in the most exclusive spot in the Alps – but Big Brother is still watching.