The decision rejects the claims of the Turkish Treasury, the General Directorate of Foundations and the Russian Federation. Thus, the property, currently valued at about 1.5 billion Turkish liras (approximately 30 million Euro), officially passes into the hands of three French citizens – brothers Cedric and Aurelie Lecomte Isvechin and their relative Jean-Yvan Isvechin. The controversial villa on the shores of the Bosphorus
The history of the estate begins in 1841, when French lawyer Aimé Landevozen bought the house from the Greek merchant Christaki Efendi. Later, in 1868, her family sold the property for 400 thousand groschen to Nikola Isvechin – an employee at the Russian embassy in Constantinople.
After Isvechin’s death in 1903, the property was leased to the Russian Empire with the permission of Sultan Mehmed Reshad and served as a residence for married diplomats. However, it was never officially registered as Russian state property. With the collapse of the Russian Empire, the creation of the USSR, and later the emergence of the Russian Federation, the status of the property remained unclear. During cadastral inspections in 1950, it was again registered in the name of Nikolay Isvechin. In 2004, the Turkish state filed a lawsuit arguing that Isvechin had died without heirs, and insisted that the property pass into the ownership of the Treasury. In parallel, the General Directorate of Foundations claimed that the land was part of the Sultan Bayezid fund. After years of research of Ottoman firmans, notarial deeds, and international documents, the court recognized the French descendants as the legal heirs. The case has already been inscribed in the legal history of Turkey as one of the largest in terms of volume of evidence and historical depth. Today, the magnificent building on the shores of the Bosphorus, witness to two centuries of diplomatic history, has its owners again – the heirs of the Russian diplomat, whose name was almost forgotten.
Illustrative Photo by Selim Çetin: https://www.pexels.com/photo/low-angle-photograph-of-concrete-tower-2042109/
