Full Breakdown
Trump Tower Tbilisi: U.S. Family Real Estate Venture Linked to Russian Oligarchs
8/8/2026, 2:08:57 AM
Project Overview
Eric and Donald Jr. Trump announced a 70-story luxury apartment tower in Tbilisi, Georgia, branding it “Trump Tower Tbilisi.” The development is promoted as the city’s tallest building and is presented as the Trumps’ first project in the region. The Trump Organization’s press release lists Biograpi Living, the Pkhakadze family, and Riverside Invest as partners, while the Trumps’ own social media posts describe the collaboration as “joint efforts” with “respected and professional developers.”
Background on Trump’s Post-Soviet Real Estate Activity
The venture follows earlier Trump-linked projects in Russia, including the aborted Trump Tower Moscow and the Trump SoHo condo-hotel built with the Sapir Organization. Those deals attracted scrutiny for alleged Russian connections, a pattern the current Tbilisi project appears to repeat.
Financial Links and Corporate Structure
Investigative reporting by PunchUp and The Newsground traced several key figures to Russian-linked financial networks. Georgian businessman Paata Gamagoneishvili, a former Moscow trader who earned a state medal from Boris Yeltsin, co-owns Biograpi Living and controls Riverside Invest through Tall Trade Ltd., a British Virgin Islands entity with opaque ownership.
- Gamagoneishvili and partner Roland Isaev were tied in 2019 to a scheme siphoning tens of millions from Lukoil’s Bulgarian arm.
- In 2006, two of their Moscow malls sold for roughly $230 million to an Austrian fund.
- Records show $123 million held at Russia’s Sberbank and about $80 million at Swiss lenders, with interest earned on $375,000 (Sberbank) and $250,000 (Alfa Bank) as recently as February 2025.
- Tall Trade’s parent company sold all shares for $71.4 million to an anonymous Cypriot shell in November 2022.
Official Responses
The Trump Organization, the Sapir Organization, Riverside, Gamagoneishvili, Isaev, and SoftSwiss did not respond before publication. Biograpi, via email, denied any shareholder or participant role in the tower, describing the press release as non-binding marketing material.
Implications and Ongoing Scrutiny
The deal sits amid broader concerns about Russian-linked capital entering Georgian infrastructure, especially after The Newsground linked other tower partners—Finvest Georgia and the Blox Group—to donations for billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili’s pro-Russian party. The layered corporate web, offshore holdings, and historic Russian ties have placed the project under investigative focus, raising questions about the extent of Russian financial influence in a high-profile U.S. family development abroad.
