Takeover in Tuscany - Russian-style

Forte dei Marmi, a small community located to the south of Pisa, has long attracted foreign visitors. The writer Thomas Mann holidayed there, as did the artist Henry Moore; Michelangelo was so struck by the region's marmi, or marble, that he chose to use it in his sculpture.

Now residents of the sleepy Tuscan town are welcoming an altogether different breed of visitor: wealthy Russian tourists. As previously reported on The First Post, resorts from the Austrian Alps through to the French Riviera, have been swamped by this new eastern invasion, and genuine local resentment against the suddenly rich visitors is growing.

The Russians' growing presence is causing rental costs to shoot up - with some villas being leased for more than €100,000 a month - and a recent survey showed property prices in Forte dei Marmi are the

rebecca newman on the perils presented by an influx of wealthy Eastern visitors

highest in the country. Most of the original residents have sold up and moved out.

"It is a real problem for us," says Umberto Buratti, the mayor. "We have in some cases intervened and put a ban on a house being sold for 30 years."

Gucci, Prada and Burberry stores have sprung up in the town centre and the local magazine is now printed in both Italian and Russian. The town's new hotel Grande Imperiale, built despite much opposition, is a confection of marble columns, solid gold fittings and crystal chandeliers - rooms cost up to €2,000 a night.

Adds a doleful Buratti: "Once families would come and stay in a simple cottage and ride around on bicycles. Now everyone wants to drive their Ferrari through the centre of town."