No single person currently owns the Black Pearl yacht. The 106.7-meter sailing vessel belongs to the contested estate of Russian billionaire Oleg Burlakov, who died in June 2021, and title is being fought over by his estranged widow and two daughters on one side and his sister and brother-in-law on the other. An international trial is scheduled for January 2027, and until a court resolves the dispute, the yacht is held through offshore holding companies rather than by any individual.1ICLR. Bourlokova v The Estate of Oleg Bourlokov
Who Oleg Burlakov Was
Burlakov made his money in Russian cement and energy. He sold his cement company Novoroscement in 2007 for about $1.2 billion and his oil business Burneftegaz in 2014 for another $1 billion. Forbes put his net worth at $650 million when he died at age 72 from COVID-19 complications on June 21, 2021.2Megayacht News. Oleg Burlakov, Owner of Black Pearl, Passes Away
He commissioned the Black Pearl from Dutch shipyard Oceanco and took delivery in 2018, reportedly spending around $200 million on the build, with some estimates closer to $250 million once design changes are counted.3Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Family Of Wealthy Russian Businessman Wants Independent Investigation Of Death Burlakov was closely involved in the yacht’s design throughout construction.4Oceanco. Black Pearl He had been married to his wife Lyudmila for nearly five decades when she filed for divorce in 2018. The divorce was never finalized before his death, and that unfinished business is part of what has turned his inheritance into a cross-border war.
The Two Wills Driving the Fight
Two competing wills sit at the center of the dispute.
The first, from 2004, left Burlakov’s entire estate to Lyudmila. The second surfaced only after he died: a handwritten 2019 will, in Russian, found in a notebook. That later document names neither Lyudmila nor the couple’s two adult daughters, Elena and Veronika. It names Burlakov’s sister Vera Kazakova and her husband Nikolai Kazakov as beneficiaries instead.5Forbes.ru. Парусник покойного Бурлакова за $200 млн оказался в центре тяжбы за его наследство
Lyudmila and her daughters say the 2019 will is a forgery. They are seeking roughly $1.2 billion, alleging that forged documents and fictitious loans were used to strip them of what they are owed. The Kazakovs reject that account. They say Nikolai was Burlakov’s longtime silent business partner and that the two men built the cement and energy fortunes together, giving the Kazakov side a legitimate claim quite apart from the will itself.6NEWS.MC. Wife of Monaco-Based Billionaire Covid Victim Fights for Pay-Out
The Companies That Actually Hold Title
The Black Pearl is not registered to any individual, and in that respect it is like most superyachts in its class. Title is held through a chain of offshore holding companies, primarily entities called Edelweiss and Gatiabe, which use bearer shares and are structured through jurisdictions such as Panama and the British Virgin Islands.
That setup separates the legal owner on the registry (the company) from the beneficial owner (whoever controls the company’s shares). So the inheritance fight is really a fight over the Edelweiss and Gatiabe shares. Whoever ends up controlling those entities controls the yacht and the rest of a portfolio valued at roughly $950 million as of March 2025.1ICLR. Bourlokova v The Estate of Oleg Bourlokov The yacht itself flies the flag of the Cayman Islands, a common registry for vessels this size.7VesselFinder. BLACK PEARL, Yacht – Details and Current Position – IMO 1012490
Where the Case Stands
Litigation is active in at least four countries at the same time: England, Monaco, Russia, and the United States. Because of the scattered corporate structures and the family members’ different residences, no single court controls the whole dispute.
The most consequential ruling so far came from the English High Court in 2025. The Kazakov side asked the court to throw out the Burlakova claims; the judge refused. The court also granted a proprietary injunction blocking the disposal of Edelweiss shares held through a related entity called Hemaren, though it declined to impose a broader asset freeze. It did allow Edelweiss to keep funding the Black Pearl’s upkeep under existing loan arrangements, on the reasoning that letting a yacht of this value deteriorate would hurt both sides.1ICLR. Bourlokova v The Estate of Oleg Bourlokov Operating costs ran about $11 million for 2024–2025 alone.
In Florida, the Kazakovs filed their own claims. A trial court stayed those cases on comity grounds in deference to the international proceedings, and a Florida appellate court dismissed the Kazakovs’ challenge to that stay in 2025.8Justia Law. Nikolai Kazakov, et al. v Elena Bourlakova, et al. The main international trial is set for January 2027. A sanctioned Swiss money manager and questions about a Russian litigation funder are also in the mix, adding sanctions-compliance issues on top of the inheritance questions.
Has the Yacht Been Sanctioned or Seized?
No. Despite the wave of yacht seizures that followed Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the Black Pearl has not been sanctioned or detained by any government. Burlakov died before the major sanctions packages took effect, and the dispute itself is a family inheritance fight rather than one involving state-connected individuals on sanctions lists. The yacht continues to operate and has been spotted in Mediterranean waters as recently as late 2025, kept under professional management while the courts work through who will eventually own it.