How We Prepared the Apartment for the Ambassador of Kazakhstan

Karina Bakhorina, a rental broker at Whitewill, explains.

A few years ago, the Kazakh ambassador approached me. He needed an apartment near Chistye Prudy: a new building, at least 300 m² in size, and it absolutely had to have a spacious living room where he could host meetings with representatives from other countries and advisors. There were almost no suitable options on the market.

At that moment, a 300 m² apartment on Strastnoy Boulevard became available. It was the only apartment on the floor, and the living room was about 150 m² with windows on three sides. In terms of location and space, the option was a perfect fit right away. But then the real work began. The apartment had only two bedrooms instead of three, bright blue walls, an early 2000s interior, and a lot of heavy, bulky furniture. At the same time, the embassy had its own furniture that needed to be accommodated.

We found designers, figured out how to turn a walk-through office into a separate room, and coordinated the installation of room dividers, a new wall color, renovations, and the removal of furniture. Removing the large sofas alone cost about 200,000 ₽. The owner didn’t live in Moscow, so it took about three months to finalize all the arrangements. In the end, he flew to Moscow specifically for this, and the contract was signed at the embassy.

The monthly rent was 650,000 ₽. Including utilities and the costs of renovating the apartment, we managed to stay within the client’s budget of about 1 million rubles. During this time, the apartment became noticeably more versatile: the bright walls were repainted in calm beige tones, excess furniture was removed, and light-colored textiles were added.

Prior to this transaction, the apartment had been vacant for about half a year. The ambassador has now been living in this apartment for three years, and after all the changes, it will be much easier to rent it out in the future.