Clive Palmer’s $1m woman, Evgenia Bednova, lives it up in midst of poverty

The glamorous consultant Clive Palmer paid to search for mining­ oppor­tunities enjoys a luxurious lifestyle in Kyrgyzstan.

Evgenia Bednova.

Clive Palmer’s million-dollar ­mystery woman lives in upmarket inner-city Bishkek, in Kyrgyzstan, enjoying a luxury lifestyle and pampering her young daughter.

Evgenia Bednova — the glamorous consultant who was paid $1 million of Queensland Nickel’s money to search for mining­ oppor­tunities for Mr Palmer amid the country’s resource-rich Tian Shan (Heavenly Mountain) range — refused to talk about her work.

The 36-year-old, divorced mother of two lives in a grey, rendered home on a double block worth about $260,000 in the capit­al city of the poorest of the former Soviet countries, which Moscow farmed for its uranium and gold, as well as its rural produce.

The home overlooks the spectacular Kyrgyz Ala-Too mountains and Ms Bednova attends tennis lessons at a nearby indoor sports centre favoured by Bishkek’s wealthy residents.

She deleted her social media accounts when Mr Palmer was being quizzed in the Federal Court in Brisbane this month about his association with her, and she wrote on her Facebook page that she was deleting all photographs.

Mr Palmer became agitated when asked in court why he diver­ted the payment from Queensland Nickel accounts to Ms Bednova, while also transferring $15m to himself, $15m to his resort in Bora Bora and $8m to wife Anna’s fathe­r, Alexandar Sokolo­v.

A neighbour who says Evgenia Bednova kept to herself.

The transfers all happened on November 29, 2012, but Mr Palmer insisted the money was his personal money and he could do with it as he liked.

In several phone conversations, and then through the intercom of her gated property, Ms Bednova told The Australian she did not want to comment, or talk about Mr Palmer or her association with him.

She did not respond­ to questions about why she was the only passenger on a private charter commissioned by another Palmer company, Mineralogy, at a cost of $250,000, to fly from Kyrgyzstan to meet Mr Palmer in Singapore.

“I do not have to talk to you,” she said, and then threatened to call the police.

A middle-aged man, alongside Ms Bednova’s daughter Alissa, aged about nine, opened the compound gates and also declined to answer questions about her work for Mr Palmer.

Several rugged-up neighbours negotiated deep, rutted icy patches on the small street to speak of the insular family. Chinour Sobiou­foila lives directly opposite the house and said the Bednovas had kept to themselves since moving in two years ago.

A car at Evgenia Bednova’s compound.

“Not like the Korean family that was there before, the Koreans were very friendly,” she said.

Another neighbour said they had never seen anybody at the house, and the family that lived there was “ invisible”.

Mr Palmer told the court his relationsh­ip with Ms Bednova was “only business” and she was ­engaged to act as the company’s representative in Kyrgyzstan.

The Australian has verified that Ms Bednova works in the mining industry as a consultant.

However, the large Queensland Nickel payment to her is hugely out of prop­ortion to the averag­e annual wage in Bishkek of just $7500 and miners’ exploitative wages that struggle to reach four figures a year.

Kyrgyzstan became indepen­dent in 1991. It is beset by corruption and aggression: Canada’s Fraser Instit­ute has repeatedly rated it as one of the five worst countries to do mining business with.

Under cross-examination in the Federal Court this month by barrister Walter Sofronoff for liquidator FTI Consulting, Mr Palmer was unclear about what the $1m was paid to Ms Bednova for.

Mr Sofronoff: “This woman who received $1m was doing work for the benefit of the companies in your group, or a single company in your group?”

Mr Palmer: “I personally don’t recall … I don’t remember the detail­ of what one person did when I’m employing (thousands of) people­ every day.”

He told the court Ms Bednova had previous experience in trade-related matters, with the $1m payment from Queensland Nickel described as “representation fees” in company documents.

Mr Palmer said Ms Bednova flew to Singapore privately for her safety, because the country’s airline had one plane and it had subsequently crashed.

Outside court, he claimed the $1m “wasn’t for her (personally), it was to run the office over there, and to represent and look for mineral opportunities”.

Mr Palmer said it was sexist for questions to be asked about payments to women employees.

Additional reporting: Guljan Altymyshbaeva, Sarah Elks