Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom (1837 – 1901), during her reign of more than 63 years over the British Empire, the largest of her time, made great efforts to ensure that all European royal houses were linked to the lineage of the British monarch and to each other.
The House of Windsor, previously known as the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, is the royal house of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It was renamed on July 17, 1917, by King George V during World War I. Due to the German origin of the previous name and the fact that the United Kingdom was at war with Germany at that time, he decided to adopt the British name “Windsor” by royal proclamation.
The members of the current House of Windsor are related to the Bourbon family and the Spanish Royal Family, but also to the Romanov dynasty, descendants of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, father of the famous Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov.
All of this could explain the presence of Margarita Vargas, daughter of Venezuelan banker Víctor Vargas Irausquín, at the lavish wedding of Jorge Romanov in the Russian city of St. Petersburg.
In recent years, the descendants of Nicholas I of Russia have sought to reclaim some of those royal privileges and for their lineage to be recognized.
Tsar Nicholas I of Russia with his family
The Wedding
On the afternoon of Friday, October 1, Jorge Romanov, son of Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna of Russia and Prince Francisco Guillermo of Prussia, married Italian writer and lobbyist Rebecca Bettarini at St. Isaac’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg. However, before this significant moment, they wanted to host a pre-wedding dinner to share some initial moments with their guests (over 400 attended the matrimonial event). This dinner took place at the Grand Prince Vladimir Palace, now known as the House of Scientists. Following the ceremony, they offered a gala dinner to their 550 guests at the Ethnographic Museum, where the bride wore a stunning tulle dress adorned with pearls and embroidery by Reem Acra, complemented by a white silk cape with puffed sleeves by Elina Samarina. Pure elegance was also embodied by the Duchess of Anjou, Margarita Vargas, one of the attendees who again stole the spotlight during the evening.
During the gala dinner, the Duchess of Anjou shone like never before in a design by Elie Saab selected for the occasion. The gown featured transparent fabric in the neckline and skirt, with sequined embroidery creating an elegant black-and-white contrast. The dress, fitted at the bust and waist and lightly flared to the floor, also had a discreet teardrop-shaped back neckline, enhancing its flattering effect. Styling was by Cristina Reyes, completed with a black cashmere shawl from Again Cashmere, a black satin clutch from Jimmy Choo (the same brand for her matching shoes), as noted by Hola.
If there were still tsars in Russia, emperors in Germany, and kings in Greece, Bulgaria, or Romania, from all the branches of the tree planted by Queen Victoria of England and her husband, Albert of Saxe-Coburg, a crown would be dangling. Out of nearly a thousand direct descendants of the British sovereign, who passed away over a century ago, currently five hold a crown: Elizabeth of England, Harald of Norway, Margarita of Denmark, Carl Gustav of Sweden, and Felipe of Bourbon. They all now mourn the death of “Uncle” Philip, the dean of the royal houses of Europe and of their own families, who, like them, were part of the group that called themselves “the royal cousins of Europe.” This was no euphemism, as by the late 19th and early 20th centuries, most of Victoria and Albert’s children and grandchildren were heads or consorts of a royal house.
Philip’s death on April 9, 2021, shook the royal tree, highlighting the kinship with kings and queens, princes, and princesses who for decades formed endogamous marriages that strengthened family ties.
Felipe VI of Spain, who, along with Queen Letizia, recalled in his condolence telegram his “dear uncle Philip” (sic), descends through three lines from Queen Victoria. His maternal grandparents, Paul and Frederica of Greece, were, respectively, a grandson and granddaughter of Princess Victoria, the firstborn of the British sovereign, while his paternal grandfather, Juan de Borbón, was in turn a grandson of Princess Beatriz, the youngest. If that were not enough connection to Felipe of Edinburg, he was additionally a great-grandson of Princess Alice of England, and via Greece, a cousin of King Paul of Greece, explained Mariángel Alcázar in La Vanguardia.
Jorge Romanov is the most Spanish descendant of the Russian dynasty. He was born in Spain, just like his mother, Maria Romanova. His great-grandfather was the first cousin of Nicholas II.
The last couple to marry was Prince Andrei Alexandrovich of Russia and Elisabetta di Sasso-Ruffo in June 1918. The ‘new Romanovs’ have settled in Moscow, from where they aspire to open a dialogue from Russia to Brussels, where they first met, reported Xavi Colás in El Mundo.
The members of the Russian royal family were canonized by the Orthodox Church in 2000 as martyrs. The new ‘Romanov’ once again wore the crown within the cathedral. As if for a moment, the revolution had never happened.
Russian Cousins of the Bourbons
Life is like this: it is surprising, whimsical, beautiful, hard. It all depends on the person, the time, the social status, the eyes looking at it.
What we are discussing today is the life of two princesses, granddaughters of the queen of queens, Victoria of England, and the close relationship between them. They are Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg and Alix of Hesse.
Victoria Eugenie was queen consort of Spain, as Letizia is now. She was the wife of King Alfonso XIII, great-grandfather of Felipe VI, as reported by Sonia Martínez Martínez in martinezsonia.com.
Alix of Hesse is better known by her changed name to Alexandra Fiodorovna Romanova when she converted to the Russian Orthodox Church. Alexandra was the last Romanov empress.
Their lives ran parallel. Perhaps more than they could imagine when they were young girls, playing carefree at being princesses, which they actually were. However, they were marked by a difference that would shape the course of history, which was none other than love.
Five granddaughters of Queen Victoria, five queens.
We will focus on two: Ena, as they familiarly called Victoria Eugenia, and Sunny, as her beloved husband, Tsar Nicholas, called her.
Nicky and Sunny (the last tsars of Russia) married completely in love, and their bond grew over the years until death surprised them one summer night. All very epic.
Ena, for her part, also married for love, but in her own way, just like Alfonso XIII did. Well, he was a Bourbon and love there didn’t last long.
And that love, reciprocated in one and not in the other, became the thread that guided their lives; their way of reigning and their family lifestyle.
Both entered their adopted countries with a tragedy under their arm.
Alexandra Romanov was not liked at all by her in-laws and, consequently, by the Russian people, who were deeply superstitious. Her arrival in Russia coincided with the death of Tsar Alexander III, her father-in-law, who approved the union of the young lovers because he was dying.
The entry of Victoria Eugenia into the Spanish royal family was marked by blood. On her wedding day, they were victims of an assassination attempt.
It should not be forgotten that they are descendants of the queen who introduced hemophilia into an entire lineage and both were carriers of this disease (it was transmitted by women and suffered by men).
Again, love marks differences. The tsarevich inherited maternal hemophilia, just like the Prince of Asturias did. The pain was the same; the two cousins suffered from their children’s disease, feeling guilty, but while the empress always had the love and support of her husband, Victoria Eugenia suffered alone, feeling blamed by the king, who moved away from her.
Margarita’s Husband
When in 2019 the imposing door of the Valley of the Fallen basilica opened for Francisco Franco’s coffin to exit, two familiar faces led the procession: Cristóbal Martínez-Bordiú, the dictator’s grandson, and Luis Alfonso de Borbón, Franco’s great-grandson and Carmen Franco’s favorite grandson, the only daughter of the marriage between the dictator and Carmen Polo.
Luis Alfonso, 45 years old, walked with his head held high, proud of his mission, carrying not only the physical weight of the coffin but also the weight imposed on him by the history of two families that have placed the responsibility of being their representative on him. He is a great-grandson of King Alfonso XIII and of the dictator who ruled Spain’s destinies for 40 years. The son of Carmen Martínez-Bordiú, Franco’s granddaughter, who married with state wedding treatment Alfonso de Borbón Dampierre, heir to the nonexistent throne of France, reported Maite Nieto in 2019 in EL PAÍS.
His grandmother, Carmen Franco, was responsible for raising him, educating him, and instilling the family’s staunch religious and patriotic beliefs after his father, Alfonso de Borbón, passed away in 1989 (his parents had separated seven years earlier), when Luis Alfonso was 14.
In 2017, following the death of his grandmother—who placed all her trust in him, to the extent of entrusting him with the management of the family heritage that she did not trust to her own children—Luis Alfonso took on the role of honorary president of the Francisco Franco Foundation. Until then, his appearances as the Duke of Anjou and heir to the chimeric throne of France and the institutional videos uploaded to YouTube only hinted at his identification with the more traditional right.
However, opposite to that more restrained role, in recent years, he has engaged in activities that have shown his full support for the radical right, such as his participation in the last two editions of the World Congress of Families, where “the natural family” was defended and gay marriage, laws protecting the rights of the LGTBI community, and “radical feminism” were rejected.
Like much of his family clan, his appearances in the media were usually linked to gossip columns or his business dealings. Luis Alfonso has four children with Margarita Vargas Santaella—daughter of Víctor José Vargas Irausquín, owner of the Banco Occidental de Descuento and one of the largest fortunes in Venezuela—with whom he married in 2004.
This exclusive wedding, held in Santo Domingo, allowed him to become the representative in Europe for his father-in-law’s bank and hold high managerial positions in its Latin American affiliates. Additionally, Carmen Franco’s trust in him made him the CEO of Filoasa, the parent company managing the Franco real estate holding, with more than 170 properties across Spain.
His own fortune—his father’s inheritance and the nearly four million euros indemnity he received from an accident where he died while skiing in Colorado (USA)—also allowed him to venture into the business world. Since 2017, he has been the sole administrator of Spanish Influencers, advertised as the “first Spanish portal to connect companies with celebrity influencers,” and previously launched a gym in Madrid, Reto 48.
His business activity has also led him to appear in various Latin American media, which report on the complicated situation Luis Alfonso de Borbón is facing with Banco de Orinoco, owned by his father-in-law, where he is a director. Reports suggest that the Public Ministry of Curacao (former Dutch Antilles) is studying to press charges for alleged fraud. On social media, countless victims have criticized the entity with the hashtag #EstafadosBOD, mentioning Franco’s great-grandson, whom they claim was presented as “the prince,” a title that, combined with the Borbón surname, assured the bank’s solvency.
Now, the weight of his heritage, which has swung throughout his life, is encapsulated in his latest message on Instagram, posted after his great-grandfather’s exhumation: “My paternal lineage connects me deeply with France… where I have dynastic duties. At the same time, I have to take on the responsibilities of my maternal line… I owe it to myself to be faithful to the memory so unjustly attacked of my great-grandfather… Defending your memory is an integral part of my idea of honor and loyalty.”
The Banker Father-in-Law
Víctor Vargas is a socialist. The father of Luis Alfonso’s wife defined himself as “a socialist in the true sense of the word” in none other than The Wall Street Journal. Yet, much like magnetism, he didn’t mind that his daughter Margarita married the great-grandson of Franco in 2004. The wedding, held in La Romana (Dominican Republic), had 1,500 guests and was celebrated with music by Juan Luis Guerra. The socialist financier of the Bolivarian regime never hid his enthusiasm for the blood of some of his grandchildren to be tinged with the noble blue of the Bourbons. The wedding’s godfather was Vargas, a lawyer and financier born 66 years ago in Barinas, the same place Hugo Chávez hailed from. Whether the money for Luis Alfonso’s wedding came from Chavez’s regime is unknown, but it can be said that Víctor Vargas was beginning an alliance with the Chavista revolution that year.
Víctor Vargas
From two institutional positions, the presidencies of the Banking Association of Venezuela and the National Banking Council, Vargas supported, both publicly and privately, some of the most controversial economic measures of the Bolivarian Revolution. His businesses experienced tremendous growth since Chávez took power. But by the end of 2016, twelve years after the super wedding, those lucrative, privileged relationships with the political power turned very dangerous when, upon returning from a trip abroad, Luis Alfonso’s father-in-law was led by security agents to the headquarters of the political police in Caracas and interrogated for over two hours. Nicolás Maduro’s intelligence services questioned him about the blackout on December 2 that year on Venezuela’s main electronic payments platform, managed by Credicard, a company that Vargas controlled 33 percent of. Media linked to Vargas took 48 hours to diffuse that the banker had not been arrested but was “invited to a conversation” with the authorities. Soon he returned to life as usual, flying his jets and helicopters. Later, the name of Luis Alfonso’s father-in-law, along with names of some of his own and associated companies, appeared on the Falciani List along with thousands of potential tax evaders. All noise. Life goes on; Víctor Vargas and his second wife (the same age as his daughter Margarita) enjoy summer days in Cádiz. The arrival at a special dock of Víctor Vargas’s yacht in Sotogrande is a summer event, perhaps due to the 60 meters in length of the vessel or the number of expensive Ferraris and horses aboard. Luis Alfonso claims that this ostentatious lifestyle of the ‘socialist’ Vargas has nothing to do with him, who, according to him, has his three kids sharing a tablet, being rather Spartan in some matters.
Víctor Vargas owns the investment company holding portfolio, which includes Banco Occidental de Descuento (BOD), an entity that within a decade managed to surpass its original regional reach (Zulia state) to become the fifth largest bank in the country. This position was consolidated in September 2013 after the BOD absorbed the Chilean entity Corp Banca (which Vargas bought in 2008). The operation, approved by the Superintendency of Banks and Other Financial Institutions (Sudeban), was frozen between 2009 and 2013 due to a series of requirements imposed by Sudeban.
A confessed lover of luxury cars, horses, yachts, mansions, and private jets, the Barinas-born banker owns a polo team, Lechuza Caracas (valued at $2 million in 2009), based in Florida, with Argentine riders, competing in tournaments of this elite sport in the United States.
In Caracas, he lives in a mansion in the traditional Country Club, has another property in the Dominican Republic, and a luxury apartment in New York. He owns polo estates in Falcón to which he travels by helicopter, the most expensive executive plane in the world (a Grumman Gulfstream, worth $50 million), a 150-foot yacht, and several Italian Augusta helicopters (also $50 million). His fortune is estimated at $1.2 billion, spanning from banking to oil holdings in Venezuela, Panama, the United States, and the Dominican Republic, with approximately 6,500 employees across various countries.
In the year he requested approval from Sudeban for the merger of Corp Banca and BOD, he purchased one of the most expensive mansions in Palm Beach, Florida, covering 15,000 square meters in Polynesian style, at a price of $70 million, an amount usually paid only by superstars. In the same area, he had paid $33.6 million in 2005 for another Mediterranean-style mansion.
In 2008, he stated to The Wall Street Journal: “People write stories about me saying that I have a Ferrari, a plane, and a yacht. But it’s not true. I have three planes, two yachts, six houses. I’ve been rich all my life.”
But the controversial phrase is called into question when his origins are reviewed. Son of a doctor (Víctor José Martiniano Vargas Hernández) and the first judge of the now-defunct Supreme Court of Venezuela (Nohemí Irausquín Suárez), he married young to Carmen Leonor Santaella Tellerías, from a wealthy family with connections to economic power in Venezuela. She gave him his first Alfa Romeo and opened the doors for him in the financial business.
His fellow students at the Andrés Bello Catholic University recall him as an ambitious young man, his “behavior already giving him away back then.”
Despite his fortune and penchant for luxury, he considers himself a humble man who cares about Venezuela. “I am a socialist in the real sense of the word,” he declared to WSJ in 2008.
This businessman, who claims to espouse left-wing ideas, has seven financial entities in Curacao, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Antigua, and Venezuela.
In Europe, he mingles with nobility. The Spanish press identifies him as “Víctor de Vargas e Irausquín,” after his daughter Margarita married in 2004 Luis Alfonso de Borbón, Duke of Anjou, heir of the Spanish royal family, and great-grandson of dictator Francisco Franco. Besides being a son-in-law, he is the deputy director of BOD.
At the wedding of Margarita and Duke Luis Alfonso, held on November 6, 2004, in the Dominican Republic, 1,000 guests attended, including both Chavista officials and figures from the Venezuelan opposition, like former presidential candidate Manuel Rosales. In the investigation of the case, testimonies suggest that in this bankers’ meeting, the assassination of Venezuelan prosecutor Danilo Anderson was planned. A bodyguard of Vargas reportedly passed the information to the Venezuelan Prosecutor’s Office. The dinner was served by the prestigious Le Cirque restaurant in New York, with music provided by Juan Luis Guerra.
Since 2008 separated from Santaella but not divorced, Vargas had a son in mid-2013 with his girlfriend María Beatriz Hernández, a jewelry designer and engineer, whom he is about 30 years older than. Together with his sisters, he has a jewelry design firm called Nefesh, based in Maracay.
One of the sisters of Vargas’s new partner, Melany Hernández, is vice president of Boi Bank, the international bank owned by the holding company based in Antigua.
In December 2013, the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) of Venezuela declared the nullity of his divorce request from Santaella, which had been approved eight months earlier (13-05-13). This decision was interpreted as a setback in Vargas’s relationship history with the government in a country where the executive controls all powers.
In 2002, Vargas was one of the bankers who advised his colleagues in the sector against joining the national strike called by the opposition seeking to oust Chávez from power. A cordial bridge between the bank and Chávez’s government, he served as the president of the Banking Association of Venezuela from 2009 to 2010 and chaired the National Banking Council from 2010 to 2011.
As a demonstration of his good relations with the government, especially with the powerful economic ministers Jorge Giordani and Nelson Merentes—former president of the BCV—Vargas acted as coordinator for selling bonds and structured notes that Chávez purchased from Argentina, Bolivia, and Ecuador, among other countries, to finance his internal deficits.
Starting in 2002, with the implementation of currency controls, banks in Venezuela (and BOD is no exception) achieved enormous profits by selling papers bought at the official exchange rate in the so-called parallel market. These operations were later banned by the authorities.
The name of Víctor Vargas also appears in the Wikileaks cables. In a leaked cable from the State Department (July 23, 2008), the banker’s ties to the so-called structured notes, a fundraising mechanism for financing the official budget that generated huge profits for intermediaries, was described. The cable reads: “Vargas, who it is said profited from these negotiations, is a banker whose star has risen greatly during Chávez’s presidency.”
During the banking crisis of 2009, Vargas played an important role in addressing the closure of more than half a dozen private banks due to insufficient funds. In an interview, he stated, “We aligned ourselves with this government policy because we believe they have done it correctly. And we are willing to collaborate, as we have always been, in everything necessary.”
However, Vargas’s relationship with the government has not always been smooth. In 2008, he sought to purchase Banco de Venezuela, the largest bank in the country, which belonged to the Spanish Grupo Santander of Emilio Botín. While negotiating with the Iberian banker, José Vicente Rangel, who at that time had left the government, lobbied for President Hugo Chávez and Finance Minister Alí Rodríguez Araque to approve the negotiation between BOD and Venezuela, reported a source close to the acquisition process. However, Rangel failed in his mission, as Chávez and Araque decided that the state would be the new owner of the entity.
Nevertheless, the banker had given $150 million as an option, which were never returned by Botín. Vargas sued in Spain and won the trial, which was led by his lawyer Ramón José Medina, who was also a representative of the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD). Medina confided to a source stating he is currently detached from corporate affairs of the BOD.
Víctor Vargas’s dealings in the American financial system have also sparked controversies. According to the Wall Street Journal, he lied about a fraud committed by employees of CapitalBank Corp, a New York bank intervened by the authorities, in which he held a 21% stake. This would be the reason preventing him from participating in the American financial sector without explicit authorization from the country’s authorities.
As a businessman, in 2013 he ventured into the media market by buying one of the largest editorial groups in the country, Cadena Capriles (renamed Grupo Últimas Noticias), a transaction he denied through the corporate Twitter account of the BOD: “The purchase of Cadena Capriles by BOD Banca or Víctor Vargas is not true. It is not of our interest nor does the Banking Law allow it,” the tweet clarifies, referring to Venezuelan legislation that prohibits bank owners from also participating in media ownership. The transaction is said to have amounted to $140 million.
In February 2013, Vargas visited Cadena Capriles’s headquarters. As said afterward by Miguel Ángel Capriles, then president of the editorial group, at that moment, the banker expressed his interest in making the purchase. Three months later, in May, it became a fact that the journalistic company was sold, initiating a transition process that culminated in October.
On October 25, 2013, the sale of Cadena Capriles for $140 million between Miguel Ángel Capriles López and Latam Media Holding, a firm registered in Curacao in September of that year, which in turn is owned by Hanson Group, a financial group based in London that had never owned a media outlet, was signed.
When the transfer document was signed, Víctor Vargas, who did not want to appear in the photo of that moment, was among the attendees. Additionally, the board, presided over by banker Carlos Acosta—a childhood friend of Miguel Ángel Capriles—was integrated by at least two close associates of the banker: Pedro Rendón and Diego Lepage, both trusted personnel in the BOD and other companies.
Moreover, in a meeting with the heads of editorial of Últimas Noticias and El Mundo Economía Negocios, media outlets of Cadena Capriles, Vargas assured that he was the owner.
In February 2014, the appointment of the new editor-in-chief of Cadena Capriles, David De Lima, and the removal of the board was announced. The new authority hesitated in explaining Vargas’s involvement.
BOD, one of the 2,000 most important companies worldwide according to Forbes magazine, is undergoing a challenging episode. On September 10, 2019, Sudeban ordered an administrative measure to intervene in the entity for 120 working days. The measure, authorized by the Economy Minister of Maduro’s government, Simón Zerpa, prohibits carrying out new investments, decreeing dividend payments, capturing funds for a term, opening new offices in the country or abroad, and acquiring shares and participations in the capital of banking institutions.
Additionally, it ordered the designation of officials accredited by Sudeban, who would have veto power on the board and full access to all administrative areas of BOD.
The Sudeban decision occurred, according to the official press release, due to actions taken by Curacao and Panama regarding Banco del Orinoco NV and AllBank Corp, respectively, which are part of the BOD Financial Group.
On September 12, 2019, after the news of the administrative intervention became public, Vargas declared that the Sudeban measure “is merely administrative and intended to supervise financial activity,” consequently, the bank would continue providing services normally.