Newly Rich Russians Flock to French Riviera : Europe: The wealthy--some legitimately so, some not--buy villas with cash and spend lavishly at nightclubs and hotels.

It slipped out of the harbor as silently as it came, without the three horn blasts most yachts use to announce their presence among Monaco’s rich and famous.

The Kremlin Princess had already commanded their attention. Resplendent in navy blue enamel, mahogany trim and a mast towering above the others, its quiet elegance was a fitting symbol of how wealthy Russians are living it up on the French Riviera.

From Monaco, where Russian “nouveaux riches” roll the dice and line the blackjack tables, down the craggy Cote d’Azur coastline to Nice, Cannes and the famous beaches of St. Tropez, where some buy villas with fistfuls of cash, their presence is growing.

Some are low-budget Russian vacationers, pensioners, artists and students--seduced by the sun-kissed warmth and charm of the Mediterranean region’s palm trees and seaside villages.

Then there are the “other Russians,” rich and reclusive countrymen who are rumored to have made their money almost overnight--and who sometimes seem to spend it as quickly on lavish hotel suites and expensive wines.

“These guys we call Mafiosi,” said Antoine Bayeur, a taxi driver in Nice who shuttles rich Russians to posh hotels and glitzy nightclubs.

Since communism crumbled in 1991, Russia’s fledgling market economy has spawned some legitimate self-made millionaires--and dozens of shadowy but equally wealthy tycoons.

Among the latter are black marketeers and gangsters as well as government insiders who cashed in by using their influence to acquire big chunks of lucrative oil, gas and banking interests.

In September, a reputed Russian gangster, Alexander Petrov, was acquitted in southern France on a charge of passport fraud. At the time of his arrest in August, he was renting a luxury apartment in the swank Riviera resort town of Antibes, with a bodyguard and several luxury cars at his disposal.

Petrov, 33, had been “living like an emir” since he arrived in the 1980s, said a police source, speaking on customary anonymity.

Moneyed Russians aren’t just a Riviera phenomenon. They’re seen in Britain, Cyprus, Spain and the Netherlands, dancing the night away in exclusive discotheques and paying cash for vacation homes and yachts.

“Since my first visit in October, 1989, I fell in love with this region. The climate, the smiles, the site--everything seduced me,” said Vladimir Ponomarenko, one of several Russian partners who have invested $16 million in Riviera seafront real estate.

On the beaches, Russian is heard almost as much as Italian and German, and it’s showing up on shop signs and tourist brochures. Stolichnaya, the premier Russian vodka, now rolls off the tongues of restaurateurs who offer it alongside Dom Perignon and Chateau Lafitte.

But not all who’ve got it flaunt it. Many shun the spotlight, their caution a reflection of the shady beginnings of many Russian enterprises.

“The Russians I see are very discreet,” said Jean Kestoire, a waiter at Le Crocodile, a seafood restaurant in Nice overlooking the Mediterranean.

“They look the same as any other tourists. They wear shorts and pay with credit cards. They’re not walking around with 100,000 francs [$20,000] stuffed in their shirt pockets.”

Just because they speak Russian doesn’t mean they are. Some nouveaux riches are from Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and other former Soviet republics.

Likewise, not all of them have earned their money by nefarious means. Legitimately rich Russians are spending and investing abroad rather than at home, where criminal elements are heavily involved in Russian banks.

In 1994 alone, capital flight from Russia was estimated at $43 billion--$24 billion of it legal, the rest from illegal sources--according to the Economic Survey of Europe.

Eduard Mirzoev, a Russian physician, came to the Riviera a few years ago and made a fortune with a pharmaceutical company he set up in Nice. The woes that have accompanied Russia’s shift to a market economy left him little choice, he says. “There are still some enormous challenges to conquer.”

The Russians’ love affair with the Riviera began in 1856, when Empress Alexandra Feodorovna sought refuge from the harsh winters back home.

The onion-shaped turrets of a Russian Orthodox Church built in 1922 rise above coconut palms in Nice. A veritable Russian quarter sprang up there, complete with streets such as Avenue Nicolas II and Boulevard Tzarewitch.

But only recently have really rich Russians descended on the Riviera in appreciable numbers and with plenty of money to enjoy the best the region has to offer.

“Our compatriots love the French Mediterranean. The Russian market is no fiction,” said Alexandre Amissinov, founder of a charter flight service in Nice that caters to Russian tourists. Round-trip air fare from Nice to Moscow is just $500, putting a Riviera vacation within reach of Russia’s emerging middle class.

Riviera hoteliers and restaurateurs struggling through a slump blamed on Europe’s economic recession and a floundering franc welcome the Russians and their free-spending ways.

“It’s not like you see Russians everywhere. There are still far more Italians and Germans and, of course, French,” said Mireille Rebourdeau, spokeswoman for the Societe des Bains de Mer, which operates Monaco’s Grand Casino and several of the principality’s big hotels.

“But the Russians do come, and we’re happy to have them.”