A Russian Billionaire Bought Aristotle Onassis’ Island

Greek media reports on Saturday placed the value of Skorpios island at over $100 million and said Ekaterina Rybolovleva, 24, wanted it not only for leisure but also business purposes.

She purchased Skorpios, in the Ionian Sea off western Greece, from Onassis’ 28-year-old granddaughter, Athena Onassis Roussel, the only surviving descendant of the shipping magnate.

Aristotle Onassis purchased Skorpios in 1963 and turned the barren island into a luxury resort by planting thousands of trees and importing sand. In 1968 he married Jacqueline Kennedy, widow of the assassinated U.S. president John F. Kennedy.

After Aristotle Onassis’s death in 1975, Skorpios passed to his daughter Christina, who died of a heart attack at 37 in the late 1980s after a history of drug abuse, weight issues and four failed marriages.

Onassis, his son Alexander, who was killed in an airplane crash aged 25, and Christina were buried on Skorpios. Athena Onassis Roussel was three when her mother died.

The island is covered with 200 species of trees, brought by Onassis to once deserted island. The island has several beaches, best known is East Beach, where Onassis brought sand from the island of Salamis.