The German shipyard, Lürssen Yachts, has revealed the first images of the imposing “Luminance”, a 130 metre megayacht – although rumours say it is around fifteen metres longer – designed by Studio Espen Øino.

Certainly one of the biggest pleasure boats in the world, this new design is in the completion phase, ready for testing and delivery within the year to its owner who, according to the New York Times, is the Ukrainian multi-billionaire, Rinat Akhmetov, the richest man in the country. His holding company, System Capital Management, controls companies in a number of strategic fields, including television, wind power, electric power, and chemical. Including, as mentioned by the New York Times, the sadly famous  Azovstal steel mill in Mariupol.

Lürssen Yachts is the same shipyard that built the Scheherazade, the megayacht recently tied to Vladimir Putin and therefore “frozen” by the Italian Guardia di Finanza. Not a coincidence, perhaps, which brings back the debate about oligarchs and their status symbol, even though the same Akhmetov, when Russia annexed Crimea, took a step back from his filo-Russian past.