Indoor pool, crystal chandeliers, own chapel and a throne. The Anticorruption Foundation of the Russian opponent Alexei Navalny published just before inauguration of Vladimir Putin for a new presidential terma video from inside his palace on the shores of the Black Sea, near Gelendzhik.
Putin’s palace. Chandeliers that would cost 870,000 poundsPhoto: east2west news / WillWest News / Profimedia
Putin’s palace in Gelendzhik has finally been completed, and representatives of the Anti-Corruption Foundation managed to get inside to see it from the inside with the help of a hidden camera, reports Ukrainska Pravda.
“We will show who he really is. He is a crazy old dictator who, even during the war he started, could not stop and continued to build his luxurious palace,” says the Foundation.
After the investigation into Putin’s palace in 2021, a friend of the Russian leader, businessman Arkady Rotenberg, said that the building belonged to him and that a hotel with apartments would be opened there.
Rotenberg, Putin’s former judo partner, who sold his stake in gas pipeline construction firm Stroygazmontazh in 2019 for what RBC put at around 75 billion rubles, said he bought the palace in the same year.
“Now it won’t be a secret anymore, I’m the beneficiary,” Rotenberg said in a video.
Russian President Vladimir Putin personally denied in 2021 that he was the owner of the sumptuous Black Sea residence.
“I have not seen this film due to lack of time. Nothing that is presented there as my property belongs to me or my relatives,” Putin said.
However, as the Anticorruption Foundation found out, more than 3 years after the first investigation, no apartment hotel has appeared in the palace on Cape Idokopas, although the renovation has already been completed.
The video recorded with a hidden camera shows an avenue of statues near the palace, and inside, an aqua disco, a swimming pool, a jacuzzi, a massage room, numerous paintings with military and patriotic themes, expensive furniture and crystal chandeliers.
Instead of a gambling hall or a casino, there is a chapel with an unusual triptych with icons of the Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ and Saint Vladimir. There is also a throne.
The foundation also published the plans of the palace. At the time of filming, not all the furniture had been unpacked.
What kind of furniture does Putin’s palace have?
Upstairs there are 11 bedrooms and the main rooms occupy approximately 275 square meters. Here, you will find more statues, busts and the best foreign products.
Building materials for the palace were purchased from the German company Knauf, the Finnish company Tikkurila and the French company Ananbo. There are sanitary installations from the German companies Jorger, Tece, Emco and Hansgrohe; the Italian companies Gessi and Vismara Vetro; the Swiss companies Geberit and Laufen; and Japanese company Omoikiri, according to Meduza.
The palace has lighting fixtures from the Italian company Flos, the Spanish companies Mantra and Aromas del Campo, the Belgian company Modular and the Chinese company Osram, as well as luxury chandeliers from the French companies Baguès and Baccarat, the British company Vaughan and the Italian companies Arizz, Estro&Luminara and Il Paralume Marinai.
According to Meduza, furniture from the Italian brands Zanaboni, Scappini & C, Salda, Provasi, Roberto Giovannini, OAK, Mobili Di Castello, Angelo Cappellini, Andrea Fanfani and Medea was also found.
According to the Foundation and Proekt, an independent media outlet, the money needed to build and maintain Putin’s Black Sea palace comes from state-owned companies in the form of non-existent services. For example, according to Foundation representatives, two Transneft subsidiaries would pay 660 million rubles ($7.3 million) a year to rent certain non-residential premises in the palace.
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