A mansion on the coast Black Sea linked to the Russian president Vladimir Putin has been renovated to include a church equipped with a throne, according to a report by Russian investigative media Project and F.B.K..
The media published the videos of the building known as “Putin’s palace”, recently renovated. The existence of the mansion was first revealed in 2021 by Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalnywho had stated that it had a winery, a casino, a stage striptease and an ice skating rink.
The latest revelations about the palace come on the day when Putin became Russian president for the fifth time.
The latest investigation into the renovation of the palace was based on the revelations of a worker who participated in the redesign of the palace. Against strict prohibitions, the man brought a telephone inside and “filmed the second floor, which has 11 rooms, and then went down to the first floor, which previously had rooms with a pole, a casino, a games area and an aquatic disco.”
“Many viewers of Navalny’s video remembered the entertainment areas, with a bar, a casino, as well as a room with toy cars and a railway,” he wrote. Project in his report, adding that None of these areas exist anymore.
The famous scene of stripteasethe Russian president’s hookah lounge and “water disco,” for which he was mocked, have also been removed.
The commentators cited by Project speculate that these accessories do not match Putin’s recent campaign for Russians to embrace traditional values.
Also they have been removed the garish gold ornaments and decorations which were mentioned in the previous revelation about the palace.
Instead, the property has been furnished with a traditional church with his own wooden throne for Putin, along with sacred religious icons and images.
The walls of the church are decorated with crosses, and there is a triptych that appears to represent the canonized prince Vladimir the Great -the same name as Putin, and his historical hero-, whom More than a thousand years ago the union of Ukraine and Russia was attributed, according to two art historians and an icon painter cited by Project.
“This is probably the only room in which the name of the true owner of this palace is directly indicated,” they say. Proekt and FBKpreviously associated with Navalny.
Project He made special mention of a chandelier that, he said, has been made with red crystals from the French manufacturer Baccarat and costs one million dollars.
They have also appeared epic paintings of historical war scenes that show a heroic Russia, for example in the Battle of Borodino in 1812, in which Napoleon suffered serious losses.
One of them includes part of a prominent Kremlin painting titled “Whoever comes to us with a sword will die by the sword!”
They found French rugs that cost $87,000.”in the style of Louis XVI’ and chandeliers valued at ten times this amount.
War heroes also figured prominently in the President’s personal palace, portrayed in ovals around the house.
According to the investigative outlet, the renovations suggest that Putin “seems to be obsessed with war and religion.”
The palace is isolated from the rest of Russia by 17,000 acres of forest and a special no-fly zone.
The reconstruction of the facilities was carried out in the strictest secrecy. Workers were transported to work on charter buses, but were often not allowed to immediately enter the facilities. They arrived at the checkpoint, but were forced to wait several hours without food or water.
Apparently, secret service agents constantly monitored their work while they carried out the renovations.
The reports of F.B.K. and Project they add: “Shortly before the end of the work, one of the bricklayers walked around the almost finished palace.”
In his 2021 video, Navalny claimed that the property, located in Gelendzhikcost $1.3 billion and had been paid for through an elaborate corruption scheme in which Putin had given top positions and lucrative government projects to his allies in partially state-owned energy giants.
Thousands of Russians took to the streets in 2021 when Navalny published the expose about Putin’s Black Sea compound.
In the midst of a scandal over embezzlement of state funds, The Kremlin claimed that the palace belonged to his childhood friend Arkady Rotenburg72, who told reporters he was creating a sumptuous “apart-hotel.”
The investigation with internal sources confirms that it is not an apart hotel, as appears in the documentation, but rather a “a palace built for Vladimir Putin.”
The Kremlin has not officially reacted to the new report.
