Putin's Secret, $1.4 BILLION (With A B) Dollar Residence, Sitting On 60 Square Miles of "A State Within A State" Is One Of The Most Outrageous Things You'll Ever See
TheRichest.com - A 2021 Russian documentary made by a Russian anti-corruption team has revealed a luxurious $1.4 billion estate in Russia on the Black Sea. The film details an astonishingly large and opulent palace. And one critic is claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin is behind the construction of the billion-dollar estate.
Alex Navalny is a fierce Putin critic. He released the 113-minute documentary-style film earlier this year with the help of his anti-corruption team. The film alleges Putin and his billionaire friends secretly built the mansion using illicit funds.
Within 24 hours of its release, the video gained 20 million views. Within a week, 93 million had seen it, making it the activist’s most popular investigation.
Analysis of financial documents reveals that the mansion cost almost 100 billion rubles, or about $1.3 billion. Money, he claims Putin funneled from various oligarch cronies. Navalny is calling the palace the world’s biggest bribe.
The investigation doesn’t rely on financial records alone. Navalny and his team have obtained detailed floor plans, drone footage, and interior photographs. The extravagant mansion is reportedly 39 times the size of Monaco.
There is rich, and then there is Vladdy Putin rich.
The extent of Putin's wealth has always remained a mystery. The Russian president has not appeared on Bloomberg's nor Forbes' ̶t̶i̶n̶y̶ ̶p̶e̶n̶i̶s̶ ̶m̶e̶a̶s̶u̶r̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶t̶e̶s̶t̶ rankings of the world's billionaires.
At a 2017 Senate Judiciary Hearing, Putin critic and financier Bill Browder estimated the president "has accumulated $200 billion of ill-gotten gains and described him as one of the richest men in the world."
Seeing the past two houses and hunting lodge's that Chief has blogged about would confirm that.
Those places are sick if you're into Bond villain-type seclusion and opulence.
But this place, on the shores of the Black Sea, takes the fucking cake.
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This "estate" is in a place called Cape Idokopas, near the village of Praskoveevka.
It sits on 74 hectares, which according to google is 183 acres.
But that's just the "official estate".
This all came to light thanks to Alex Navalny. Everybody remembers him right? The guy who's been outspoken against Putin for years now and has somehow lived to tell the tale.
Putin and friends tried to knock him off via their go-to. Poison. Called Novichok.
He had it bad, though not as bad as this poor guy Viktor Yushchenko.
During its latest investigation, Navalny's team managed to obtain an official flight chart showing a box of restricted airspace, labeled URP116, around Putin's Palace, prohibiting anything from flying through at any altitude between Flight Level 130, or 13,000 feet, and the ground.
Navalny's group also says that the actual size of the estate is around 100 times larger if one includes a nearly 17,300-acre adjacent plot of land that the FSB reportedly owns. The report adds that in September 2020 this land was leased to the firm that officially owns the Residence at Cape Idokopas through 2068, ostensibly "for scientific research and educational activities, hunting, and fishing."
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So this is walled-in and heavily guarded land that Putin and friends essentially use as a game reserve.
That's more than 27 square miles of land—larger than the island of Manhattan for those of you keeping score at home.
Despite Russia's government insistence that Putin has no links to the palace and the rest of the estate, it's certainly protected as if he does. For years now, journalists and activists attempting to get close to the site, by land and by sea, have reported being warded off by members of Russia's Federal Protective Service and the Federal Security Service, known by the acronyms FSO and FSB, respectively. Both of these government organizations trace their origins to branches of the Soviet-era KGB.
The investigation alleges the property cost £1bn ($1.37bn) and was paid for "with the largest bribe in history". "[They] built a palace for their boss with this money," Navalny says in the video.
On visiting the property in autumn 2011, one builder the BBC spoke to said his first impression was that it was as if the Egyptian pyramids were being built.
"I reckon around 1,500 people worked at the construction site at that point. There were Russians, Uzbeks, there were soldiers. There was a rush to get it finished."
Another worker said all signs of construction were camouflaged so they could not be spotted from the sea. "All concrete and metal structures had hills, trees, grass and rocks painted over them to cover them up, to make them blend in with the landscape."
Many of the workers who told the BBC they had worked at the site in the past 15 years speak of frequent reconstruction taking place. "They kept building and demolishing, building and then demolishing," one builder said.
There was also a large gym built out of marble, but that only lasted two or three years, he added. "I was so surprised when a digger turned up one day and started smashing it up."
The palace is made of pearl-colored marble and granite, imported from Italy and designed by Italian architect to the stars Lanfranco Cirillo.
Cirillo is a scumbag in his own right who sold his soul and has spent decades providing Moscow’s super-rich and elite oligarchs with villas and Italian-inspired designs.
He said of his work on Putin's palace:
"It's not overdone, but naturally it is rich, as it was supposed to be. And we used fantastic materials. I was proud of my job. It's very good 'Made in Italy',”
It boasts a whopping 195,000 square feet of living space and amenities.
195 thousand square feet.
For reference, that is roughly three and a half (3.5) football fields big.
Navalny claims to have a copy of the architectural plans for the main building, obtained from a contractor.
“He was so stunned and enraged by the luxury of the decoration and the insane prices of furniture, that he sent us a detailed architectural plan of this object,” the longtime Putin critic explains.
In his video report, Navalny describes that the grounds feature an arboretum, a greenhouse, which looks more like an industrial grow facility than a "greenhouse", said to be tended by some 40 gardeners;
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an underground hockey rink with helicopter pads on top of it,
perfect for him to showcase his dazzling skating skills
or lighting the lamp
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there is a gigantic freaking church,
which Navalny claims in the video is the most securely guarded and protected site in Russia.
There's an amphitheater, and a sculpture garden.
Near the main structure, there is a 260-foot bridge that leads to a 27,000-square-foot guest house.
This is the GUEST HOUSE.
The estate features its own seaport and two helipads.
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(Money can buy lots of things, but it can't buy taste)
He's got a private theater, a Las Vegas-style casino, an “aqua-discotheque” with a swim-up bar.
An "Aqua Disco" just got my dick hard.
Does he mean like a FWD Day + Nightclub? (If not, and he's interested, have your guys hit up my guys, Vlad)
I always knew Putin loved to perform, but I thought singing like shit was more his schtick.
he's got a Turkish bath and a sauna, (wait a minute, we call them Russian baths, do the Russians call them Turkish baths? What do the Turks call them?)
there's a full bar and cocktail lounge, (which is gorgeous)
a gym where he stays huge,
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a hookah bar, and staff quarters to house a hundred.
The 11-guest bedroom home features many living areas.
I think the most preposterous flex Putin went for in this monstrosity though are gigantic separate kitchens. One for meat, one for fish, one for vegetables, and one for baked goods.
Among the additional areas are more than a dozen guest bedrooms near the master bedroom, which is spacious enough for a king. Navalny claims the master suite is nearly 2,800 square feet.
Now for the good stuff.
If you watched Eddie, Chief, and I review "The Red Penguins" doc, you'd know that Russians fucking love strip clubs. Everybody loves titty bars. I get it. But not on the level the ruskies do. They put them everywhere they can. Like adjacent to hockey locker rooms.
Or in Putin's case, in his own house.
He's got a video game arcade; a special room to play with toy cars; an indoor swimming pool; and even his own indoor go-kart track.
This is supposedly his bedroom.
(Gymnastic equipment at the far left of the digital image is an apparent reference to Alina Kabayeva, a gold-medal gymnast widely believed to be Putin's partner.)
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On January 21st of this year allies of the imprisoned Navalny published hundreds of photos of what they say is the inside of President Vladimir Putin's secret palace.
The image release took place in both a video and a cache of images on Google Drive. If you want a nice gander, take a look at them in that drive.
From watching all the videos and examine the pics, I think it's safe to confirm Putin is a psychopath simply going off the way he dines.
Imagine eating dinner like this?
He also has a second, smaller, Orthodox Church on the grounds which was built from imported bricks repurposed from an ancient church in Greece.
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The gate to Putin’s palace presents a gold double-headed eagle insignia from the Russian coat of arms which, Navalny notes, also featured on the gates of the Winter Palace, now the Hermitage Museum.
“The fact that Putin put an exact replica of the Tsar’s eagle with a crown from the Winter Palace on the gate of his personal dacha tells us a lot about who he thinks he is,” Navalny says.
I'm pretty sure that with Osama and Sadaam long gone, Vladamir Putin holds the title of the biggest piece of shit on planet Earth.
How he lives this way (and sleeps at night) while everybody in his country, outside his oligarch circle of friends, live in squalor pretty much is a disgrace.
Fuck this guy.
p.s. - check out Chief, Eddie, and I discuss the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Putin's fucked up past regarding this all in this week's Dog Walk Free Swim we did yesterday -