Over the weekend, cities across Russia were shaken by waves of protest leading to thousands of arrests. The immediate cause? An epic lifestyle exposé.
Having recovered from a poisoning widely believed to have been orchestrated by Russian authorities, opposition figure Alexei Navalny returned to Russia on January 17 and was promptly arrested. Two days later, a lengthy video essay was posted to his YouTube channel, calling for street protests against corruption. Exhibit A was what the film dubs “Putin’s palace,” the Russian president’s lavish, secret home on the Black Sea, which Navalny compared to the “new Versailles or new Winter Palace.”
“This is certainly not just a building. It is a symbol of the 20 years of Putin’s rule,” Navalny opines. He claims that it has been built at a cost of some 100 billion rubles, or about $1.3 billion, funneled to Putin from various oligarch cronies, making it the “world’s biggest bribe.”
On Monday, in the wake of the tense demonstrations, Putin took the unusual step of officially responding to Navalny, denying that he owns the sprawling complex. “None of what is listed there [is my] property, neither me, nor my close relatives. … Never!”
The video—which has thus far been viewed 92 million times—begins by debunking the legends of Putin’s early life. It ends with a numbingly complex outline of the various shell companies connected to Putin’s various associates, family members, and mistresses, making the case that Putin is, in secret, effectively the world’s richest person.
But the meat of the nearly two-hour video relates to laying out, in exhaustive detail, the unthinkable luxury of Putin’s world.
“Today we will see what is considered impossible to see up close,” Navalny promises early on. “We will go where no one is allowed. We will pay Putin a visit and see with your own eyes that this man, in his racing for luxury and wealth, has gone completely mad.”
Alexei Navalny addresses his audience in Putin’s Palace.
Word of the Putin’s estate is not totally new. What is new is the vividness with which Navalny sets out to illustrate it.
To make tangible the scope of the supposed secret complex, which is shielded from scrutiny by a no-fly zone and surrounded by a maritime buffer zone, the film shows Navalny’s assistants taking a raft into the waters offshore and launching a drone to capture aerial footage of the immense secret property. All told, the estate is nearly four times the size of nearby Gelendzhik, a resort town of 50,000 people.
Drone footage of the Black Sea property, as seen in Putin’s Palace on YouTube.
The main residence shown in the video is more than 190,000 square feet, which makes it more palace than mansion. It sits on some 27 square miles of land—larger than the island of Manhattan.
Around it, the associated compound hosts a variety of other amenities: an arboretum with rare trees plus a greenhouse, said to be tended by some 40 gardeners; twin helicopter pads; a subterranean ice hockey rink; extensive vineyards that, Navalny claims, produce an exclusive wine served at Kremlin events; a 27,000-square-foot tea house for guests; and an outdoor amphitheater for concerts. A tunnel that accesses the beach doubles as a bunker. It also features a special chamber cut into the cliffside that serves as a “tasting room” with a view of the sea.
Screenshot from Putin’s Palace, comparing the crowned eagle from the Black Sea property with the crowned eagle on the gates of the Hermitage Museum (formerly the Winter Palace) and a still from Sergei Eisensetein’s film, October.
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.
Architectural plans, as shown in Putin’s Palace.
He also 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.
Vladimir Putin depicted as Louis XIV in the YouTube video Putin’s Palace.
According to these plans, the home features a cornucopia of amenities: a hookah bar with a retractable stripper pole; a personal casino (gambling is banned in most of Russia); a video game arcade; a special room to play with toy cars; an indoor swimming pool; a spa; a massage room; a beauty salon; saunas and hammams; plunge tubs and bathing pools; an “aqua-discoteque” with a swim-up bar; a cocktail lounge; a personal cinema; a wine-tasting room; a gym; a reading room; a music parlor; separate kitchens for meat and fish, vegetables, baked goods, and egg processing; and something called a “mud warehouse.”
A digital recreation of a hookah lounge, with retractable stripper pole, as depicted in Putin’s Palace.
The palace is designed by Italian architect Lanfranco Cirillo, who was given Russian citizenship by Putin several years ago. The decor is what Peter York might call “dictator chic,” with lots of gold and velvet and simulations of aristocratic grandeur. The furniture listed in the plans hails from bespoke Italian furniture companies Citterio, Pozzoli, and AB Italia, and Navalny has even managed to get prices for some of the items.
These overstuffed chairs in the mansion’s “room of entertaining games” cost the equivalent of $9,000 apiece.
Screenshot of furniture from Putin’s Palace.
This guest sofa is about $18,000.
Screenshot of furniture from Putin’s Palace.
These dressing tables come in at about $26,000 each, according to Navalny.
Screenshot of furniture from Putin’s Palace.
A leather sofa is worth the equivalent of $28,000.
Screenshot of furniture from Putin’s Palace.
An ornate table with a built-in bar costs over $49,000.
Screenshot of furniture from Putin’s Palace.
According to Navalny, even an estate of this magnitude has proven insufficient for Putin, who has expanded his vineyard holdings to neighboring areas.
In an incident that attracted some international attention in 2017, Andrei Rudomakha, an environmentalist, was beaten by masked men after documenting illegal construction and clearing of forest near the village of Krinitsa. At the time, Rudomakha’s team reported seeing a Byzantine-style church at the site.
“After the attack on Rudomakha, Novaya Gazeta journalists discovered that the unusual church was imported from Greece, and this was done by the manager of Putin’s palace and other vineyards,” Navalny recounts.
“Byzantine-style church” seen at the Krinitsa site, as shown in Putin’s Palace.
Navalny’s more recent drone footage captures images of structures at the Krinitsa property, including a winery only slightly smaller than Putin’s palace, at 148,000 square feet, dubbed Old Provence.
He claims to have obtained customs records for the décor at Old Provence, which include a tempered glass vase worth $36,000; a “gold moon” chandelier with a system of decorative leaves worth $36,000; a fabric sofa with 20 pillows, worth $42,000; and a coffee table with “melted metal finish,” worth $57,000.
Screenshot of import license for Gold Moon chandelier, as seen in Putin’s Palace.
Navalny notes that the bathrooms are decked out with Italian toilet brushes at $850 a pop and $1,200 toilet paper holders.
“Putin will not live here, he will sometimes drop in here, walk between the vineyards, praise the terroir and say ‘what a delight,’” Navalny opines. “But in case something happens, a brush and paper holder [worth] 150 thousand rubles will be waiting for him in the toilet. The annual pension of the average Russian pensioner is in one of Putin’s latrines, which he may never enter.”