Vladimir Putin’s private life is a «secret with seven seals», as they say in these parts. In the past two days, the group’s investigation proekt.media on finances of Vladimir Putin and above all on the properties he shares with his alleged partnerformer Olympic gymnast Alina Kabayevahas been around the world. Titles upon titles, comments.
There was no news in Russia. In the sense that she herself has not reached anyone’s eyes and ears. Not even a denial, not even an indignant comment from some deputy sympathetic to the violated privacy of the president. Only the opposition sites have talked about itthe “foreign agents” blocked in the country, accessible only with the private VPN networks which Roskomnadzor, the federal agency for telecommunications, gives a close hunt, increasingly putting them out of order.
The links of censorship tighten when it comes to the tsar’s family. It is not excess of zeal, but simple implementation of a line that he himself dictated. Putin has always said that on his political work, on his choices, he accepts any criticism. But at the same time, on each of these occasions, he has always strongly advised to let go of the indiscretions about him. «I don’t like brats who meddle in other people’s lives with their erotic fantasies», he said in an interview. In 2008, the Moskovsky korespondent tabloid dared to publish some rumors about the president’s intention to sposare Kabayeva. The newspaper was shut down a week later. Imagine today.
Second Project, the Valdai mansion, two hundred kilometers away from Moscow, and recently fitted with a Pantsir-S1 air defense system to protect it, is not only the president’s favorite abode. But it is also the place where she lives together with Kabayeva, nicknamed “the queen without a crown”, probably with their two children, whose gender and names have never been revealed. If true, it would be confirmation of the existence of a relationship that everyone knows about but that no one can officially confirm.
The house has been arranged for every need of the woman. Assistants and his family also reside in a house in the park. Within the district, a wooden terem was built, a separate residence on the basis of those which, in the Russia of the tsars, were reserved for the female aristocratic elites. That is the place where the former Olympic champion and her children would stay. The private part is more conspicuous. But even the one concerning Kabayeva’s finances contains unpublished details. The woman would also own a vast penthouse of 2,600 square meters with a swimming poolcinema and helicopter landing pad, described as the largest apartment in the country, of other apartments on the Black Sea, registered in the grandmother’s name.
The value of his real estate portfolio would be around 120 million dollars. According to Proekt, Putin’s alleged partner would have access to the funds of the Cypriot offshore company Ermira Consultants, which other investigations had already identified as one of the private vaults of the president and his inner circle. Ermira also controls the Real Invest company, owner of the Putinka vodka brand, whose proceeds between 2004 and 2019 according to another recent investigation by Proekt would have earned the president five hundred million dollars. The Cypriot company would also have financed the purchase of the mega-residence in Sochi, which was put up for sale in 2009 for 450 million rubles, the equivalent of fifteen million dollars, but was then bought two years later for just 90 million ($3.2 million at the time), one-fifth of the reported value. Oleg Rudnov, a personal friend of the Russian president who disappeared in 2015, would have managed the whole operation. The echo raised everywhere by Proekt’s investigation is normal. Because everything about Putin is news. Except in his country.