MP: Georgy, please tell me what propagandists usually answer
when we talk about Putin's chic palaces and wineries?
GA: They tell us that all this does not belong to Putin.
MP: Yes. Because, as we are told, it cannot be Putin's.
Putin and luxury palaces simply don't match. It just doesn't interest him.
Dmitry Kisilyov: Putin himself does not need luxury as such.
It's not cool for him. He wears suits of the same cut, like a uniform,
he has half a dozen of ties, simple shirts...
MP: We get surprised every time - this is an outright lie.
Putin loves luxury. He demands luxury and does not know how to live differently.
He himself, his relatives, children, lovers and their children and relatives
are literally swimming in super-expensive real estate,
Gazprom shares, money from state-owned companies
and other attributes of the life of extremely wealthy people.
------ GA: And on TV they say that Putin is an ascetic and owns nothing, nothing at all.
They sculpt from scratch the image of a person to whom material values are alien.
It doesn't interest him. He only has his job and Russia, and sometimes, as an exception,
has a walk in the forest, picking mushrooms with another pensioner, Sergei Kuzhugetovich Shoigu.
It's a pine cone. Look. There's a pine cone on top.
And this is a key part of the huge system of Putin's propaganda.
There are many different elements - sometimes they show him a brilliant strategist and geopolitician,
sometimes a tough leader who everyone's afraid of,
and sometimes as a simple guy who can always crack a joke
As you know, if a grandmother had the external genitals of a grandfather,
she would be a grandfather, not a grandmother. So, there's no need to talk about...
And of course he is so close to the people. Only Putin understands Russians.
And rest for him is different. On his birthday, for example, he can go into the taiga, dressed in the clothes of a forester.
And this is very important. Geopolitics be geopolitics, but you can't fool the entire nation.
People have been promised for years that their salaries and pensions will be raised,
but only got the raise of the retirement age.
I ask you to treat this with understanding.
They hear about the genius Putin on TV, and then go out into the street
and see old people fight for expired food, because they don't even have money for normal food.
And you must admit that when a person asks you to be patient and tighten your belts, but he himself lives like a sultan or an emperor,
somehow you don’t want to tighten the belts. You want to come to him and say:
"You've been the president for 20 years, and in power for almost 30,
what have you done to the country, you geopolitician?"
I believe that this is not a question on your part, this is a provocation
So they came up with the image of "poor" Putin for us, who only has a small apartment, a Niva car and a Skif trailer.
And his press secretary Peskov, wearing his 37-million-ruble watch, repeats:
“Putin wears the same shirts, he is not interested in fashion at all,
he's not even interested in food - Putin eats the simplest food. And he doesn't even have a hobby - only reading"
He sits all day in simple shirts, on the edge of a chair, hungry, and reads historical literature. That's his image.
But now we will expose this lie in a very simple and logical way, which was suggested to us by Dmitry Peskov himself.
Putin does not have a palace in Gelendzhik. When you watch the video about this palace,
ask yourself each time - what does Putin have to do with it?
What does Putin have to do with it?
What does the president have to do with it?
Why Putin?
No problem. If you don’t believe that the Gelendzhik palace with an aquadiskotheque belongs to Putin,
if you think that this is an anti-Russian provocation and Rothenberg owns it, that's fine.
Let's go to the facility that Putin definitely has something to do with: to his official residence.
4 residences are assigned to Putin - for life, work and leisure.
There are actually more of them, but these are known to practically everyone.
The Kremlin , Novo-Ogarevo (this is Rublevka, Moscow region), Bocharov Ruchei (this is Sochi) and Valdai (Novgorod region).
Putin spends all his time in these places. We are often shown protocol footage. Golden halls of the Kremlin,
official events and even excursions around Novo-Ogarevo, meetings of foreign leaders and training in Sochi.
And ... Wait a minute. We don't know anything at all about the fourth official residence.
You have all heard many times : Putin is in Valdai, Putin is in Valdai.
But surprisingly, Putin is never filmed there. This is his favorite and probably therefore most secret official dacha.
And since there are no questions about whose dacha it is,
the only thing that remains is to find out how Vladimir Vladimirovich officially spends his country days,
how he rests, ascetic or not, and most importantly how much it costs us.
Look, here is a plot of 150 hectares - this is the land on the northern part of the peninsula.
There are technical buildings on it - warehouses, garages, hangars and small guest houses.
The land officially belongs to the Russian Federation, is in perpetual use by the Federal Security Service,
everything is formalized as it should be.
But this southern part of the peninsula, 100 hectares between the two lakes Uzhin and Valdai,
belongs to Yuri Kovalchuk, Putin's main purse, sponsor of his palaces and ladies.
It's this part that the actual residence is located on - a summer house, baths, other buildings for entertainment and recreation.
And the trick is that Kovalchuk, one of the richest men in Russia, leases this part of the peninsula
to the Presidential Property Management Department. That is, we pay the rent for another Putin's dacha from the budget
And we are paying not to anyone, but to Putin's best friend, whose fortune is estimated at several billion dollars.
How much do we pay? On what terms? Why do we pay for it at all?
There are no official answers to any of these questions.
How did he get this land at all, why was Putin's residence built on private territory?
Simply because in the last months of his first presidential term, in 2003, Putin thought about the future.
After all, it’s good to have a dacha afterwards. So he decided to keep this one for himself.
He couldn't register it for himself, so he registered it for a friend. Typical Putin: a housing cooperative on a lake.
But of course we figured it out and will show you now
where Putin is passing his quarantine days and where he invites his most beloved guests.
We will start by showing the main house, not because it is impressive (it is quite modest by Putin's standards)
but simply because it is very carefully hidden. There are no photos of it on the Internet at all. This needs to be fixed.
Here it is. a 3500 m2 4-storey mansion. Balconies, terraces, main staircase with a fountain.
These photos are quite old, now the territory has been landscaped, trees have been planted.
There is also a lot of interesting things on the territory. For example, here, on the shore, there is a Chinese pavilion.
It's a sort of a guest house. This is how it looks inside. An interesting structure.
There are also cool huts, baths, gazebos, a restaurant, a separate building for a beer restaurant.
There is a playground with a huge yellow-blue sun and slides... And of course there is an own church.
On the website of the Russian Orthodox Church it is mentioned that its name is "Vladimirskaya".
And in Kirov , an exact copy of it was specially built, albeit in a slightly more restrained color scheme.
You're looking at it now and thinking: well, it's just a normal residence.
Novo-Ogaryovo, Sochi and this one are all the same, they're state dachas.
But Valdai is hidden for a reason. After all, here, 350 meters from the main house,
hides the main Valdai secret of Putin, the temple of his asceticism. A home that is twice the size of the residence itself.
Almost 7000 square meters. 3 floors, of which two of which are, of course, underground.
What is this? A helicopter hangar? Storage for identical shirts and multiple ties?
Some kind of very necessary maintenance room?
No friends. This is a SPA complex. Personal beauty salon of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
And these, Maria, are the floor plans for this spa complex.
Wonderful.
Everything as we love. Every room, every wall, everything is here for us to study.
Since we're paying for this, we have the right to see it.
These plans, by the way, can be downloaded at navalny.com, in Alexey's blog.
All originals are there for you to download and study.
How do you imagine an ascetic lifestyle? Do you think the ascetic goes to the spa at all?
How can austerity go with a cryo chamber, where you are rejuvenated and healed with the help of extreme cold, -110 degrees?
Or, for example, mud therapy, which takes place here. Does the ascetic go to a float pool?
A float pool is a large bathtub, or capsule, filled with very salty water.
You lie in it and seem to soar on the surface, as if you were weightless.
All your muscles relax, you go into a meditative state - very useful for relieving stress and tension.
Here is a fully equipped cosmetologist's office, next to it is a dentist's office.
Opposite of it you can visit the lymphopress procedure and nearby massage baths.
In the other wing, everything is the same as before. A 25 meter pool surrounded by contrast baths.
The same as in Gelendzhik and Novo-Ogarevo. Hamam, sauna, everything is also here.
We have not discussed this room yet. The epicenter of asceticism is located here.
This is a massage room. There is a podium for Thai massage.
A massage chair illuminated by a special infrared lamp (this one chair alone costs more than half a million rubles).
And in the middle of the room there is a bed, curtained with a tulle canopy.
We can even get a look at the interiors here. On one wall there is a ceramic panel with orchids,
and on the other, a panel with a less sonorous name "Ziguli". How beautiful.
If you climb a spiral staircase, you'll find yourself in a two-hundred-meter hall.
There is also a bedroom upstairs, and a serving room
- there is no kitchen here, because the serving room has a special elevator for food -
and a giant 500 m2 living room. Apparently, it has a very impressive aquarium -
after all, just the utility room for this aquarium occupies 13 m2.
And let's quickly go over the basement floor as well. These are clearly technical rooms and staff rooms.
We find the most long-awaited premises - maintenance room for the salt bath and a separate utility room for mud therapy.
We've already seen this somewhere. And here is a room for special communications -
in case someone has doubts about who exactly built such an ascetic spa complex for himself.
In addition to this spa complex, the Property Management Department rents about 80 buildings, small and large.
Until that moment, no one knew for how much and on what conditions.
Even now, the documents from Rosreestr are in a horrible state - the names of buildings have been removed,
the lease terms have been confused, the information has not been updated for years.
The last mention on the public procurement website dates back to 2009.
And from there we learn that on the territory of the residence, in addition to Chinese and Russian huts,
there are also baths, a sauna, a stable, a golf course, a mini golf course,
a VIP restaurant with a cinema, a bowling alley, a billiard room and even... a mini-casino.
We probably would not have believed it then, but now, having found a home casino in Gelendzhik,
it's unsurprising that there's a casino here as well.
All this was built there by 2009, and knowing the appetites of the national leader,
over the past 10 years, the number of VIP saunas, VIP restaurants and VIP golf courses there has only increased.
We have little doubt that this is Putin's favorite residence.
It is here that Putin is brought his favorite artists for personal VIP concerts.
Do you remember the story of Natalia Vetlitskaya, who, together with Leps and Kirkorov,
was brought to a private party for 6 people in costumes from Catherine's times? It happened here.
Or here is the story of Igor Butman, a saxophonist and Putin's confidant.
He was taken to Valdai in traffic police cars with flashing lights,
and upon arrival they were sitting in some kind of hut on chicken legs, and Putin treated him to moonshine.
Here it is, this hut, in the photograph.
In the documents of the security guard of the former Ukrainian President Yanukovych, quite an unexpected source,
you can find a mention of their secret meeting with Putin in Valdai, during the Maidan.
There, the presidents were entertained by artists Elena Vaenga and Oleg Gazmanov.
On the same day, an interview with Vaenga “straight from the Karelian forests” was published on the Radio Chanson website.
Apparently, she saw the forests, but geography wasn't one of her strengths.
Silvio Berlusconi was also lucky enough to visit Valdai, where he and Putin flew in a seaplane.
Berlusconi was initially stunned by the proposal,
especially since Putin did not go aboard and said goodbye to his old friend from the boat.
So, the Valdai residence Putin's actual personal dacha.
Journalists are not allowed here, there are no official meetings here. This is where Putin rests.
And in accordance with Putin's good tradition, just like with the palace in Gelendzhik,
the managers of this dacha (that is, the main keepers of local Putin's secrets)
are generously rewarded with money and positions.
For 20 years, Valery Pikalev was responsible for this dacha from the side of the FSO.
Recently, Pikalev was appointed Vice Governor of St. Petersburg and Head of the Governor's Administration.
We still have the most important question: How much does it cost?
It turned out to be very simple to find out. Yuri Kovalchuk owns all of this through his company Prime.
We checked and found everything that Prime has and how it gets income.
We found out that apart from rent payments from PMD, they have no significant income.
The company is not engaged in anything other than leasing this residence.
Now let's look at the financial statements of Prime. Revenue for 2019 - 312 million, revenue for 2018 - 304 million.
Over the past 10 years, they have earned 2.7 billion rubles. There are 3 years left until the end of this Putin's term.
So, we will throw at least another billion on this dacha only as payment to the Kovalchuks.
I understand why the president needs a residence. A House, a dacha, a dacha complex - no problem.
In different parts of the country - let it be, we have a huge country after all.
It is also clear that these are all budgetary expenditures, the presidents change, but state dachas remain.
But what I absolutely do not understand is why on earth we pay Putin
for the construction of personal spa complexes with massage and beauty rooms, cryochambers and float pools.
Why on earth are billions of taxpayers' rubles spent on relaxation, mud therapy and rejuvenation of one person?
And most importantly: why is this money paid in the form of rent to Putin's best friend, a billionaire?
And it doesn't even belong to the state! If Putin leaves power one day, the rest of the residences,
will remain on the state balance, as they've been since the Soviet times
But here the state owns only half of the land, without the actual residence on it.
The rest belongs to Kovalchuk. 300 million rubles a year are thrown to the wind,
so that Putin has somewhere to lie down in weightlessness and where to invite artists.
This investigation will not be shown on TV. On TV, they will show how the humble Putin once again outplays everyone,
how he ascetically travels across Russia and admires wooden crafts.
Putin's two decades have passed under the banner of such hypocrisy. TV Putin has nothing to do with real Putin.
It is very important to show this video to those who watch TV and believe in such a Putin.
Alexey Navalny is supposed to be in this studio, instead of us. But he is in a penal colony on a hunger strike.
Navalny was illegally imprisoned by Putin for telling the truth about Putin's corruption, lies and hypocrisy.
We will continue to tell this truth.
Freedom for Alexei Navalny.
The best way to support Alexei Navalny right now is to register at free.navalny.com.
We set ourselves a goal: to gather 500,000 people ready to go out in support of Navalny and other political prisoners.
Find your house on the map, mark it, and let's show the authorities how many of us are there.