"Putin's Palace" (Russian: «Дворец Путина», romanized: "Dvorets Putina") is an Italianate palace complex located on the Black Sea coast near Gelendzhik, Krasnodar Krai, Russia. The complex first came to public attention in 2010 after whistleblower Sergei Kolesnikov published an open letter to Russian president Dmitry Medvedev exposing the construction of the palace. Kolesnikov also stated that the undertaking was run by Nikolai Shamalov who was acting on behalf of Vladimir Putin. Alexander Ponomarenko was later reported to have ownership. The complex drew wider public attention in 2021, when Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny's Anti Corruption Foundation (FBK) released an investigative documentary film about it which detailed a corruption scheme allegedly headed by Putin and claimed that the palace was built for the president's personal use. The FBK investigation estimated the cost of the build to be over 100 billion rubles (US$956 million) at 2022 prices. Putin denied that the palace belonged to him, with the Kremlin saying that it is a private venture owned by various businessmen whose names could not be revealed by the state. Following the film's release, Arkady Rotenberg, who has close ties to Putin, claimed ownership of the palace. In 2024, the Russian outlet Proekt reported that parts of the Palace had been reconverted, reconfiguring various entertainment rooms – such as a casino, pole-dancing room and room for miniature railroads – into lounging rooms and a chapel with a dedication to Saint Volodymyr of Kiev.
Location and buildings
The residence is located at 44.419°N 38.205°E / 44.419; 38.205 on Cape Idokopas, near the village of Praskoveyevka. Cape Idokopas (Russian: Мыс Идокопас) is a promontory on the Black Sea coast of Russia near Gelendzhik, Krasnodar Krai. The headland is lined with cliffs but is mostly flat on its summit, which is heavily forested with Turkish pine trees. It is bordered by a reef that makes offshore navigation hazardous. The residence overlooks Russia's Black Sea coast, and is built on a block of land with a total area of 74 hectares (180 acres). The airspace around the palace (see image) is regulated as Prohibited Special Use Airspace P116 (i.e. a no-fly zone), which the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) stated was to protect an FSB border-post in the area from increased foreign intelligence activity. There is a vast number of buildings on the palace complex, including a house with an area of 17,700 square metres (191,000 sq ft), an arboretum, a greenhouse, a helipad, an ice palace, a church, an amphitheater, a "tea house" (guest house), a gas station, an 80-metre (260 ft) bridge, and a special tunnel inside the mountain with a tasting room. The main building boasts a large indoor swimming pool, aquadiskotheque arrangement, spa, saunas, Turkish baths, meat and fish shops, vegetable and dessert shops, a warehouse, a reading room, a music lounge, a hookah bar, a theater, a cinema, a wine cellar, a casino, and about a dozen guest bedrooms. The master bedroom is 260 square metres (2,800 sq ft) in size. The house was designed by the Italian architect Lanfranco Cirillo, who has designed properties for many of Russia's elite.
Palace interiors Photographs of the palace's interiors from 2010 were published in January 2011 on the RuLeaks website (a Russian analogue of WikiLeaks). They were presumably taken by ordinary workers servicing the facility (one or more of them appeared in the photos themselves, their faces were obscured).
As noted above, on 20 January 2022, Navalny's team published 479 photographs taken inside the facility around 2014, before the mold damage. Observers noted the similarity of the interiors captured in the new photographs to the initial 3D visualization, created from architectural plans, previously available photos, and furniture catalogs for the 2021 investigative film. At the same time, the investigators themselves focused on the hookah lounge (striptease hall), which, in their opinion, actually looked "much worse" than in the 3D visualization, which was created without any real photographs of the room. The abundance of double-headed eagles in the interior design and the excessive gilding of the rooms also drew criticism. In May 2024, the FBK and Proekt published secretly made video recordings of the updated interiors and working documentation for the palace reconstruction project.
History
Start of construction (2005) On 10 June 2005, an investment agreement was concluded between the Presidential Property Management Department of Russia, FSUE "Tuapse Holiday House", OAO "Lirus", and FSUE "Enterprise for the Supply of Products" of the Presidential Property Management Department of Russia for the construction of a "boarding house in the area of the village of Praskoveevka, Gelendzhik, Krasnodar Krai". The subject of this agreement was the construction of a facility on a 740,000 m² plot of land. The project's investor, the Lirus company, was to invest at least 400 million rubles in the construction. The project was scheduled for completion in 2008, after which 30% of the total area was to be transferred to the Presidential Property Management Department, and 70% to the investor. Under an addendum dated 10 November 2008, to the previously concluded agreement, the client-developer became the FGU "Military Unit 1473" of the Federal Protective Service (FSO). As early as November of the same year, the first reports of construction starting on Cape Idokopas appeared in the press. The fence and the construction site that appeared there for a "year-round children's camp," a facility of the FSUE "Dagomys" of the Presidential Property Management Department of the Russian Federation, also attracted the attention of eco-activists.
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