Inside Putin’s Crimea palace: Private hospital and luxury spa revealed by investigators
Photo: Vladimir Putin, Russian President (Getty Images)
Russian investigators have uncovered a new palace belonging to President Vladimir Putin, located at Cape Aya in temporarily occupied Crimea. At least 10 billion rubles (about $127 million) were spent on its construction, according to an investigation by the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK).
According to the FBK, the palace was originally intended to become a "dacha" for former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. However, after the peninsula was occupied by Russia, the construction was declared illegal. The property was then transferred to the Kovalchuk brothers, who are close to Putin, and completely rebuilt.
Investigators say the complex features lavish interiors, a private medical center, a spa area, a cryochamber, a helipad, a private embankment, and round-the-clock security.
The FBK emphasizes that the current scale of the site is incomparable to what it was before.
"Now it is no longer a dacha, but a huge palace. It only remotely resembles what was known in 2014 as 'Yanukovych’s dacha.' Yanukovych’s dacha is a shack, a small bribe, compared to what has now been built at Cape Aya. Higher up the slope, there are buildings for staff, some technical facilities, and a new helipad," the investigators said.
The FBK also has photographs of the interiors: one of the halls covers 233 square meters.
Photo: a hall in Putin’s palace in Crimea (navalny.com)
Putin’s palace also includes a bedroom with an area of 154 square meters — roughly the size of three two-bedroom apartments.
Photo: a bedroom in Putin’s palace (navalny.com)
Among the rooms is a 50-square-meter bathroom fitted with sanitary ware costing nearly 3 million rubles (more than $38,700). The design documentation lists 15 fittings with a total value exceeding 11 million rubles (over $142,000).
Photo: a bathroom in Putin’s palace (navalny.com)
Photo: a bathroom in Putin’s palace (navalny.com)
Below is a private medical unit with a general practitioner’s office, an ultrasound machine costing 2 million rubles (over $25,800), as well as equipment for laboratory tests, ECGs, and physiotherapy.
Nearby, there is a dental office and an operating room equipped with an operating table costing 4 million rubles, a ventilator, a defibrillator-monitor, anesthesia equipment, monitoring systems, X-ray equipment, and devices for gastroscopy and colonoscopy. The left wing of the floor is occupied by a spa center with a swimming pool.
According to the FBK, construction financing was carried out, among others, by Vladimir Kolbin, the son of Putin’s childhood friend Pyotr Kolbin. As noted in the investigation, Vladimir Kolbin also paid for the construction of a winery at Putin’s palace in Gelendzhik. He also provided 405 million rubles ($5.231 million) for the Crimean dacha.
At the same time, Kovalchuk and his network of offshore companies also directed nearly 2 billion rubles (more than $25.862 million) toward the construction of the palace.
Based on these data, the authors of the investigation conclude that the palace at Cape Aya in Crimea was built using the same sources of funding as Putin’s palace in Gelendzhik.
Putin’s palace in Gelendzhik
In 2021, the Anti-Corruption Foundation released an investigation into a palace in Gelendzhik linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to the report, the residence covers an area of 17,691 square meters.
The FBK describes the site as a "state within a state" and one of the most secretive projects associated with Putin.
According to the investigation, around 100 billion rubles were spent on the construction of the palace, equivalent to approximately $1.3 billion.
