Journalists Tell How Putin's Palace Has Changed

Instead of a striptease area, there is now a church with a throne.

Investigative journalists obtained construction documentation for the reconstruction of the famous palace in Gelendzhik, which was attributed to Vladimir Putin. “The Project” recalls that three years ago, oligarch Arkady Rotenberg, close to Putin, promised to rebuild the scandalous palace into a hotel by 2023.

The reconstruction took place, but there is still no hotel there, say the authors of the investigation. According to them, the object is still intended for Vladimir Putin, and the interiors allow one to see how much its owner has changed.

So, instead of an “aqua discotheque” and a “room with a pole,” a chapel with a triptych iconostasis appeared in the palace.

It usually consists of icons of the Mother of God, Jesus Christ and either John the Baptist or St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. However, in the palace the third icon was the image of Prince Vladimir.

There is also a throne in the church. According to Archpriest Andrei Kordochkin, with whom journalists spoke, such attributes are either intended for a high-ranking church hierarch, or the owner of the church has “a fairly high idea of himself and his importance.”

Journalists also found that materials from Western companies were used for the reconstruction of the palace, in particular, building materials from the German Knauf, plumbing fixtures and accessories from the German companies Jorger, Tece, Emco and Hansgrohe, the Italian Gessi and Vismara Vetro, the Swiss Geberit and Laufen, and the Japanese Omoikiri.