World
October 8, 2024 12:30
sochi - Russian President Putin has stopped visiting his beloved summer residence in the coastal town of Sochi since March due to concerns over his safety, leaving the lavish Bocharov Ruchey estate deserted.
The summer residence Bocharov Ruchey, located on the Black Sea, was highly popular among Soviet leaders. Putin, a big fan of the Black Sea and the coastal town of Sochi, where Bocharov Ruchey stands, received world leaders like Lukashenko, Erdogan, and former US President George W. Bush there. Even former Prime Minister Rutte visited the residence in 2014 for the Winter Olympics.
After the Winter Olympics, Putin secretly visited Sochi regularly until the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. During the renovation of Ruchey in 2014, an exact replica of Putin's office in the official presidential building near Moscow, Novo-Ogaryovo, was recreated in Sochi. The president even lied frequently about not leaving his official residence near the Russian capital.
Officially, Putin was supposed to spend only 30 days per year in his vacation villa, but according to Proekt, these are just the Kremlin's official figures. The Russian channel tracked the president's plane as it flew towards the coast. In 2021, Putin spent almost a third of his time in the autumn months in Sochi. Even during the first year of the war with Ukraine, the frequency of his visits remained unchanged.
In 2021, Navalny's supporters published a two-hour video on YouTube showing Putin's mega palace. Navalny described it as the new Versailles or the Winter Palace, calling it not just a country house, a cottage, or a residence, but a whole city, or rather a kingdom.
The building on the Black Sea coast measures 17,691 square meters, making it the largest residence in Russia according to Navalny. The estate includes a 2,500 square meter greenhouse for rare plants, two helicopter pads, an underground ice hockey rink, an amphitheater, a pole-dancing room, and a secret tunnel to the sea, where there is also a space carved out of the rocks for wine tastings with a sea view.
The total cost of the estate is said to be 100 billion rubles (over 1.1 billion euros). The entire estate, which is hermetically sealed off, is 39 times the size of Monaco, with impenetrable fences, a private port, a private security service, a church, a proprietary licensing system, a no-fly zone, and even its own border control.
Despite his love for Sochi, the current threat seems so significant that Putin no longer trusts the visits. According to Proekt, after a series of drone attacks in October 2023, Putin hardly visits Bocharov Ruchey anymore due to concerns for his physical safety. In January of this year, the main building of the residence was completely destroyed. A renovation was planned, as reported by the Moscow Times.
Since March, the visits have completely stopped. Even the annual tradition on May 12 of celebrating the birthday of Alina Kabayeva - Putin's partner and the mother of Putin's two 'secret' sons - has been broken.