Thermal complex, church… What Vladimir Putin’s “favorite” residence, targeted by Ukraine, looks like according to Moscow

Moscow accused kyiv on Monday of having launched a drone attack on the presidential residence of Vladimir Putin, in Russia in the Novgorod region, in Valdai, during the night from Sunday to Monday. Volodymyr Zelensky immediately described this declaration as a “lie” but the diplomatic negotiations to resolve the conflict still risk becoming muddled.

Allegedly targeted by 91 drones, this residence, one of Vladimir Putin’s many properties, is located approximately 400 km from Moscow. This “dacha” (Editor’s note: second home in the countryside), is located on the edge of the lake, on an immense plot of land of 250 ha, according to information revealed in 2021 by the Anti-Corruption Foundation of Alexeï Navalny, the opponent of the Russian president, who died in February 2024.

150 ha officially belong to the Russian Federation and house various outbuildings, as well as warehouses, garages, hangars and at least 12 missile vehicles installed on towers, as a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist reported last August.

Part of the land is leased by the Russian administration

The rest of the property is registered in the name of a company: Praym LLC, headed by Russian businessman Yuri Kovalchuk, main shareholder of Rossiya Bank and one of Vladimir Putin’s oldest friends.

The billionaire, close to the tenant of the Kremlin, would have collected in 10 years more than 35 billion dollars, for having rented this part of the property to the Russian administration. This land, owned by Kovaltchouk, contains around 80 buildings, including a 3,500 m2 mansion, containing four floors, a Chinese-style pavilion, a Russian-style izba (Editor’s note: a wooden house), a restaurant including a cinema, a bowling alley, another billiard room as well as a small casino. The space also has its own church and stable.

Numerous relaxation and relaxation areas have also been built: saunas, baths, and a thermal complex measuring nearly 7,000 m2, located not far from the main residence. This complex includes a solarium, a floating swimming pool, cryotherapy areas, mud rooms, a 25 m swimming pool, massage rooms, an aquarium but also more surprisingly: a dentist’s office and a cosmetology office.

A mansion built for his lover

According to the foundation, this residence would be Vladimir Putin’s favorite. In 2023, the investigative media Proekt reveals that the president would have had a vast wooden mansion of 1,200 m2 built on this land, not for him but for his alleged lover, Alina Kabaeva. For more than fifteen years, Vladimir Putin has maintained a discreet relationship with the former gymnast, with whom he reportedly had at least two children. Russian authorities have never confirmed this information.

But there is little doubt that it is indeed the former sportswoman according to the journalists of Proekt, indicating that one of their sources familiar with the layout of the residence assures that this immense mansion was built for Alina Kabaeva.

“The constant presence of children in the residence was indirectly confirmed by publicly available data. During the summers of 2020 and 2021, a small go-kart track was built on the site of the old heliports. And right next to the residence, in the heart of the forest, a large children’s play area in yellow and blue colors was installed between 2016 and 2020,” specifies the media which also publishes photos of the place.

The day after Moscow’s accusations, Ukraine still denies having launched an attack against Valdai’s residence. Russia has not provided any evidence to support these accusations, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiga said on Tuesday. At the same time, the Kremlin indicated on Tuesday that it had no evidence to provide and warned that Moscow’s position in the negotiations on Ukraine would “harden”.