Vladimir Putin’s (not so) secret life

He also has a powerful protector behind him: Dossier belongs to the empire of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Putin’s first prominent prisoner. The once richest Russian was imprisoned in the Gulag between 2003 and 2013 because he publicly defied Putin.

Since then, Khodorkovsky has tried everything to uncover details of Putin’s life in order to convict him of corruption and hypocrisy. The latest revelation deals with a part of Putin’s life that is more closely guarded than anything else: his – alleged – wife Alina Kabaeva and the couple’s two sons, Ivan (9) and Vladimir (5). According to domestic workers, they are supposed to live completely shielded from the public in residences that are paid for by oligarchs loyal to Putin – for example in the beautiful Valdai south of Petersburg, in Sochi or on various yachts.

The second wife

The fact that Kabaeva, a multi-decorated gymnast, is said to be Putin’s wife is not new. As early as 2008, the Moskovsky correspondent reported on the couple’s upcoming wedding. Putin, who was still married to his first wife Lyudmila at the time, publicly criticized this “dripping curiosity”. A short time later the newspaper no longer existed – and he separated from Lyudmila five years later, saying: “She has done her job.”

Kabaeva was already a State Duma deputy and the birth of her son Ivan was not far away. Wladimir Jr. is said to have been born in 2015 in Lugano, Switzerland. four years later in Moscow.

However, there are no records of either of them. They have documents like people in witness protection programs have; They also never attended schools or kindergartens. They are taught by private teachers and nannies, who are even regularly searched for via job advertisements on the Internet. “The family is difficult,” says a former employee about the high fluctuation in Putin’s house.

There is almost no direct interaction with Kabaeva or even Putin: Kabaeva’s cousin acts as mother to the employees, and the employees are not allowed to move freely – they are never allowed to leave the property; in Valdai, for example, it is even possible to walk. Walking forbidden.

No comment

The Kremlin chief has not commented on these revelations; he has been silent about all articles about him and Kabaeva for years – she also no longer gives interviews. Putin has apparently learned from the life of his favorite dictator, Josef Stalin: his wife Nadezhda was found shot the day after a heated public marital dispute in 1932. However, doubts about the public portrayal – suicide – never went away.