MOSCOW (Reuters) – In 2010, a St. Petersburg businessman called Sergei Kolesnikov published an open letter to Dmitry Medvedev, who was then president of Russia while Vladimir Putin held the post of prime minister. Among other things, Kolesnikov claimed that a luxurious estate was being built near the Black Sea for the benefit of Putin.
This extravagant Italianate mansion had a helicopter landing pad, summer theatre and underground tunnels. Located near Gelendzhik, close to the Black Sea coast, the mansion was quickly dubbed “Putin’s palace” and covered by Russian and international media. The Kremlin denied Putin had any connection to it.
But curiosity persisted. Kolesnikov’s claims sparked interest partly because he was a former business associate of Nikolai Shamalov and Dmitry Gorelov, two businessmen with links to Putin. Shamalov is, and Gorelov was until last year, a shareholder in Bank Rossiya, a bank whose shareholders “include members of Putin’s inner circle,” according to the U.S. Treasury. The two men were guests at Putin’s 55th birthday party, according to Kolesnikov.
The company that originally oversaw the building of the estate was called Rirus. According to a document previously published by Kolesnikov, the founders of Rirus were Shamalov and Gorelov. Rirus shared the same address as other companies in which the two men had stakes.
In 2011 the Russian newspaper Vedomosti, citing official corporate records, reported that the owner of Rirus as of 2010 was Shamalov alone.
In February 2011, Novaya Gazeta, an independent newspaper in Russia, published documents indicating that senior officials in the presidential administration had approved plans for the Black Sea estate. The officials did so on two separate occasions, once during Putin’s second presidential term and again in 2008 when Putin was prime minister, said the paper.
A group of journalists and activists who tried to visit the estate in February 2011 said it was being protected by the Federal Guard Service, a government agency whose role is to provide security for high-ranking officials.
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The Kremlin made no comment at the time. Two months later Vladimir Kozhin, head of the Kremlin’s Department of Presidential Affairs, said in an interview with the newspaper Kommersant that his department had been involved in the initial phase of the Black Sea estate, years earlier – but only as part of a project to encourage investors into real estate developments.
Soon after the Novaya Gazeta reports, Russian billionaire Alexander Ponomarenko announced he had bought the unfinished estate from Shamalov for an undisclosed sum. Ponomarenko has said he views the property as an investment project and would rent parts of it out.
The latest corporate records show Rirus is now owned by a Cypriot company.
In an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta in 2012, Kozhin denied the property was for Putin. “There is no dacha of Putin in Gelendzhik,” he said. “What sort of estate is there? I don’t know … I can officially, for the hundredth time, state: The President has three residences outside Moscow: Ogarevo in Moscow region, Bocharov Ruchei in Sochi, and in Valdai.”
Kolesnikov left Russia in September 2010 and now lives in Estonia.
(Editing by Richard Woods and Simon Robinson)