Russian state television previews segment claiming Putin’s palace is actually a hotel

On Friday, January 29, the state-owned television channel Rossiya-1 is set to broadcast a segment about the Black Sea “palace” reportedly built for Russian President Vladimir Putin near Gelendzhik.

In a preview posted on YouTube, the segment’s host maintains that the mansion is actually an unfinished hotel complex.

“In the ‘palace’ itself there are only bare, concrete walls. And there isn’t even a hint of what is shown in that film,” says the video’s narrator.

The preview shows ongoing finishing work and includes a short commentary from one of the builders, who says that the residence is “a hotel with rooms, common areas, and swimming pool.”

The full segment will air on the program Vesti at 8:00 p.m. Moscow time.

• On the morning of January 29, the Telegram-based news outlet Mash published a short video from the residence outside of Gelendzhik reporting that only the mansion’s exterior has been completed and that the interior hadn’t even reached the finishing stages. “This is just solid concrete. In fact, everything is at the zero stage of construction. In short, it’s nothing to brag about,” the Mash correspondent commented.
• The now-famous “Putin’s Palace” investigation released by Alexey Navlany’s Anti-Corruption Foundation claimed that while the residence was once completely finished, it had to be rebuilt due to mold and design errors. “They decided to redo everything. Absolutely everything. They stripped the walls, stripped off the marble, took out everything of value, literally threw billions into the trash and started over,” the investigation underscores.
• On January 25, Putin said that the palace doesn’t belong to him or his family members. The next day, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the property’s owners are “obviously businessmen” and emphasized that the Kremlin “has no right” to disclose their names.