Vladimir Putin has a new lavish holiday home with gold-plated tiles in the swimming pool just a few miles from Russia’s border with the West, according to the Moscow media.
His sumptuous bolt-hole is part of a complex involving a restored tsarist mansion famous as being used in a Soviet movie about Sherlock Holmes.
Villa Sellgren is built on an island in the Vyborg Bay, around 12 miles from the Russian border with Finland.
Officially it belongs to close friends of the Kremlin president but locals say it is the latest prestige home in a stunning property portfolio rumoured to be Putin’s.
3D images supposedly highlighting the interior of a 16,150 sq ft Putin dacha show a grandiose indoor swimming pool, a steam sauna, a billiard room and study with the Russian double headed eagle emblem.
Vladimir Putin’s has a new lavish holiday home with gold-plated tiles in the swimming pool
Putin’s sumptuous bolt-hole is part of a complex involving a restored tsarist mansion famous as being used in a Soviet movie about Sherlock Holmes
Villa Sellgren was originally built before the Russian Revolution in 1913 by famous Finnish architect Uno Ullberg and is well known for scenes in a 1987 Soviet film on Sherlock Holmes
Vladimir Putin has a new lavish holiday home with gold-plated tiles in Russia, it’s been reported
Lodochny island and the sea around it is reported to be heavily guarded by Russian Federal Protection Service officers, preventing locals getting close.
Villa Sellgren was originally built before the Russian Revolution in 1913 by famous Finnish architect Uno Ullberg and is well known for scenes in a 1987 Soviet film on Sherlock Holmes.
A source told independent TV Rain in Moscow: ‘After 2010 they started building a dacha for Putin there.’
The rundown villa was renovated and either a massive extension has been added to the mansion, or a new separate home is built nearby, it is claimed.
Several other large houses have also appeared on the island.
Locals have posted complaints on the internet saying previous access to the island has been banned and a helicopter pad installed.
There is ‘even a radar on the beach so that the enemy divers can’t get through’, according to one.
The 3D images and a floor plan were also posted online, an evident leak of construction plans for the holiday home
Rus construction company – linked to the 3D images – refused to comment on the development
Another, called Alexander, wrote: ‘This is Putin’s residence here.’
This latest alleged Putin villa is only 60 miles from another village complex where one home has a grass covered roof on the shore of Lake Ladoga in Karelia region
He normally stays once a year, and locals cannot go fishing from the island as they used to be able to do.
A three miles fence surrounded the supposed Putin villa.
The 3D images and a floor plan were also posted online, an evident leak of construction plans for the holiday home.
This showed the swimming pool, part of an ‘underground spa’, captioned using Putin’s initials: ‘Here is where VVP bathes.’
According to Alexander, Putin comes to the property once a year although no official announcement was ever made.
Officially, land on the island was switched some years ago from being protected forest to allow the development of a ‘resort’.
Until 2014, the Sellgren complex officially belonged to the head of Baltic Media Group Oleg Rudnov, described as an ‘old Putin friend’
Attempting to reach the mansion, security guards told TV Rain it was a ‘closed object’ with no access
This latest alleged Putin villa is only 60 miles from another village complex where one home has a grass covered roof on the shore of Lake Ladoga in Karelia region
Rus construction company – linked to the 3D images – refused to comment on the development.
Bosses of another company – Adis Group design bureau – failed to answer requests for information on the alleged Putin dacha from TV Rain.
Attempting to reach the mansion, security guards told TV Rain it was a ‘closed object’ with no access.
Until 2014, the Sellgren complex officially belonged to the head of Baltic Media Group Oleg Rudnov, described as an ‘old Putin friend’, who also once owned Lindstrem’s dacha in St Petersburg, also now alleged to be Putin’s.
Rudnov died in 2015, and his son Sergey inherited his empire including Sever company which officially owns the island properties linked by the media to Putin.
This latest alleged Putin villa is only 60 miles from another village complex where one home has a grass covered roof on the shore of Lake Ladoga in Karelia region.
He is also rumoured to own a palace on the Black Sea called Gelendzhik, and a dacha close to St Petersburg, and an Altai Mountains retreat officially belonging to Gazrom.
Putin apparently comes to the property once a year although no official announcement was ever made