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The "Wine City" at Gelendzhik, a resort city on the Black Sea about 150 km southeast of Crimea, will have the largest wine store in the country, an interactive wine museum, tasting rooms, a school for sommeliers and winemakers, an exhibition center, and even its own embankment with a beach, according to the Russian-language expat publication Agentstvo.
Gelendzhik is also the site of "Putin's palace", a different $1.4 billion complex that, according to Wikipedia, contains a house with an area of 17,700 square meters, an arboretum, a greenhouse, a helipad, an ice palace, a church, an amphitheater, a guest house, and a special tunnel inside the mountain with a tasting room.
The main building boasts a 260-square meter master bedroom, an indoor swimming pool, an "aquadiscotheque", a spa, saunas, Turkish baths, a music lounge, a hookah bar, a theater, a cinema, a casino, a dozen guest bedrooms, and of course a wine cellar. The area around the palace is a no-fly zone, probably sensible with the Ukranian border a mere 300km away.
You want more wine bling? We got more wine bling! Russia is also building two wineries near Putin's Palace, one Italian style with Italian consultants; the other French style with French consultants. The Insider, another Russian expat publication, reported that Russia's Federal Tax Service estimated the value of the two wineries at $176 million. Before he was killed in a Russian prison, dissident Alexei Navalny's organization released a video revealing that the toilet brushes in the French-style winery cost €700 ($770) each.
Meanwhile, a nearby winery in Gelendzhik openly owned by Putin's friend Roman Abramovich, former owner of the Chelsea football club, has a reported value of just $4m. This led The Insider to conclude: "According to a formal evaluation based on financial statements, it would have been possible to build 42 ultra-modern world-class wineries instead of two royal ones with golden toilet brushes."
Moreover, The Insider reports that the companies managing the two wineries are losing as much money per year as the annual budget of the city of Gelendzhik, which has a population of 80,000.
Of course, nothing involving Putin and Russia is straightforward, and that especially includes ownership of businesses the Russian president has interest in. The Wine City is being built by a company called Velesstroy. Agentstvo reports that its main owner is a Croatian native named Krešimir Filipovic, who has been called "Putin's wallet" in Russian media. The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) wrote a story claiming that Velesstroy laundered money from Russia's state-owned oil pipeline company Transneft.
One of the contractors for the Wine City, Politekhstroy-Svargo, is one of Russia's 20 largest general contractors, with most of its jobs coming from the government. Agentstvo reports that Politekhstroy-Svargo is one of the largest developers currently working in Mariupol, which Russia captured from Ukraine in 2022.
But – Agenstvo says that the official documents list the owner of Wine City as "confidential."
It's not news that Putin loves wine: a stark contrast from US President Joe Biden, former UK premier Rishi Sunak and former US President Donald Trump, who are teetotallers. (If you're wondering, California native Kamala Harris likes Zinfandel.)
In 2013 I had the honor of breaking the story of Putin having a special wine created for him by a Greek Orthodox monastery on an island that doesn't allow women. Putin visited the island in 2003 and wanted a wine made specifically for the Kremlin: samples were sent back and forth to Russia for two years before they settled on a blend of 70 percent Cabernet Sauvignon and 30 percent of the Greek native variety Limnio. Based on a similar wine I could taste, Putin likes his red wines big and tannic (just in case you were thinking about sending him a gift: probably Napa Cabernet over Bordeaux.)
Forbes reported in 2020 that Putin has his own gold-plated buggy in an enormous underground cellar in Cricova, Moldova. The tunnels are so vast that they have traffic lights and road signs. That winery was a massive Stalin-era construction project, opening in 1952 when Moldova was in the Soviet Union. Today, Moldova, which borders Ukraine; it is independent but the second-poorest country in Europe. One source of foreign income has been visits to the underground cellar by world leaders including former German chancellor Angela Merkel and Biden, when he was vice president. Putin has had a personal wine collection there since 2002.
No word on when he will get past Ukraine to drink some of it, but it sounds like there will be plenty of other wines to keep him busy.
Putin Gets into the Wine Industry
Russia's Vladimir Putin may be conducting a war, but he is still apparently finding time – and money – to build one of the most expensive wine complexes in the world.The "Wine City" at Gelendzhik, a resort city on the Black Sea about 150 km southeast of Crimea, will have the largest wine store in the country, an interactive wine museum, tasting rooms, a school for sommeliers and winemakers, an exhibition center, and even its own embankment with a beach, according to the Russian-language expat publication Agentstvo.
Gelendzhik is also the site of "Putin's palace", a different $1.4 billion complex that, according to Wikipedia, contains a house with an area of 17,700 square meters, an arboretum, a greenhouse, a helipad, an ice palace, a church, an amphitheater, a guest house, and a special tunnel inside the mountain with a tasting room.
The main building boasts a 260-square meter master bedroom, an indoor swimming pool, an "aquadiscotheque", a spa, saunas, Turkish baths, a music lounge, a hookah bar, a theater, a cinema, a casino, a dozen guest bedrooms, and of course a wine cellar. The area around the palace is a no-fly zone, probably sensible with the Ukranian border a mere 300km away.
You want more wine bling? We got more wine bling! Russia is also building two wineries near Putin's Palace, one Italian style with Italian consultants; the other French style with French consultants. The Insider, another Russian expat publication, reported that Russia's Federal Tax Service estimated the value of the two wineries at $176 million. Before he was killed in a Russian prison, dissident Alexei Navalny's organization released a video revealing that the toilet brushes in the French-style winery cost €700 ($770) each.
Meanwhile, a nearby winery in Gelendzhik openly owned by Putin's friend Roman Abramovich, former owner of the Chelsea football club, has a reported value of just $4m. This led The Insider to conclude: "According to a formal evaluation based on financial statements, it would have been possible to build 42 ultra-modern world-class wineries instead of two royal ones with golden toilet brushes."
Moreover, The Insider reports that the companies managing the two wineries are losing as much money per year as the annual budget of the city of Gelendzhik, which has a population of 80,000.
Of course, nothing involving Putin and Russia is straightforward, and that especially includes ownership of businesses the Russian president has interest in. The Wine City is being built by a company called Velesstroy. Agentstvo reports that its main owner is a Croatian native named Krešimir Filipovic, who has been called "Putin's wallet" in Russian media. The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) wrote a story claiming that Velesstroy laundered money from Russia's state-owned oil pipeline company Transneft.
One of the contractors for the Wine City, Politekhstroy-Svargo, is one of Russia's 20 largest general contractors, with most of its jobs coming from the government. Agentstvo reports that Politekhstroy-Svargo is one of the largest developers currently working in Mariupol, which Russia captured from Ukraine in 2022.
But – Agenstvo says that the official documents list the owner of Wine City as "confidential."
It's not news that Putin loves wine: a stark contrast from US President Joe Biden, former UK premier Rishi Sunak and former US President Donald Trump, who are teetotallers. (If you're wondering, California native Kamala Harris likes Zinfandel.)
In 2013 I had the honor of breaking the story of Putin having a special wine created for him by a Greek Orthodox monastery on an island that doesn't allow women. Putin visited the island in 2003 and wanted a wine made specifically for the Kremlin: samples were sent back and forth to Russia for two years before they settled on a blend of 70 percent Cabernet Sauvignon and 30 percent of the Greek native variety Limnio. Based on a similar wine I could taste, Putin likes his red wines big and tannic (just in case you were thinking about sending him a gift: probably Napa Cabernet over Bordeaux.)
Forbes reported in 2020 that Putin has his own gold-plated buggy in an enormous underground cellar in Cricova, Moldova. The tunnels are so vast that they have traffic lights and road signs. That winery was a massive Stalin-era construction project, opening in 1952 when Moldova was in the Soviet Union. Today, Moldova, which borders Ukraine; it is independent but the second-poorest country in Europe. One source of foreign income has been visits to the underground cellar by world leaders including former German chancellor Angela Merkel and Biden, when he was vice president. Putin has had a personal wine collection there since 2002.
No word on when he will get past Ukraine to drink some of it, but it sounds like there will be plenty of other wines to keep him busy.
