The good news? A single client is currently spending about $32m to repair and upgrade his yacht. The bad news? It’s Vladimir Putin.
The Russian regime spent as much as $32m making repairs and improvements to one of Vladimir Putin’s yacht, according to a report released this week by the office of his imprisoned political rival, Alexei Navalny.
M/Y Graceful, an 82-meter yacht believed to be worth about $100m, is one of Putin’s three yachts. According to Navalny’s team, Putin chose to have work done on it after his largest yacht, M/Y Scheherazade, was taken in Europe due to sanctions.
The detailed Navalny report paints a mega-luxury picture of M/Y Graceful and its improvements.
“Half of the country is forced to raise money for underwear and socks for mobilized soldiers, and to make trench candles, while the person who unleashed this war spends 3 billion (rubles) just on repairs and purchases for his yacht,” the report said.
According to the report, the yacht was being repaired in Germany before Russia invaded Ukraine. It was then moved to the Russian port city of Kaliningrad, in a small Russian area in Eastern Europe.
Like much of Putin’s wealth and possessions, the yacht is technically registered through a complex web of offshore companies associated with one of his cronies, the report said.
One of the yacht’s biggest projects even has its own name, the Olympus project. The post noted that the project is being designed by Rubin Central Design Bureau, a Russian company specializing in submarines.
The Olympus project, the report says, is an ocean swimming pool.
It’s 85 meters long and 25 meters wide, attaches to the yacht and allows guests to swim in the ocean while still being confined to the pool area.
“And the most important thing: the bottom of the pool should be located at a depth of three meters and be in the form of a grid to protect the swimmer from marine life,” the report said. “Vladimir Putin, it turns out, is also afraid of fish.”
Tagged Navalny, Putin, russia, yacht
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