Inside Vladimir Putin’s £100m fortress where secret sons spend lonely days watching Disney films with ‘fake mums’
GROWING up in a huge mansion, filled with unlimited toys and animals sounds like any kid’s dream – unless you’re the child of Vladimir Putin.
It has been revealed that the Russian president has two secret sons, Ivan, nine, and Vladimir Jr, five, with glamorous Olympic gymnast partner Alina Kabaeva – who once posed naked for Maxim.
Putin – who also has three daughters – was apparently so happy when his eldest son was born that he shouted: “Hurray! Finally! A boy!”
However, he has been hiding his sons from the world at his heavily guarded Lake Valdai residence for years, ensuring they rarely interact with anyone other than each other and their round the clock nannies, personal chefs, waiters and teachers.
Neither boy can be found on any official database, according to The Dossier Centre, and, since birth, they “have had the kind of cover documents typically made for spies and people under state protection”.
An extensive report, published by the Russian website, reveals the childrens’ strict regime, with their shielded life likened to living in “velvet-lined coffins”.
The Russian tyrant’s £100m luxury bolthole on the edge of Lake Valdai is a sprawling estate boasting a palatial main residence, guesthouses, a golf course and a massive spa complex.
The lavish hideaway – hidden from public view by thick tree cover – has a vast exclusion zone surrounding it, larger than the Isle of Wight and the Mediterranean island of Malta.
And in the centre of it live Putin’s kids, Ivan and Vladimir, as well as Alina.
Like any kids, Ivan and Vladimir enjoy playing and having fun, and have an “extensive collection of Lego sets,” as well as an iPad, on which Ivan apparently loves watching Disney films on – much to his anti-western cartoon father’s disdain.
They even have an animal menagerie, housing two ponies, a St Bernard dog and rabbits.
However, spontaneous play dates with friends are very difficult, as Putin has demanded that any visitors must quarantine for two weeks before coming over to the house.
The report reads: “They have to play mostly alone or with adults. They only see their parents late at night. But they cherish the rare moments they spend with their father.”
One activity Putin does take an interest in, however, is ice hockey with his elder son at a purpose-built rink near the house.
But, if they ever compete in matches, they are always on the same team.
Meanwhile, one of Ivan’s four nannies reportedly pretends to be his mother in public, so when he’s playing ice hockey, she will come to cheer him on from the sidelines while his real mother Alina will watch on from behind a one-sided screen.
Designated waiters, chefs and mugs
Thanks to a strict reported regime, Ivan and Vladimir do not get much time to play.
The boys, along with their private teachers and nannies – who work in 12-hour shifts – are served breakfast between 8 and 9am.
Like their father – who is reportedly obsessed with the threat of being poisoned – Vladimir and Ivan are cooked separate dishes by their own personal chefs, and only drink from their designated mugs.
They are also served by personal waiters.
This same system happens at lunch, which is served at noon, following a squad of personal tutors having homeschooled the boys – who’ve never been to school – in everything from music and chess to English, German and Chinese.
After lunch, Ivan and Vladimir get a well-deserved nap before more lessons and sports in the afternoon.
For the sport, the brothers will be taken in separate cars to their own gym and swimming pool, where their personal trainers await them.
Ivan’s gym teacher is said to be a former member of the Russian national Olympic team.
At 8pm, the boys are picked up by their drivers and taken back to the Valdai residence where they go straight to bed.
Private jets and armoured trains
The learning doesn’t stop when the boys travel around the world on private jet or armoured train, either.
Every February and March, Ivan and Vladimir are said to be whisked off to another of Putin’s tightly protected but luxurious properties near Krasnaya Polyana resort in the Caucasus Mountains, where they’ve learnt to ski.
Their teachers come along for the trip too, staying on a support vessel with the rest of the staff, which the boys are ferried to for lessons.
Then, every summer, in July and August, is spent on luxury yachts around the Gulf of Finland and the Black Sea coast.
This is similar to how the staff live when at the Lake Valdai mansion, where they live in separate accommodation to the family “within walking distance”of the main home.
They’re not allowed to leave the grounds when they’re not working but can use the gym and tennis courts.
While it’s unknown how much the staff are paid, it’s been reported turnover is high because “it’s not easy to get along with the family”.
Putin and Alina also reportedly advertised for a live-in English teacher this year via Moscow’s English Nanny agency.
The advert offered a monthly salary of £6,500 for a 60-hour working week teaching “English and other subjects” and warned prospective applicants they would be living in isolation and would be required to quarantine for two weeks prior to starting work.
Lovechild with cleaner
Ivan and Vladimir aren’t Putin’s only two children, as he has at least three other daughters.
Maria Vorontsova, 39, an endocrinologist, and Katerina Tikhonova, 38, a technology company executive and former “acrobatic rock ‘n’ roll dancer,” are his two daughters with ex-wife Lyudmila.
He married the former flight attendant in 1983 when he was a KGB officer.
She has admitted to crying when he first became Russia’s president in 2000, and said: “My private life ended with all this.”
The following year, she revealed their marriage was over as they hardly saw each other.
Putin had already fathered at least one love-child by then, Luiza Rozova, now 21, who he had with then-cleaner Svetlana Krivonogikh.
Now 49, Svetlana is a multimillionaire business owner, with a portfolio that includes a major Russian bank as well as a strip club.
‘Russia’s most flexible woman’
Despite it now believed he has two sons with her, Putin has long denied any romantic relationship with Olympic champion gymnast Alina, who is 30 years younger than him and has been described as “Russia’s most flexible woman”.
His reluctance to confirm his relationship with Alina may be because of the age gap, but also due to her past, which included her posing nude for Maxim.
Just a teen when she made her name at the 2000 Sydney Olympics with a bronze medal, followed by a gold at Athens four years later, she was soon being hailed as one of Russia’s most eligible women.
She set out her stall with a 2004 nude shoot for Maxim while draped in fur and little else.
Photographer Mikhail Korolov commented: “I didn’t even need to persuade her. She behaved very naturally. She’s full of sex.”
It was around this time that Alina — who was stripped of six of her world championship medals for doping — first met Putin. He was married and she was in a relationship with a police officer.
In spring 2008 a newspaper owned by Putin’s ex-KGB spy colleague Alexander Lebedev claimed Alina was romantically linked to Putin.
Putin denied the claims, slamming “those who with their snotty noses and erotic fantasies prowl into others’ lives”.
They were then dogged with rumours of a pregnancy multiple times over the years – which Alina played up to.
They have to play mostly alone or with adults. They only see their parents late at night. But they cherish the rare moments they spend with their father
In Russian Vogue in 2011, she said, laughing: “My sweet little nephew Arseny has joined my ever-expanding family in Moscow. Everyone, of course, thinks he is my son.”
On her 30th birthday, the main Russian TV channel ran a glowing documentary about her in which she finally directly addressed the claims that she had children by Putin — though again not naming him.
She said: “The whole country — and perhaps other countries too — write that I’ve got two or three children. Sadly, I don’t have them yet.”
Then, before mysteriously vanishing from sight for four months in May 2014 – a perfect time to have Ivan – she hinted: “Everyone should have their own little secrets.”
‘No time for family’
Putin announced he was divorcing Lyudmila in 2013 — and his spokesman implied he had no time for another woman in his busy life.
“Look at Putin’s work schedule,” he said. “You will see that there is no place for family affairs.”
The spokesman dismissed rumours of a secret 2014 marriage to Alina as “an internet exercise to relieve boredom”.
But in 2015, Alina seemed to be living the life of a First Lady.
She was rumoured to have a fleet of limousines at her disposal — and during a visit to a Moscow cafe, a squad of machine gun-toting security guards accompanied her.
By then she had been appointed chair of Moscow’s most important pro-Kremlin TV and newspaper empire, National Media Group — despite having no experience.
It was quite the career move for a woman who had dabbled in modelling and singing — as well as holding a loyalist seat in the Russian parliament for seven years.