The late Alexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF) has published a new investigation tracing the fate of funds left over after the completion of “Putin’s palace” in 2023. According to the authors, 6.5 billion rubles ($84.4 million) in an account belonging to the company Investment Solutions were transferred to Alina Kabaeva, the unofficial mother of two of Putin’s unofficial children. The nominal shareholders of Investment Solutions are former university classmates of Putin’s.
Two of the transfers occurred on Apr. 4, 2023, when Investment Solutions donated 500 million rubles ($6.5 million) to the Alina Kabaeva Charity Foundation, and on Nov. 1, when the firm moved another 2.5 billion rubles ($32.5 million). An additional 3.5 billion rubles ($45.4 million) from Investment Solutions later went to Kabaeva’s “Heavenly Grace” foundation.
As the ACF notes, the Alina Kabaeva Charity Foundation does indeed provide support to gymnasts, but only 3.5 million rubles ($45,400) were spent on this purpose — 1% of the funds received. In contrast, 31 million rubles ($402,600) were allocated to the reconstruction of a church in Crimea. The foundation also spent 260 million rubles ($3.4 million) on the Alina Rhythmic Gymnastics Festival. Kabaeva’s “Heavenly Grace” foundation, which has received even more money left over from the “palace project,” spent nearly 500 million rubles ($6.5 million) on the eponymous gymnastics tournament.
The investigators point to additional unexpected uses of the money remaining from the “palace” construction fund. In December 2023, the Heavenly Grace Foundation spent more than 30 million rubles ($389,600) on products from the Imperial Peterhof Factory. “We even know someone who would certainly appreciate such items — Vladimir Putin. He owns at least two watches by this factory. On one of them, he even had the Roman numerals replaced with Arabic ones,” the authors of the investigation note.
Some of the money was also spent on organizing athletic training camps for young gymnasts in Valdai, 1.5 kilometers from a different Putin residence. “These camps were created with the sole purpose of entertaining the children of Putin and Kabaeva, who live almost continuously at the residence and practice artistic gymnastics, by allowing them to socialize with their peers,” the authors of the investigation say.
Most of the money received from the “palace project” remains in bank deposits belonging to Kabaeva’s foundations. In 2024, they earned 435 million rubles ($5.6 million) in interest — more than the entire budget of the Russian Gymnastics Federation.