Russia's President Vladimir Putin supposedly earns a modest salary for a world leader and officially owns just one comparatively humble apartment, with few other assets to his name. But don't let the Kremlin propaganda machine fool you. According to respected investigative journalists and reliable whistleblowers, the warmongering dictator lives a life of obscene luxury and could even be the richest person on the planet. Likewise, his ex-wife, former and current mistresses, kids, and other family members are astonishingly rich.
Read on as we uncover Putin and his family's outrageous fortune, from high-end property to private jets, megayachts, supercars, ultra-premium watches, and upscale fashion. All dollar amounts in US dollars.
Described by Quartz as "comically modest", Putin's officially disclosed wealth is a joke to those in the know. Looking at the Kremlin's most recent disclosure of the president's income and assets, which covers the 2021 calendar year, the Russian leader earned 10.2 million roubles, which is $125,000 (£101k) at the current exchange rate.
By way of comparison, US President Joe Biden pulled in $378,333 (£304k), while the UK's Prime Minister at the time Boris Johnson was paid about $195,000 (£157k).
According to the Kremlin's dubious disclosure, Putin owns an 829-square-foot apartment with a 194-square-foot garage, and has the use of a 1,654-square-foot apartment with a 194-square-foot garage in Moscow. His only other officially recognised assets are two vintage Volga GAZ M21 sedans from the 1950s, a Lada Niva SUV, and a Skif tent trailer, which together aren't likely to be worth much more than $35,000 (£28.1k). And that's it.
The sole apartment Putin owns is in all likelihood located in a residential block in St Petersburg and given its square footage probably has only two or three bedrooms, if that. The Moscow apartment is situated at Akademika Zelinskogo Street, 6 in the city's Gagarinsky District. It was allocated to Putin in 1996 when he moved from St Petersburg to Moscow and was appointed to the government department in charge of transferring property assets from the former Soviet Union to the Russian Federation.
As you can see from this shot of the block, it looks pretty ordinary from the outside.
No interior photos of Putin's government-leased pad have been released, but here's a similar-sized apartment in the building to give you an idea how it may look.
The property has a large open-plan living and dining room, kitchen, office, bedroom and three bathrooms, but it's really not what you could call luxurious. The unit is listed to rent for 170,000 roubles a month, which is a fairly reasonable $2,086 (£1.67k) considering the location and supposed prestige of the building.
As president of Russia, Putin also has the run of several state residences. The Grand Kremlin Palace is the leader's working residence, but he doesn't actually live there. His wood-panelled office is located in the compound's North Wing, while the infamous 20-foot-long table that he apparently uses to intimidate other world leaders and avoid catching COVID-19 is situated in one of the building's conference rooms.
Novo-Ogaryovo in the elite neighbourhood of Rublyovka, aka Russia's Beverly Hills, on the outskirts of Moscow has been Putin's official suburban residence since 2000 and is where he spends much of his time, having isolated there during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Though he doesn't own the property per se, Putin was reportedly allocated the property in perpetuity in 2008. Over the years, he has renovated and added to the Soviet-era estate, creating a ridiculously lavish, amenity-packed compound.
According to insiders including architect Stanislav Chekalyov, who worked on the property in 2021, the compound includes a 19th-century palace built for Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, a huge villa "in modern Russian style", a six-storey reception building, a private hospital, a vast sports and wellbeing complex, an ice rink, a luxe log cabin, a private church for Putin and his family, a heliport, and a private bridge.
Chekalyov says a $15 million (£12m) sauna was built on the property, but burned down in 2021 having never been used.
Among Putin's official residences is Bocharov Ruchey in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, where the 2014 Winter Olympic Games were held.
Dating from 1955, the president's summer residence has hosted a number of world leaders, including former US President George W Bush and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Other official dwellings include the splendid Constantine Palace in St Petersburg (pictured) and Kaliningrad's Yantar Palace.
Back in 2012, opposition politicians Boris Nemtsov and Leonid Martynyuk co-authored a report in which they highlighted Putin's official and unofficial residences, along with other eye-popping assets the president has access to.
All in all, the duo uncovered details of 20 uber-luxurious properties and compared Putin's lifestyle to that of a "Persian Gulf monarch or a flamboyant oligarch".
The long list of unofficial residences identified by the report include a VIP ski resort in the Caucasus Mountains, a château near Paris likened to the Palace of Versailles and, most notorious of them all, the megamansion on the Black Sea coast dubbed "Putin's Palace", which is said to have cost an eye-watering $1.4 billion (£1.1bn).
Having crossed Putin, the report's authors were clearly marked men. Martynyuk ended up fleeing to the US in 2014. Tragically, Nemtsov was assassinated in Moscow the following year. Fortunately, their work has been taken up by other activists, including those working with jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who released a viral video on "Putin's Palace" in 2021 packed with mind-blowing details about the residence.
Fit for a tsar, never mind a president, the residence is ridiculously opulent. The Nalavny activists assert it's the most expensive palace in the world and that it was funded by the largest bribe in history. Construction of the megamansion, which sits on an estate 39 times the size of Monaco near the resort town of Gelendzhik, began in 2005 and the property has been rebuilt several times due to problems with mould.
Designed by Italy's Lanfranco Cirillo, the go-to architect for Russia's elite, the Italianate-style palace spans a whopping 190,000 square feet, making it more than three times bigger than the White House. While it's said to have just 11 bedrooms, the property has scores of rooms besides, including an ornate reading room apparently inspired by the Kremlin's Georgievsky Hall, the fortress' grandest state room.
Absolutely zero expense has been spared on the property, which boasts exquisite craftsmanship and sumptuous decoration. Among the other rooms of note are a deluxe gilded theatre, a lap-dancing room and hookah lounge (pictured), and Putin's magnificent master bedroom.
Outside, there's an "aqua disco", underground ice hockey rink, and an exquisite Byzantine-style church, not to mention a mammoth restaurant and entertainment complex, together with a winery.
On paper, the palace supposedly belongs to sanctioned billionaire oligarch Arkady Rotenberg, but as the US and UK governments have stated, the bulk of Putin's assets are distributed among his shady network of family members and close associates – as we'll examine later. This enables the Russian leader to shield his ill-gotten wealth, though Western governments and activists have tried to unravel much of the spider's web.
Next up is Putin's OTT retreat on Lake Valdai, which is located in the Novgorod region of north-western Russia between Moscow and St Petersburg.
The official government residence there is nicknamed "Stalin's Dacha" since it was acquired as a retreat for the dictator in the 1930s, but Putin's compound nearby is anything but official.
Putin's covert retreat has been exposed by activists working with Alexei Nalavny as well as investigative journalists from Russian independent news outlet Proekt.
Putin is said to "furious" about the leaks, according to British tabloid The Daily Mail. Since the early 2000s, when Putin is reported to have fallen in love with the location, the hideaway has expanded to include a large array of fabulously expensive buildings.
The most palatial of the structures is Putin's rumoured 38,000-square-foot country mansion. The Navalny activists published photos of the building in 2021, while earlier this year Proekt corroborated the pics with their own images of the structure and went one better, obtaining shots of the seriously ornate interiors.
Dripping in gold leaf, the rooms are replete with ostentatious furnishings that, on Putin's insistence it is said, mimic those in St Petersburg's spectacular Hermitage Museum.
Highlights include the golden and silver living rooms, the blingy white dining room, a music room graced with a $158,000 (£127k) concert grand piano and a shimmering "night cellar" with a canopy ceiling covered in petals of gold leaf.
There's also a spa complete with a pool, hammam, and jacuzzi, but it isn't the only spa complex on the compound. Elsewhere, the retreat wows with what the Navalny activists describe as "Putin's temple of asceticism".
The 75,000-square-foot complex features everything from massage rooms to a float pool, dental surgery, cryotherapy chamber, and cosmetologist room, where the Russian leader can top up his Botox and fillers.
In addition, there's a Chinese-style pavilion, deluxe log cabin, mini casino, private church, and golf course on the site. There's even a private railway station, which is part of a larger network that connects Putin's properties to his private presidential terminal at Moscow-Kalanchevskaya Station.
Proekt has claimed Putin escapes to the retreat to be with his lover Alina Kabaeva and their secret children, for whom he has had a massive log mansion built, along with a theme park-style playground.
Again, the retreat purportedly belongs to someone else – in this case Yuri Kovalchuk, the billionaire financier known as "Putin's personal banker". But it doesn't take an investigative genius to work out that Putin is the de facto owner of the retreat, which has no doubt cost an astronomical sum of money to construct and outfit.
In recent years other lavish properties purported to be owned by Putin have come to light. They include the mysterious $200 million (£160m) "Property V" in the elite Greenfield development near Moscow. Sprawling over 91,500 square feet, the palatial abode, which is listed as belonging to the "Russian Federation", features a helipad, football field, stables, and its own forest.
Then there's what independent Russian news site Meduza has christened “Putin's other palace”. First exposed by Russian newspaper Sobesednik, the 40,900-square-foot dwelling is located near the Krasnaya Polyana ski resort in the Krasnodar region and is brimming with expensive furnishings, including an $80,900 (£65k) Blüthner grand piano and $3,700 (£3k) Frette candle holder, and has its own cable car, helipad, sauna, and swimming pool.
Putin is also said to own an estate in Siberia's Altai Mountains, which houses a nuclear bunker akin to an underground city, as well as this multimillion-euro villa near Marbella in Spain.
See more of Putin's palaces on our sister site lovePROPERTY.com
Back to that 2012 report by Nemtsov and Martynyuk. It revealed that Putin has a flabbergasting 43 planes at his disposal, including a jet kitted out with an $18 million (£14.5m) cabin designed by a top jeweller, as well as a gold toilet that cost $75,000 (£60k).
The exposé also found that Putin has access to 15 top-end helicopters.
The report alleged that Putin has a flotilla of megayachts too. More recently, it's emerged that the Russian leader indirectly owns a $119 million (£95.7m) megayacht called Graceful, which costs up to an estimated $10 million (£8m) a year to run.
Now named Kosatka, Russian for 'killer whale', the 267-foot vessel has escaped being impounded, unlike Putin's purported flagship megayacht Scheherazade.
The 459-foot beauty Scheherazade, which belongs on paper to billionaire oligarch Eduard Khudainatov, was seized last year by Italian authorities in the port of Marina di Carrara. It's worth a humongous $507 million (£406m) according to Forbes. Other key vessels allegedly ultimately owned by Putin include the $22 million (£17.7m) Olympia and $18 million (£14.5m) Chayka.
On top of the private planes, helicopters and megayachts, Putin is said to own an enviable collection of luxury cars, which incredibly are said to number some 700, a whole lot more than the three vehicles listed on his official Kremlin disclosure. They include top-end Mercedes models and an Aurus limo, which cost around $1.2 million (£961,000). Heavily armoured, the James Bond-style vehicle is built to resist bomb and chemical attacks and is decked out with a plethora of state-of-the-art security features.
Nemtsov and Martynyuk's 2012 report listed Putin's stunning collection of timepieces, which must be worth well in excess of a million dollars these days. They include a $500,000 (£402k) A. Lange & Söhne Tourbograph, which is one of the world's most expensive watches, together with a Patek Philippe Perpetual Calendar 3974 worth $60,000 (£48.2k) and a $25,000 (£20.1k) A. Lange & Söhne 1815.
Fashion-wise, the Russian despot favours uber high-end Italian brands such as Brioni and Loro Piana, which can make the likes of Versace and Gucci seem cheap. For instance, last year he was photographed wearing a navy-blue Loro Piana puffer coat (seen here), which retails for around $13,000 (£10,500), almost double the average yearly wage in Russia.
Other designer clothing the Kremlin boss has been identified wearing include bespoke suits starting at $5,000 (£4k), a $3,000 (£2.4k) Kiton sweater, and sneakers by Loro Piana, which cost $755 (£607).
As we've mentioned, Putin hides much of his wealth through his cabal of close family and associates, including his ex-wife Lyudmila Ocheretnaya. Together with her current husband Artur Ocheretny, Putin's former spouse has amassed millions of euros worth of property in continental Europe according to Politico and unsurprisingly is under sanctions imposed by the UK.
Doctor Mariya Vorontsova (pictured here in 2007) and tech executive Katerina Tikhonova, Putin's two daughters with ex-wife Lyudmila, are also remarkably rich and are said to have billion-dollar fortunes. They are also under US, UK, and EU sanctions.
Tikhonova is thought to be the wealthiest. Along with her now-former husband Kirill Shamalov, she was worth at least $1.9 billion (£1.52bn) back in 2015.
Svetlana Krivonogikh, who reportedly met Putin in the late 1990s while working as a cleaner, is the mother of his alleged third daughter Elizaveta, aka Luiza Rozova, who was born in 2003, claims Proekt.
According to the Panama Papers leak, the former maid was worth $100 million (£80m) by the early 2000s despite her very humble beginnings and was revealed to own several exceedingly pricey assets, including a multimillion-euro condo in Monaco and a superyacht. Krivonogikh is currently under UK sanctions.
Sanctioned by the US, UK, and EU, Putin's purported current lover, the Olympic gymnast-turned-politician Alina Kabaeva, who's said to have had several children with him, has also allegedly become extremely wealthy since she shacked up with him in the late 2000s.
According to Proekt, Kabaeva has been showered with a real estate empire worth $120 million (£96.5m) and enjoys a lifestyle worthy of a tsarina. Kabaeva's grandmother Anna Zatseplina has benefited from the Putin gravy train too and has been sanctioned by the UK.
Other relatives of Putin's are understood to help the authoritarian leader hide his wealth and as a result have been placed under Western sanctions. By way of example, the UK government moved last year to sanction Mikhail Putin, a relative of the Kremlin boss, along with Putin's first cousin once-removed Roman Putin (pictured) and first cousin Mikhail Shelomov, all of whom have got rich thanks to their close association with the president.
Finally, it's time to tally everything up and reveal Putin's estimated net worth. According to in-the-know financier Bill Browder, the Russian president was worth $200 billion (£160.8bn) in 2017 – and it's likely his net worth has risen significantly since then, which would likely make him the world's richest person.
As a 2022 Forbes investigation discovered, Putin has most probably engaged in everything from outright theft and extortion to the redirection of state funds into his personal coffers and those of his family and associates to amass such an enormous fortune.
Now find out more about the other richest world leaders today, and how they made their money