Nothing echoes the popular ‘Eat the rich’ sentiment like Alexei Navalny’s documentary Putin’s Palace: The Story of the World’s Biggest Bribe (2021). The documentary, which has generated 104 million views so far, incited tens of thousands of Russians to take to the streets and protest against corruption.
Putin’s Palace is an investigative documentary into one of Russia’s biggest and best-kept secrets – Putin’s retirement residence at the Black Sea. With the help of Navalny’s team, Putin’s friend-turned-foe Sergei Kolesnikov, and an anonymous whistleblower, you can get your first look at the palace, said to be 39 times the size of Monaco. Aside from providing a virtual tour, our guide and narrator Navalny also provides insight into the history of the palace, its owner, and investors. They are shown to be well-known faces from Putin’s inner circle embroiled in a state corruption scheme. The message is crystal clear, namely that the $1.34 billion palace for ‘Russia’s president for life’ has been financed with illicit state (slush) funds.
To understand how such a big project can stay under the radar for so many years, the documentary takes us back to 1985 and Putin’s early days as KGB’s agent. Here, Navalny tries to deromanticize his days as a spy and even jokes about Putin’s pettiness in the days when he was serving the Yeltsin family. Do you think you can hold a grudge? When Putin found out that his Moscow apartment was smaller than his close colleague’s, he stopped talking to him altogether. We also see the beginning of Putin’s inner circle, which would later become Russia’s ‘unofficial Forbes list’. The list includes Putin’s allies, a network of reformed oligarchs and colleagues, which would later accommodate relatives, family, and lovers.
Putin’s palace itself is truly a spectacle fit for a visionary authoritarian. Or a tsar, Navalny suggests, since it is adorned with multiple renditions of the double-headed eagle, which was adopted as a symbol for the Russian Coat of Arms by Ivan III. With the help of aerial drone shots and 3D renditions, we get the closest we can get to what would be a virtual tour of the opulent Black Sea palace. Envisioned as a new Versailles or a new Winter Palace, the Gelendzhik residence comes across as an opulent beast with a Balkan spirit. Where else would you find such a lavish manor, which features an underground ice-hockey complex, vast vineyards and wine cellars, an amphitheater, a church, a casino, and even an aqua discotheque?
As the Russians say ‘Аппетит приходит во время еды’ (Appetite comes with eating). As the tour suggests, through the years Putin has trained and developed his palate rigorously. This is why it perhaps comes as a shock that no one took the humid climate into account. Due to unexpected mold infestation, the palace had to undergo expensive reconstruction in 2017, which raised the total price to a staggering $1.34 billion. The documentary ends as it started. Navalny pleads with the viewers, the people of Russia, to join the protests, and take their future into their hands. Despite cases of police brutality and state opposition, Navalny supporters and latent supporters are again taking to the streets to protest, which means that the documentary’s call to action has been quite effective.
If you wish to read the main outtakes of the documentary, you can do it HERE.
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the rhubarb corner 