Vladimir Putin’s purported new holiday home is unbelievably lavish

THE Russian President’s purported new holiday home is so lush. It features a gold plated swimming pool. But what did we expect?

Vladimir Putin’s lavish new ‘holiday home’ Villa Sellgren. Picture: East2West News

VLADIMIR Putin has a new lavish holiday home with gold-plated tiles in the swimming pool just a few miles from Russia’s border with the West, the Moscow media claims.

His sumptuous bolthole is part of a complex including a restored tsarist mansion, famous for being used in a Soviet movie about Sherlock Holmes.

Villa Sellgren is built on an island in the Vyborg Bay, around 12 miles from the Russian border with Finland.

Officially it belongs to close friends of the Kremlin but locals say it is the latest prestige home in a stunning property portfolio rumoured to be Putin’s.

3D images supposedly highlighting the interior of the 16,150 sq ft mansion show a grandiose indoor swimming pool, a steam sauna, a billiard room and study with the Russian double headed eagle emblem.

Get a load of the study. It’s bigger than some apartments. Picture: East2West News

Lodochny island and the sea around it is reported to be heavily guarded by Russian Federal Protection Service officers, preventing locals from getting too close.

Villa Sellgren was originally built before the Russian Revolution in 1913 by famous Finnish architect Uno Ullberg and is well known for scenes in a 1987 Soviet film about Sherlock Holmes.

A source told independent TV Rain in Moscow: “After 2010 they started building a dacha [holiday home] for Putin there.”

The rundown villa was renovated and either a massive extension has been added to the mansion, or a new separate home has been built nearby, it is claimed.

Several other large houses have also appeared on the island.

Locals have posted complaints on the internet saying that previous access to the island has been banned and a helicopter pad installed.

There is “even a radar on the beach so that the enemy divers can’t get through”, according to one.

The home is heavily guarded by security. Picture: East2West News

It is believed Putin normally stays once a year, and locals cannot go fishing from the island as they used to be able to do.

A three miles fence surrounded the supposed Putin villa.

The 3D images and a floor plan were also posted online, an evident leak of construction plans for the holiday home.

This showed the swimming pool, part of an “underground spa”, captioned using Putin’s initials: “Here is where VVP bathes.”

According to a local, Putin comes to the property once a year although no official announcement was ever made.

Officially, land on the island was switched some years ago from being protected forest to allow the development of a “resort”.

Rus construction company — linked to the 3D images — refused to comment on the development.

Bosses of another company — Adds Group design bureau — failed to answer requests for information on the alleged Putin dacha from TV Rain.

Attempting to reach the mansion, security guards told TV Rain it was a “closed object” with no access.

Is it even worth having a swimming pool if it doesn’t have gold-plated tiles? Picture: East2West News

Until 2014, the Sellgren complex officially belonged to the head of Baltic Media Group Oleg Rudnov, described as an “old Putin friend”, who also once owned Lindstrem’s dacha in St Petersburg, also now alleged to be Putin’s.

Rudnov died in 2015, and his son Sergey inherited his empire including the Sever company which officially owns the island properties.

This latest alleged Putin villa is only 60 miles from another village complex where one home has a grass covered roof on the shore of Lake Ladoga in Karelia region.

You’d have that smirk too if you owned a place like this. Photo: Alexei Nikolsky, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP

He is also rumoured to own a palace on the Black Sea called Gelendzhik, as well as a holiday home close to St Petersburg and an Altai Mountains retreat officially belonging to Gazprom the huge Russian energy company.

This article originally appeared in The Sun and was republished here with permission.