Film Review: "A Palace for Putin. The Story of the Biggest Bribe" ("Дворец для Путина. История самой большой взятки") (2021).

"This film was recorded by Navalny before his return to Russia, but it was decided to publish it afterward: Alexei didn’t want the main character of this investigation — Vladimir Putin — to think that they are afraid of him and that they can uncover his biggest secret only while being abroad. Today you will see, what is believed to be impossible to see. We will visit places, that are forbidden for everyone. We will be Putin’s guests. We will see with our own eyes that this man in his craving for luxury and for wealth, became completely mad. We will uncover who and how financed this luxurious property. And we’ll witness, how the largest bribe in history is being given over the past fifteen years, as well as how the most luxurious palace is being built. Alexei was detained immediately upon his arrival after his five-month treatment in Germany. He ended up there in a German hospital after Putin’s attempt to murder him. Alexei has always fought for our rights. Now it’s our turn to fight for his. Putin has to be accounted for his crimes." This is A Palace for Putin. The Story of the Biggest Bribe (Дворец для Путина. История самой большой взятки). This Russian documentary film written and directed by Alexei Navalny and produced by the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK).

The film investigates on the Residence at Cape Idokopas, the residence commonly known as "Putin's Palace", a dacha located near the town of Gelendzhik in Krasnodar Krai, which Navalny calls "the largest private house in Russia". Navalny claims it was constructed for Putin and details a corruption scheme allegedly headed by Putin involving the construction of the palace. The film estimates that the residence cost over ₽100 billion (approximately $1.35 billion) with what it says was "the largest bribe in history". According to The Straits Times, documents about the residence included itemised lists of purchased furniture and samples of the building's floor patterns, which were handed over to the Anti-Corruption Foundation by a subcontractor involved with its construction. Besides the complex itself, the restricted area also includes an underground ice palace and two helipads, an arboretum and greenhouse measuring twenty-five-hundred square metres, a church, an amphitheatre, a teahouse and an eighty-metre bridge leading to the compound, which crosses a ravine. Due to its location on a steep bank, a special tunnel was dug to provide access to the nearby beach, which contains a tasting room overlooking the Black Sea. The area of the palace complex is sixty-eight hectares, with seven-thousand hectares of land surrounding the palace being designated as a closed territory under the jurisdiction of the Federal Security Service. According to the film, all fishing activities within a radius of two kilometres from the Residence is banned and the airspace over the palace complex is closed to all aircraft. The film goes on to focus on the businesses located within the complex, a luxury winery, vineyards and an oyster farm, showing inconsistencies between their estimated values and reported productions and revenues. It establishes how the (changing) ownerships conceal an interconnected network of managers as well as "donors" that supply money. The network includes former associates such as Vladimir Kolbin, son of a childhood friend of Putin, and relatives of Putin such as Mikhail Shelomov of JSC Accept, but also state-owned companies such as Transneft through shady "leasing" services. Huge sums are funneled into the compound and Putin's "slush fund". Putin has denied that he or his family ever owned the palace and dismissed the investigation. The oligarch Arkady Rotenberg, who has close links to Putin, claimed ownership of the palace.

Since 2012, Russian politician and former intelligence officer, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, has been serving as the current president. After graduating in Law from Leningrad State University in 1975, Putin worked as a KGB Foreign Intelligence Officer for sixteen years, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, before resigning in 1991 to begin a political career in his hometown of Saint Petersburg. After moving to Moscow, he briefly served as Director of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and Secretary of the Security Council, before being appointed as Prime Minister in August 1999. After the resignation of Boris Yeltsin, Putin became acting President, and less than four months later was elected outright to his first term as President and was reelected in 2004. As he was then constitutionally limited to two consecutive terms as President, Putin chose to become the Prime Minister again from 2008 to 2012, and was reelected as President in 2012, and again in 2018. Under Putin's leadership, Russia has experienced severe democratic backsliding and societal decay. Major political and social figures such as Masha Gessen, Julia Ioffe, Vladimir Kara-Murza and Luke Harding, consider Russia to be an autocratic/mafia state, due to the frequent jailing of political opponents, curtailed press freedom and the lack of free and fair elections. Moreover, Russia has scored poorly on Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index, the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index and Freedom House's Freedom in the World index. Human Rights organizations and activists accuse Putin of persecuting political critics and activists as well as ordering them to be tortured or assassinated. Examples of the latter include the revered journalist Anna Politkovskaya and former Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Boris Nemtsov, who were assassinated under mysterious circumstances. Politkovskaya was assassinated in the elevator of her apartment building on Putin's birthday in 2006 and Nemtsov was gunned down on a bridge near the Kremlin in 2015 before he could put out a press release of the Russian Military intervention in the Donbass, East Ukraine. In 2019, Zona Prava NGO released a report highlighting the disproportionately large number of acquittals and dropped cases against law enforcement officers when compared to overall rate of acquittals. The latter is 0.43%, whereas the Police and Military have an acquittal rate of 4% with disproportionately lenient convictions - almost half of them were suspended sentences or fines.

Despite constant moments of information overload throughout, the film is an absorbing lesson with a universal message for all countries. It's an indictment on political mendacity but also a testament to the life-saving value of investigative journalism.

Simon says A Palace for Putin. The Story of the Biggest Bribe (Дворец для Путина. История самой большой взятки) receives:

Also, you can see the full film here.