This breathtaking film, called “Putin’s Palace: The Story of the World’s Largest Bribe,” documented Vladimir Putin’s corruption. It was made by Alexei Navalny and his team and narrated by Navalny.
It shows Putin’s rise from an obscure KGB agent in Dresden to the most powerful man in Russia and —possibly—the richest man in the world.
Navalny shows that Putin’s success was propelled by corruption.
Anne Applebaum wrote about Navalny and the film in The Atlantic.
Alexei Navalny returned to Russia in January 2021. Right before he boarded the plane, he posted a film titled “Putin’s Palace: The Story of the World’s Largest Bribe” on YouTube. The video, nearly two hours long, was an extraordinary feat of investigative reporting. Using secret plans, drone footage, 3-D visualizations, and the testimony of construction workers, Navalny’s video told the story of a hideous $1.3 billion Black Sea villa containing every luxury that a dictator could imagine: a hookah bar, a hockey rink, a helipad, a vineyard, an oyster farm, a church. The video also described the eye-watering costs and the financial trickery that had gone into the construction of the palace on behalf of its true owner, Vladimir Putin.
The film was viewed, she says, by one of every four Russians.
How could Putin, a vain and bitter little man, let Navalny live after this massive insult?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
After Yeltsin and Putin ran their false flag operation (the infamous apartment bombings) to elevate Putin’s profile so that he could run for President and then pardon Yeltsin, Putin held a meeting of the oligarchs to whom Yeltsin had sold state business assets for pittances. There, Putin informed them that from then on, Putin would get his vig (the boss’s cut in a criminal operation) or else. And to prove his point, Putin arranged for police to stop the car of the president of Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the richest man in Russia, throw a bag into it containing an unlicensed handgun, and then arrest him.
So, by taking a cut on everything, by being basically the head of a Mafia state, Putin became the wealthiest nonsovereign person in the world, all while pretending to live on a modest salary in a modest apartment and to own a modest vintage car.
LikeLike
A hookah bar, a hockey rink, a church, a vineyard, and stripper poles
LikeLike
It pays to be Tsar!
LikeLike
I find the management of Navalney’s demise inscrutable. It seems odd to me that Putin did not simply kill him the instant he frowned. Something constrains this Putin. Nothing constrained Stalin short of the force that took him pre-maturely to his grave.
LikeLike
Navalny had a huge following. If you watch the interview with Kara-Murza, you will hear him say that Putin greatly fears protests in the streets, and Navalny’s followers were known for this.
Autocrats have seen what happens with these protests. The only thing that keeps them in power is fear. If people are willing to hit the streets in protest, that means they are not afraid. Putin didn’t want Navalny’s supporters in the streets in massive numbers and for everyone else to get the message that Putin, like his execrable, incompetent military, is a paper tiger.
LikeLike
Autocrats maintain their hold on power via fear. If people go to the streets, that shows that they are not afraid. In encourages others. The Maidan started as a small protest. Ukrainian college kids who wanted to study in Europe, who wanted it to be easy to do that. And it rapidly grew to massive proportions and toppled the Russian puppet government.
Putin vacillated in his response to Navalny. I suspect that that was part of his calculation–he feared bringing them all out into the streets.
LikeLike
It seems Putrid RasPUTIN owns many superyachts too. Similar to an American billionaire, Besty DeVos, Puke-faced rasPUTIN has super yachts located all over the world so he can fly to party with mistresses or trafficked sex slaves while staying in his own floating hotel. Privacy and security are easier that way.
https://gizmodo.com.au/2023/11/putin-reportedly-linked-to-two-more-superyachts/
LikeLike
Putin looks just like Dobbie from the Harry Potter movies, doesn’t he?
Poor Dobbie.
LikeLike
I swear I think the creators of Dobbie modeled his looks on Putin’s.
LikeLike
Navalny and others estimated Putin’s wealth at $1 trillion.
LikeLike
One last tribute to Navalny by Masha Gessen, Russian journalist and regular contributor to the New Yorker:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/postscript/the-death-of-alexey-navalny-putins-most-formidable-opponent
LikeLike
Gessen wrote:
A month later, Navalny flew back to Moscow. His friends had tried to talk him out of it. He wouldn’t hear of staying in exile and becoming politically irrelevant. He imagined himself as Russia’s Nelson Mandela: he would outlive Putin’s reign and become President. Perhaps he believed that the men he was fighting were capable of embarrassment and wouldn’t dare to kill him after he’d proved that they had tried to. He and I had argued, over the years, about the fundamental nature of Putin and his regime: he said that they were “crooks and thieves”; I said that they were murderers and terrorists. After he came out of his coma, I asked him if he had finally been convinced that they were murderers. No, he said. They kill to protect their wealth. Fundamentally, they are just greedy.
He thought too highly of them. They are, in fact, murderers.
LikeLike
Masha Gessen is one of the great humans. Every blessing to her!
LikeLike