The Office for Presidential Affairs is to spend $136 million on townhouses for top officials on the elite Rublyovo-Uspenskoye highway outside Moscow, Kommersant reported Wednesday, citing an unidentified official.

"The Office for Presidential Affairs has already prepared and coordinated with all the agencies concerned a government project to purchase homes belonging to the Laboratory of Country Life company in the village of Polyanka Deluxe," the paper wrote.

The newspaper noted that to purchase the houses, the Office for Presidential Affairs will sell some of its assets at the Sheremetyevsky hotel complex worth up to $170 million. Polyanka Deluxe is located 21 kilometers outside of Moscow and borders on the elite village of Gorki 8. Polyanka Deluxe consists of 72 cottages with a total area of more than 20,000 square meters. "They are buying houses in this village as company-owned apartments for officials who will move there after the transfer of federal departments and agencies to the territory of 'new Moscow,'" the paper said.

(MT)