The alleged mistress of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Svetlana Krivonogikh, is renting out a luxury four-story apartment in St. Petersburg — complete with its own moat, according to a media investigation published Thursday.
The BBC’s Russian service unearthed the listing on the website of German luxury brokerage Engel & Völkers. The ad priced the “Residence on Kamenny Island” — a 19th-century retreat for imperial royalty — at 700,000 rubles ($8,700) per month, minus 90,000 rubles ($1,130) for utilities.
The listing was taken offline early Friday.
The BBC were able to link Krivonogikh to the apartment through registry papers that listed her as the owner of the 447,400-square-meter residence.
Krivonogikh was first publicly linked to Putin in 2020, when an investigation by independent media site Proekt claimed the former cleaner had $100 million in assets — and was the mother of Putin's alleged extramarital daughter, Yelizaveta “Luiza” Rozova. The BBC Russian service said Krivonogikh purchased the Kamenny Island apartment in 2004, the year after Rozova’s birth.
The Pandora Papers leak in 2021 also showed Krivonogikh’s ownership of a $4 million apartment in Monaco through an offshore company.
The BBC’s Russian service said it first encountered the elite St. Petersburg rental, currently valued at 300 million rubles ($3.7 million), on a popular Russian real estate platform in 2021. That listing was also taken offline after attempts to contact Krivonogikh and Engel & Völkers.
Photos of the apartment’s exuberant interior revealed what one expert described as a throwback to post-Soviet flamboyance of interior design. The first floor houses a living room and a terrace overlooking the Neva River, with a floor-to-ceiling chandelier in the hallway and an elevator connecting all four floors.
A gold-plated bedroom and an intricately painted nursery are located on the second floor, with a bar and a home theater on the third. A garage and a waiting room for drivers and security guards can be found on the ground floor.
