Kabaeva had a stint as an ardently loyalty MP - among a group of 'Putin Babes' aimed at giving a 'sexier image' to his United Russia party - before suddenly switching to a role as nominal head of a media group owned by a crony oligarch, a post raking her in some £8 million a year, compared with the Russian average annual figure of £5,600.Ī dining room with a glass table and golden chairs is seen inside the mansion understood to belong to Putin and Kabaeva The couple’s riches and massive security around their secret lives is funded both by the state and money from oligarchs who Putin has helped to secure exceptional wealth during his almost quarter of a century as either president or prime minister.Ī secret Cyprus company - in the hated West - has also played a key role, say new revelations. She has had the use of a £506 million super yacht - the luxurious 460ft-long Scheherazade - evidently as a Christmas gift to Putin by a bunch of Russian oligarchs. These establish that she and her relatives or associates own or control two dozen properties, including those at and near the Valdai lakeside palace between Moscow and St Petersburg where she and their joint children - a family entirely hidden from Russian voters - are often in residence.Įlsewhere in her real estate empire is a sumptuous rooftop penthouse with its own on the Black Sea in Sochi, the largest apartment in Russia, some 76 times the size of the type of typical Soviet-built flats in which millions of people still live. In retrospect, this is likely one of several moments over the 15 years she has been romantically linked to Putin that Kabaeva - now seen by all as Russia’s 'uncrowned tsarina' - has tried to 'come out' and reveal herself as the younger woman in his life. 'If there are issues in a family and a man is looking at another woman, and is communicating with another woman and not with his wife, it means the problem has already happened, and there wouldn’t be anything good in this family.'
'Life is complicated, and speaking about a married man. She started by saying 'I think not', but immediately qualified her answer. Kabaeva was asked whether she would be able to 'take a husband away from a family' - and at the time Putin was married to former air stewardess Lyudmila, now 65. She replied to another question that her last gift to him had been 'an Alaska coat, a coat with fur, very beautiful'. 'A man, a very good man, a great man,' she replied, fidgeting uneasily with a pen. 'As for being scared of happiness, sometimes I am so happy I am scared to be that happy. 'So you’ve managed to ask this question, well done you,' she laughed. Her young audience asked her: 'You said you had a boyfriend? Why aren’t you in a rush to marry him, are you afraid of happiness? Who is he?'
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