Caterpillar-shaped chair, ceiling cocoons: Putin's mistress posts photos of her apartment

Russian President Vladimir Putin's mistress Svetlana Krivonogikh published photos of the interiors of her luxurious apartment in St. Petersburg. The pictures appeared on the website of the St. Petersburg branch of Engel & Völkers, a German development company, along with an apartment rental ad. The rent is 700,000 rubles per month. Krivonogikh bought the apartment in 2004; it's market value is currently about 300 million rubles, according to the BBC's Russian Service.

In one of the pictures, we can see an Italian designer armchair covered with gold foil and shaped like a giant caterpillar. In another room, the ceiling is covered with white fur and decorated with strange «cocoons» that probably serve as lamps.

The apartment has four floors, with an elevator connecting them. It has three bedrooms, five bathrooms, a walk-in closet, a bar, a home theater, a garage unit, and help quarters, including a waiting room for the security staff and drivers. The total floor area of the apartment is almost 450 square m.

The apartment is located at 19 2nd Birch Alley, in the same 20-apartment house intended for «Putin's friends»: Arkady Rotenberg, Nikolai Shamalov, Yuri Kovalchuk.

Krivonogikh's name was not known to the public until November 2020. At that time, Proekt, subsequently recognized as an «undesirable organization,» published a story identifying her as a friend of Vladimir Putin who had received gifts from the Russian president's friends and become a shareholder of Bank Rossiya (with a 3% stake); her daughter closely resembled Putin. Krivonogikh had not owned any business, nor had she had any other sources of income sufficient to buy shares in a bank or luxury real estate before she met Putin.

Around the same time, Krivonogikh purchased a luxury apartment in Monaco with a sea view for $3.6 million, according to leaked offshore documents from the Pandora Papers.

Initially, the real estate agency tried to put Krivonogikh's apartment up for rent back in 2021 through a popular portal CIAN. But after a phone call from BBC journalists to Engel & Volkers and Krivonogikh herself, the ad was recalled. In March 2022, the apartment was put up for rent again.