A secret network of railways and stations was built in Russia for Vladimir Putin alone. Those railroads lead to his major residences, Proekt says.
An earlier investigation by the Dossier Centre stated that the Russian president had recently become less likely to use aeroplanes and more often travels in an armoured train.
Proekt says one of the guarded railway stations has a helipad and is located in the Valdai National Park near the village of Dolgie Borody. This is the closest settlement to Putin’s residence in Valdai. As three locals told Proekt’s reporter, the railway line was built for Putin only. As the journalist approached the station’s fence, a guard told him to leave the location.
In addition, a former train driver who used to work on the route between Moscow and St. Petersburg says the railway track near Valdai used to be “in a horrible condition” before but when a special track leading to Putin’s residence was built, some tracks where Putin’s train would go were repaired, “and they didn’t repair those sections he did not need”.
The secret station and railway track for Putin in Valdai were built in 2019, Proekt says, judging by satellite imagery.
Another station is located 400 metres away from Putin’s residence in Novo-Ogaryovo near Moscow, reporters say. It was built in 2015; the land was seized from private owners by the Federal Guard Service. “The special station itself is designed for a small number of cars and is hidden behind a tall fence, on which surveillance cameras are mounted 10 metres apart from one another,” Proekt says.
One more station and a dead-end railroad track were also built near Putin’s Bocharov Ruchey residence in Sochi around 2017. This one is also located behind a fence.
According to a former train driver interviewed by Proekt, Putin’s armoured train is based at a rail yard at the Kalanchyovskaya station in central Moscow where a private train terminal is located. A new vehicle road was built there in 2017, leading to Putin’s platform.
The Dossier Centre reported yesterday that Putin had been using an armoured train instead of jets more often recently. According to the investigators, the armoured train looks like a regular Russian Railways train, but has six axles instead of four, several engines, and special equipment installed to its roof.
