The Market Herald (Australia) has published photos taken inside one of the superyachts used by Russian president Vladimir Putin. The pictures of Graceful feature an aqua disco hall: a dance floor that folds down into a swimming pool.
“Only two yachts in the world have such a thing. The other one is the Scheherazade,” writes Georgy Alburov, an associate of Alexei Navalny's.
Graceful, an 82-meter, $75-million superyacht, has two master suites on different decks, two VIP cabins, three luxurious guest cabins, and a helipad. Her bathrooms are tiled with white marble. The crew of the yacht, which can accommodate 14 passengers and reach a speed of 17 knots, includes 24 members.
The Graceful was built in 2014 at Sevmash, Russia's largest shipbuilding enterprise. Last year, she made a stop at Hamburg to overhaul the engines. Early in February 2022, shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine, the vessel moored at Kaliningrad to avoid being seized in case of sanctions.
According to media reports, Putin also uses the six-deck, 140-meter Scheherazade with a market value of $700 million. Photos of the yacht feature golden toilet paper holders, a judo hall for individual workouts, an aqua dance floor, a billiard hall, and a giant hot tub. A worker involved in the yacht's construction also shared that it has “plenty of swimming pools, a spa center, a sauna, a stage, a gym, two helipads, and even a hospital, writes The Sun.
Journalists have mentioned Putin’s other yachts: Chayka (former Sirius), Olympia, and Shellest.
The interior of Putin's yachts is not the only proof of his appreciation for aqua discos – his palace on Cape Idokopas on the Black Sea coast, described extensively in an investigation by Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, also features such a dance floor. As it turned out, the palace was also fitted with an underground bunker the size of a five-story apartment block, a 2500-square-meter greenhouse, an amphitheater, and an 80-meter bridge across the ravine separating it from the tea pavilion. A special tunnel was drilled through the neighboring mountain to enable access to the beach.