A New Residence Has Been Built For Putin In Sochi
- 24.09.2026, 8:44
The project was called "strategic," and the builders were promised payment in cash.
On the site of the demolished main building Vladimir Putin’s Sochi residence, “Bocharov Ruchey”, large-scale construction is nearing completion. The BBC found out that the work is being carried out under a state defense contract for the Federal Security Service (FSO) and identified a contractor linked to a friend of the president. In job postings for construction workers, the project was described as “strategic,” with promises of cash payment and housing “in a hostel with a swimming pool,” and by 2026, they were already seeking specialists in interior finishing.
In 2024, demolition of the old buildings began at “Bocharov Ruchye”—the official residence of the Russian president in Sochi. By September 2025, a large excavation pit had already taken their place. The authorities made no public announcement about the demolition or its reasons.
However, not the entire complex was demolished. The “Bocharov Ruchey-2” building, constructed for the 2014 Olympics, remains on the southern edge of the residence. Putin frequently receives high-ranking guests there; for example, in 2024, he hosted IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi.
But overall, during the war, the Russian president has been visiting Sochi significantly less often https://charter97.org/ru/news/2026/9/15/698489/: The Financial Times calculated that before the war, Putin visited the city 24 times; in 2022, he visited 13 times; and in 2024 and 2025, only twice each year.
The sharp decline in Putin’s trips to the Black Sea coincided with Ukrainian drones flying more frequently toward the coast. In 2026, the Federal Security Service (FSB) decided to further strengthen security at “Bocharov Ruchey” and establish a security zone covering more than three square kilometers around the residence.
Despite the threat of attacks and Putin’s infrequent visits, new construction is in full swing on the site of the demolished buildings. Satellite images reviewed by the BBC show that by the fall of 2026, the roofs of the new buildings were already visible—they cover a significantly larger area than the former residence.
The authorities have not publicly announced the new construction either. But a documentary trail remained at the closed site, and the BBC managed to find it.
A contract not listed in the public registry
“The construction and renovation of buildings and structures for the Russian Federal Security Service’s ‘Bocharov Ruchey’ complex is being carried out under a government contract with the 25significant number 2,327,202,903,572,000,029,016,064, which the BBC discovered in one of the court rulings regarding a dispute between contractors.
Such numbers are assigned to contracts under the state defense procurement program. The Arbitration Court previously confirmed, using the example of “Novo-Ogarevo” near Moscow, that presidential residences are legally classified as defense facilities.
Information about such contracts is classified and not published in standard procurement registries. However, the structure of the 25-digit identifier reveals several important details about the contract.
The first four digits indicate the years the contract was signed and is set to expire: 2023 and 2027. Thus, the contract for work at “Bocharov Ruchey” was signed even before the old residence was demolished.
The next three digits—202—are the code for the Federal Security Service (FSB), the contracting authority.
The next digit specifies the type of procurement. In this case, it is a 9—“other cases”—meaning the procurement does not fall under a competitive bidding process, an auction, or several other procedures explicitly specified by law.
The digits 0357 represent the client’s contract serial number for this year. The digit 2 that follows indicates a fixed price.
It’s impossible to determine the contract’s value from this code alone.
However, we were able to determine who was awarded the construction project—and court rulings helped us do that once again.
Two floors, four floors, and “very large volumes.” How workers are recruited online for a restricted construction site
The BBC has learned that the general contractor for the project is “Transstroyinvest Group of Companies” (TSI Group), a company registered in annexed Crimea. Its name appears in several legal disputes with subcontractors who worked on the “Bocharov Ruch” project.
Construction began in 2025. At that time, one of the leasing centers reported that it had provided excavators to a “construction company from Crimea” for the “renovation of the Bocharov Ruchey dacha.” TSI Group does indeed have contracts with this leasing center, according to Fedresurs—the state registry of information on corporate activities.
The general contractor subcontracted a significant portion of the work to other companies. Already in the first months of construction, several such contracts ended in disputes and lawsuits.
In early 2025, the Sevastopol-based design institute Voenmorproekt-30 fell behind schedule. Violations were identified in the work on the walls of the “main building,” which had been entrusted to the Orenburg-based company “SK Bashnya.” “Renmedia,” based near Moscow, failed to meet the deadlines for dismantling the storm sewer and water supply systems during the renovation of several buildings: the command post and the laundry facility, which included an “extension to house a special kitchen.”
At the same time, builders began to be sought through social media and job-posting services. The BBC discovered job postings for concrete pourers, concrete workers, masons, and rebar workers. In some ads, “Bocharov Ruchey” was mentioned by name; in other cases, the connection to the presidential construction project was implied by a set of conditions.
In January 2025, workers with “a competent foreman and crew leaders” were urgently invited to Sochi to build a two-story building “in a restricted-access area requiring a pass,” with piece-rate pay in cash. Another ad from late 2025 mentioned a four-story building at a site with a pass system and passport checks.
“Bocharov Ruchey. Pass system in place; a residence is under construction,” — explained one of the recruiters. Another warned: “This is a strategic site.”
At first, the requirements for construction workers matched the high status of the project. In the spring of 2025, the project was seeking only Russian citizens with no criminal records: “FSO facility—background checks required,” one of the job postings stated.
Later, the requirements were relaxed. Employers were also willing to hire citizens of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. Preference was given to entire crews “with their own engineer and foreman,” but they also recruited freelance shift workers.
In addition to a salary, they were offered housing—for example, “in a hostel with a pool” or in an apartment—as well as three meals a day, free tools, and work clothes.
By the fall of 2025, construction was already in full swing. “The structure isn’t complicated. First, we’ll finish two floors, then build the rest of the building from scratch; the technical supervision isn’t strict,” — the job posting for concrete workers stated. Payment was promised “in cash.”
“The Russian Federation’s security services and internal agencies monitor cash flows, so everything is fair and transparent,” — the recruiters assured applicants.
In 2026, the nature of the job openings changed: now they were looking for people to do interior work on the site—installing light fixtures, plumbing, and doors.
“The volume is very large; we need a lot of people, but they must be specialists,” wrote one of the recruiters. He warned that the site was “restricted” and that all employees undergo security screening.
At construction sites where “Transstroyinvest” carried out “restricted work” classified as “secret,” the general contractor held an FSB license to perform work related to state secrets. However, the subcontractors no longer held such licenses.
The BBC was unable to find the design for the new residence in the public domain. Satellite images show several large buildings under construction, but it is impossible to determine their purpose and number of stories based solely on the images.
The total cost of the new complex also remains unknown, but the scope of the work can be gauged from the bids submitted by construction crews. In the advertisements found by the BBC, the budgets for individual contracts amounted to 500 million (5.9 million dollars at the exchange rate as of September 24, 2026), 400 million (4.7 million dollars), 250 million (2.9 million dollars), 150 million (1.7 million dollars), and 90 million rubles (1.1 million dollars).
Who Is Building “Bocharov Ruchey”
“Transstroyinvest Group,” which was awarded the general contract for the presidential residence, is a company with a registered capital of one million rubles. Its beneficiary is believed to be 47-year-old developer Alexey Fomenko. The media has pointed to his ties to Putin’s friend Arkady Rotenberg.
TSI Group and its affiliated “Transstroyinvest” group are no strangers to government and security-related construction projects.
Prior to “Bocharov Ruchye,” “Transstroyinvest” had already built another residence for Putin. In 2019, the publication “Proekt” (which Russian authorities consider a “foreign agent”) reported that Fomenko’s company was involved in the construction of a state dacha in the village of Oliva on the southern coast of annexed Crimea — on the site of former state dachas belonging to the Soviet party elite and top Ukrainian officials.
The BBC found court rulings that confirm this; the property itself was explicitly referred to as a “presidential residence” in the court documents.
Transstroyinvest’s subsidiaries also built luxury residential complexes and business centers, including on FSB plots in Moscow, and renovated Vnukovo Airport, where the “Rossiya” special flight squadron — the transport provider for the president and top officials.
The company continues to operate in the occupied territories of Ukraine—for example, it restored the oldest movie theater, “Pobeda,” in Mariupol.
Another major state project for the TSI Group is the renovation of the “Artek” International Children’s Center. In 2021, the government appointed the company as the new general contractor without a competitive bidding process, replacing Arkady Rotenberg’s “Stroygazmontazh.”
According to the government contract registry, from 2022 to 2025, TSI Group received 54 contracts for projects at “Artek” totaling approximately 28 billion rubles. In 2024, the government ordered that the contract terms be extended until the end of 2026.
TSI Group’s financial statements are not publicly available.
The BBC sent questions regarding the construction at “Bocharov Ruchey” to the president’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov, Arkady Rotenberg, Alexey Fomenko, and other representatives of “Transstroyinvest,” and is awaiting a response.
Billions in “Ruchey.” How the residence was rebuilt leading up to the current construction project
“Bocharov Ruchey” existed long before Putin. Work on the state dacha began here back in the Soviet era; it was later used by Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev, and after the collapse of the USSR—by Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin.
Putin first vacationed at “Bocharov Ruchey” before his first inauguration in May 2000 and has since frequently hosted leaders of other countries there.
In 2008, the state dacha was granted the status of the president’s official residence—a corresponding decree was signed by Dmitry Medvedev. The then-head of the Presidential Administration, Vladimir Kozhin, explained that the presidential residence is a place where the head of state can “stay, work, live, and perform all his duties, including those of Supreme Commander-in-Chief.”
Construction on the complex’s grounds has continued uninterrupted all these years.
The BBC found information—solely in court rulings—about contracts for work at “Bocharov Ruchey” totaling more than 4 billion rubles.
In 2008, the Federal Security Service (FSB) commissioned construction work at the residence worth more than 1 billion rubles. In 2011, “Dacha No. 1” was renovated there. In 2014, major renovations were carried out at the residence, including on “Main House No. 2.” In 2017, a new beach complex costing 1.81 billion rubles was built on the grounds.
At the time, the work organization scheme was similar to the current one: a major contractor would be awarded a project and subcontract a significant portion of the work down the chain.
And even workers for “Bocharov Ruchey” were recruited in the same way long before the current construction project. As far back as 2020, tile setters, painters, and handymen were being recruited online for a “government project”—exclusively “Russians with no criminal record.”