Immortal Dreamer

Western sanctions prohibit the sale of yachts to Russia, but if you are members of the Putin family, then the bans do not work for you.

The sailing ship Immortal Dreamer was built in France in 2023 at the CNB (Construction Navale Bordeaux) shipyard. The design of this model, Lagoon Seventy 7, was worked on by the famous Patrick Le Queman.

The four-cabin yacht accommodates 18 passengers. “In the cabin of Seventy 7 you can escape the hustle and bustle of everyday life and experience life on board in an environment of elegant details and exquisite materials,” the sellers present the sailboat.

The yacht was launched at the beginning of 2023, and already in August, according to customs documents available to The Insider, it was brought to Russia in transit through Turkey. The mediator was the Burevestnik Group, whose owner Andrei Boyko is known as a yacht importer close to the Kremlin. One of the Burevestnik Group employees was listed among the senior crew members of the most famous yacht for Putin and Kabaeva today, “Scheherazade” with a judo hall and an aqua discotheque.

The buyer of the sailboat Immortal Dreamer was the previously unknown Mercury LLC. The Insider studied the formal owners, managers and employees of this company: it turned out that many of them were simultaneously employed in Accept LLC, the personal company of Mikhail Shelomov, Putin’s nephew. Shelomov is the son of Putin’s cousin, the value of the assets recorded in his name was estimated at more than a billion dollars.

Initially, in 2014, Mercury was founded by Acceptance employee Oksana Moskalenko. The two companies have a common accountant - Tatyana Vorozhbit. The current founder and general director of Mercury, Alexandra Lashaeva, receives a salary from ADB Management JSC, to which Shelomov and Putin’s friend Yuri Kovalchuk transferred their assets in Rossiya Bank for management.

The new French yacht cost Mercury more than 700 million rubles. According to The Insider, the main and practically the only source of funds for the shell company associated with Shelomov is JSC Arotron. Money is transferred under loan agreements. Arotron was also one of the sponsors of Putin’s famous palace in Gelendzhik, and the company’s founder, Alexander Plekhov, also appeared as the offshore manager of Sergei Roldugin, a cellist close to Putin and figurehead.

Additionally, the connection between the yacht purchased in France and Putin’s family is proven by the email addresses used by Mercury employees. They, as The Insider noted, are located on the corporate domains llcinvest.ru and mksmail.ru, which are used by employees of the companies not only of Putin’s nephew Shelomov, but also of his friend Kovalchuk and the president’s former mistress Svetlana Krivonokikh.

Almost immediately after being imported into Russia, the Immortal Dreamer yacht was renamed, now it is called “Kamchatka”. The last time “Kamchatka” appeared on radars was in the spring near Tuapse. According to The Insider, the Mercury parking space is rented from the Taganrog Aviation Scientific and Technical Complex named after G. M. Beriev (TANTK), which manufactures amphibious aircraft, including for the Ministry of Defense. The connection between the sailing ship and this enterprise may seem strange, but it is explained simply: TANTK has a hydroairfield in the waters of Gelendzhik Bay, as well as a boarding house in Gelendzhik with its own pier.

Shelomov himself, according to The Insider’s data on air ticket bookings, regularly visits the Black Sea coast. He flies with his wife and two children from St. Petersburg to Sochi (the airport in Gelendzhik has been closed since February 24, 2022).

Neither Putin’s nephew Shelomov nor the companies associated with the import of an elite French sailing ship to Russia are under Western sanctions. As The Insider has established, sanctions do not prevent the delivery of spare parts for Alina Kabaeva’s luxury business jet to Russia.

Kabaeva’s business jet

Russian civil aviation has come under a serious blow due to sanctions; Aeroflot has to dismantle some aircraft for spare parts due to the impossibility of importing parts from abroad. But there are no restrictions on Putin’s circle.

The unofficial wife of Vladimir Putin travels on a Falcon 7X aircraft worth 3 billion rubles. This business jet - at least until recently - was serviced by the Russair company, which leases it from the insurer Sogaz, whose shareholders were Shelomov, Kovalchuk and other people close to Putin back in the 2000s.

The formal beneficiaries of Russair through Breeze LLC are three people: Olga Narovskaya, Ekaterina Godzelikh and Alexander Samosyuk. All of them are also associated with assets controlled by Putin’s friends, family and “wallets”.

Narovskaya, according to The Insider, receives a salary from Investment Solutions LLC, whose owners are Putin’s classmates Nikolai Egorov and Ilgam Ragimov. Another place of work for Narovskaya is JSC Binom, which turned out to be the formal owner of Putin’s palace in Gelendzhik.

Samosyuk is the general director of “Investment Solutions” of Putin’s classmates, and part-time also an employee of “Acceptance” of Putin’s nephew Shelomov. “Acceptance” also includes a third dummy beneficiary of the airline, Godselikh.

Russair is not under sanctions and continues to receive spare parts for the luxury Western-made Falcon business jet during the war. In 2023 and 2024, according to customs information available to The Insider, the company imported to Russia a transceiver, O-rings and gaskets, cable jacket, dzus, grounding wire, backup power supplies, aircraft tires, fire extinguishers, traverses, spring washers, nuts, gas drain , helium cylinders, smoke hoods, brackets, screws, audio headsets, oxygen masks for pilots and other products for Falcon. Manufacturers are entirely Western: from the USA, France, Canada and Great Britain.

Supplies for the personal airline of Putin’s entourage go through Turkey, the UAE and the Maldives. The chains involve Al Abrar General Trading, Ats Heavy Equipment & Machinery Spare Parts Trading, Count Asia (Kazakhstan) and J.A.RW Shops And Tools Maint.