Why is Beidaihe, the Black Sea area that Putin rarely visits, secretly rebuilt?
Author, Andrei Soshnikov
Role, BBC Russian correspondent
and
Author, BBC Russian Investigation Team
Published 5 minutes ago
Reading time: 4 minutes
Court proceedings, satellite imagery and job ads offering construction workers poolside accommodation, free meals and cash pay have revealed a massive expansion of Russian President Vladimir Putin's official Black Sea residence.
This state villa located on Bocharov Ruchey, Sochi was used by Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev and, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, by Boris Yeltsin. Putin first stayed in this official residence before taking office as president in May 2000, and has often received foreign dignitaries here since then.
In 2008, the place became the official presidential residence. According to Vladimir Kozhin, head of the Russian Federation's presidential administration, the head of state can "stay, work, live and perform all functions, including those of supreme commander" here.
According to the Financial Times, Putin visited Sochi 24 times in 2021, the year before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine; but only twice in 2024 and 2025. Putin's sharp reduction in visits to the Black Sea comes as Ukrainian drones are arriving at the local coastline with increasing frequency.
However, an investigation by BBC News Russian showed that the country has not abandoned Bocharov Creek, but is rebuilding it from the ground up. The scale is much larger than before, and security measures are more stringent.
Demolition work will begin in 2024, and the authorities have not announced relevant information. By September 2025, large excavation pits have appeared on the construction site.
This year, the Russian national security agency Federal Guard Service (FSO) decided to further strengthen the protection measures of Bocharov Creek and set up a security area of more than 3 square kilometers around the official residence.
By the fall of 2026, in satellite images analyzed by BBC Russian, the roofs of many large new buildings can be seen, and their area is significantly larger than the original official residence.
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However, not all of the original building complex has been demolished - the Bocharov Ruchey-2 building built for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics is still intact, and Putin continues to receive high-level visitors here, including Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) who will visit in 2024.
The authorities have yet to make any announcement about the new construction, but a BBC Russian investigation found a series of traceable documents.
In a court ruling on a dispute between contractors, BBC Russian found mention of a State Defense Procurement Program contract with the number 2327202903572000000000000.
Information on this type of contract is restricted, but the number itself reveals several important details.
The first four digits show the signing and expiration years of the contract, which are 2023 and 2027 respectively. The next three digits, 202, are the code of the contracting agency, the Federal Guard Service (FSO).
By reviewing several court decisions involving disputes involving Bocharov Creek subcontractors, BBC Russian was able to confirm that the general contractor of the project was TSI Group. The company is registered in Crimea, which was annexed by Russia.
One of the disputes involved the Naval Engineering Design Institute Directorate 30 (Voenmorproekt-30) in Sevastopol. The agency fell behind schedule within months of construction starting in early 2025.
Another engineering problem arose during the "main building" wall construction project, which was carried out by a company from Orenburg.
BBC Russian also found advertisements for construction workers, including bricklayers, steel workers and concrete engineering experts, on social media and recruitment websites. Some of the advertisements directly mentioned Bocharov Creek.
One read: "An official residence is under construction." "Access management system, Bocharov Creek." Another warned: "The facility is of strategic importance."
A job advertisement in January 2025 stated that a "restricted area construction site that requires a pass to enter" in Sochi was in urgent need of construction workers for a two-story building and offered cash salary.
Another advertisement published at the end of the same year referred to a four-story building located within a facility with access control and passport control.
Initially only Russian citizens with no criminal record can apply.
One ad read: "Background check required."
However, the requirements were later relaxed, and citizens of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan were also invited to apply. The recruiter provides accommodation, such as a "dormitory with a swimming pool" or an apartment, as well as three meals a day, free tools and work clothes.
Full construction teams with "in-house engineers and foremen" will be given priority, but shift workers who work on a freelance basis may also be hired.
"Technical supervision is not strict," one ad said. "Russia's internal security services monitor the flow of funds, so everything is fair and transparent."
By 2026, the construction site has begun recruiting interior engineering workers, including installing lighting equipment, water pipes and doors.
"The volume of work is very large and we need a lot of people, but they must be professionals," a recruiter wrote, reminding that the facility is a "closed area" and all employees must undergo security clearance.
This is not the first time that TSI and its affiliate "Transport Construction Investment Company" (Transstroiinvest) have participated in government and safety-related construction projects.
Before the Bocharov Creek project, "Transportation Construction Investment" had built another official residence for Putin.
In 2019, the Russian independent investigative media "Project" reported that the company participated in the construction of a state residence in the Oliva settlement on the southern coast of the annexed Crimea. The site was once the site of a state villa used by top Soviet party officials and later senior Ukrainian officials.
BBC Russian has now discovered a court ruling confirming this, and found court documents that refer to the facility as the "presidential residence".
