Legal disputes, satellite images and job advertisements promising workers poolside lodging, free meals and cash payments helped reveal the vast expansion of Russian President Vladimir Putin's official residence on the shores of the Black Sea.
Bocharov Ruchey's official residence, located in Sochi, was once used by Soviet leaders such as Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev and by Russia's first president after the end of the Soviet Union, Boris Yeltsin. Putin stayed there for the first time before his inauguration, in May 2000, and since then he has frequently received foreign leaders there.
In 2008, the property became an official presidential residence. This means that the head of state can, there, "stay, work, live and perform all his functions, including that of supreme commander of the Armed Forces", according to Vladimir Kozhin, then head of the Property Management Department of the Presidency of the Russian Federation.
Putin was in Sochi 24 times in 2021, a year before the large-scale invasion of Ukraine, but made just two visits to the city in 2024 and 2025, according to the British newspaper Financial Times. The reduction in Putin's trips to the Black Sea region coincided with the increase in the range of Ukrainian drones, which began to reach the coastal region more frequently.
Still, the government did not abandon the official Bocharov Ruchey residence. An investigation by BBC News Russia shows that the residence is being rebuilt practically from scratch, on a much larger scale and with a more rigorous security scheme.
Demolitions began in 2024, without official announcement. In September 2025, a large excavation already occupied part of the land.
This year, the Russian Federal Protection Service (FSO), responsible for the security of state authorities, decided to further strengthen Bocharov Ruchey's protection and create a security zone of more than 3 km² around the residence.
In autumn 2026, satellite images analyzed by BBC News Russia already showed the roofs of several new buildings. The complex occupies a much larger area than the old residence.
But part of the original complex has been preserved. The Bocharov Ruchey-2 building, built for the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014, remains intact. Putin still receives high-ranking authorities there. Among them is Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who was there in 2024.
Authorities have not yet officially announced the work, but documents obtained by BBC News Russia help reconstruct how the project is being carried out.
In a court ruling on a dispute between companies involved in construction, BBC News Russia found a reference to a state defense procurement contract, identified by code 2327202903572000000000000.
The details of this type of contract are confidential, but the code itself allows you to identify some important data.
The first four digits indicate the year in which the contract was signed and the year in which it ends: 2023 and 2027. The next three numbers, 202, correspond to the code of the FSO, responsible for the contract.
By consulting other court rulings involving disputes with subcontractors working at Bocharov Ruchey, BBC News Russia was able to identify TSI Group, registered in annexed Crimea, as the main contractor on the work.
One of these disputes involved the Voenmorproekt-30 design institute, in Sevastopol, which began to delay the schedule a few months after work began, at the beginning of 2025.
Irregularities were also found in the construction of the walls of the so-called "main house", a service handed over to a company in Orenburg.
BBC News Russia also found advertisements on social media and job sites to hire construction workers, including bricklayers, steel structure assemblers and professionals specializing in concrete. Some directly quoted Bocharov Ruchey.
"A residence is being built," one of the advertisements said. "Bocharov Ruchey - Controlled Access." Another warned: "The installation is strategic."
One of the advertisements, published in January 2025, urgently sought workers for the construction of a two-story building in Sochi, "in an area with restricted access, with entry subject to authorization", and offered payment in cash.
Another advertisement, published at the end of the year, mentioned a four-story building in an area with access control and document verification.
Initially, vacancies were only open to Russian citizens with no criminal record. "Background check required," one of the ads said.
Later, the requirements were relaxed and candidates from Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan were also accepted. Among the benefits offered were accommodation — for example, "in accommodation with a swimming pool" — or apartments, three meals a day, free tools and work clothes.
There was a preference for complete teams, "with their own engineer and foreman", but independent workers hired on a shift basis were also accepted.
“Technical inspection is not strict,” said one of the advertisements. "Russia's internal security services track the flow of money, so everything is correct and transparent."
In 2026, the vacancies were already for internal finishing services, such as installing lighting, plumbing and doors.
"The volume of work is very large, we need a lot of people, but they have to be specialized people," wrote a recruiter, adding that the location had "restricted access" and that all employees needed to go through a security check.
TSI and the Transstroiinvest group, to which it is linked, have already participated in other works for the Russian government and security agencies.
Before Bocharov Ruchey, Transstroiinvest had already worked on the construction of another Putin residence. In 2019, the independent Russian investigative journalism outlet Project revealed that the company was participating in the construction of a state residence in Oliva, on the southern coast of annexed Crimea.
The land was home to former dachas (country residences) used by the Soviet Communist Party elite and, later, high-ranking Ukrainian officials. BBC News Russia found court decisions confirming the company's participation in the work, as well as court documents that identify the location as a "presidential residence".
Transstroiinvest also continues to operate in Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia. Among the works is the restoration of Pobeda, the oldest cinema in Mariupol, a city occupied by Russia in 2022.
Between 2022 and 2025, TSI also received 54 contracts to rebuild the Artek international children's center in occupied Crimea. According to the state registry of contracts, the agreements totaled around US$330 million (R$1.65 billion).
BBC News Russia sent questions about the works at Bocharov Ruchey to representatives of Transstroiinvest; to real estate businessman Alexei Fomenko, 47, named as TSI beneficiary; to Arkady Rotenberg, an associate of Putin and linked to Fomenko; and the spokesman for the Russian Presidency, Dmitry Peskov. None of them responded
