PART 2 IS HERE

The fact that President Vladimir Putin took care to marry his daughters Maria and Ekaterina with "the right men", offering them positions and money to lead a life in luxury, has not been much of a secret. What was not known about until now is the fate of the dictator's ex-wife, Ludmila Putina (feminine of Putin), who has simply disappeared from public radars.

The team of Alexei Navalny, a fierce critic of the regime whom the Kremlin has thrown in prison on false charges, recently published an investigation showing how Ludmila Putina transformed - like Cinderella - from a housewife with zero income and not one day in a job into a prosperous businesswoman with billions of rubles in her accounts and luxury properties.

Enchanted Fairy

According to an older tradition, brides come to the husband's house with a dowry. When Maria, the eldest daughter of Putin, got married, her Dutch groom Jorrit Joost Faassen received a position in the management of the state-run Gazprom Concern. Later Maria broke up with Faassen and currently lives in cohabitation with Yevgenny Nagorny, a former college mate.

Vladimir Putin’s daughters from his marriage with Ludmila - Maria and Ekaterina.

Credit: Navalny.com

In the case of Ekaterina, the groom Kirill Shamalov received shares of the oil company Sibur worth more than 11.5 billion rubles, which, however, he had to return after the divorce. Ekaterina too is now with someone else.

The girls' mother remarried in 2015, her chosen one being the athlete Artur Ocheretny (personal Facebook page), 20 years younger than the former first lady (57 years old at that time).

Although Vladimir Putin and Ludmila Putina had lived for 30 years in an unhappy marital relationship - considering the wife's confessions in LiveJournal and memoirs of former girlfriends - the Kremlin leader proved he wasn’t a stingy man when it came time to ensure a better future good for his ex, in return for her silence.

It is also a kind of payment for the fact that Ludmila tolerated for 20 years his escapades with mistresses, with whom Vladimir Putin had children even while they were still married, the authors of the investigation note.

Televised pranks

In 2010, for example, Ludmila and Vladimir Putin received a clerk from the census service in an apartment (which they claimed was in their possession), playing in front of him a show about a united and modest family. In reality, at that time Putin almost finished the construction of a palace of hundreds of millions of dollars in Gelendzhik, owned a luxury yacht of 75 billion rubles ("Shaherezada"), and already had children from other women - Alina Kabayeva and Svetlana Krivonogykh.

Vladimir Putin's children born by Alina Kabayeva. Credit: Navalny.com

Daughter Luiza, conceived with Krivonogykh, was 7 years old at the time of that census.

While everybody knew that Kabayeva was elected to the parliament on behalf of the United Russia Party, and Krovonogykh became a shareholder in profitable companies, Ludmila Putina was instead hidden from the eyes of the world.

Svetlana Krivonogykh and her daughter from Putin - Luiza. Credit: Navalny.com

Only in 2015, during a break at a theater show they attended together, Vladimir and Ludmila admitted before cameras that, among other things, they were no longer together for some time and had filed for divorce.

In his formal income filing, he admitted to be in possession of a land plot covering 1,500 square meters, an apartment of 77 square meters, a garage and three Russia-made cars. Ludmila indicated that she had no property. After the divorce, the Russian president declared the same assets, although the law required him to share everything 50-50 with his ex-wife.

To be continued…