At the end of March 2020, the crew of the Special Flying Squad "Russia", which serves the president and other top officials, was quarantined for the first time in a hotel in Sub-Moscow.
Since then, pilots, drivers, doctors and others who are in contact with Vladimir Putin regularly spend several weeks in Kremlin spas and resorts.
More than 6,4 billion rubles (more than $70 million) have been allocated to the President's Cabinet to fight the pandemic.
How does this system work?
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On March 26, 2020, sixty employees of the Special Flying Detachment "Russia" (SLO) were sent to a five-day quarantine in the luxurious and ordinary rooms of the Desna spa in New Moscow.
The President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, before his televised address to the nation, then announced that the non-working week in the country would begin on April 1, and movement restrictions were introduced not long after.
Data from state contracts testify that among the first to be quarantined were pilots and other employees of the flight unit "Russia", which serves the highest state officials - including Putin himself.
Contracts with Desna stipulate special conditions - isolation of guests and free access to medical staff to take samples.
Rooms in Desna cost from 4,5 to 8 thousand rubles per night.
And before the first group left, or more likely, flew out of Moscow, they isolated the next one in Desna.
In total, from the end of March to the first days of April, 130 members of the unit were in Rightj spent between one and ten days, which coincided with last year's non-working week.
Since then, self-isolation of airmen, drivers, medics and other people meeting with Putin has become common practice.
Over the past year, there have been more than a hundred such stays in Kremlin sanatoriums and hotels.
According to the calculation of the BBC's Russian service, the Cabinet of the President received more than 6,4 billion rubles from the Government's reserve fund (for the fight against the coronavirus, of which 1,2 billion rubles were allocated to secret acts of the Government.
Observation services were partly paid for from that money.
They booked these services in 12 hotels and spas in Moscow, Moscow Region, Sochi and the Crimean resort of Yalta (Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, and the international community considers it part of Ukraine - prim. BBC).
All these hotels belong to the Cabinet of the President of Russia.
In fact, the money for the stay of people who have contact with the highest officials is spent within the structures of the Cabinet.
Private hotels and guesthouses directly affected by the crisis do not have access to this type of financing.
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Open only for special services
The four main Kremlin spas - Vatutinki and Desna in Moscow and Dagomis and Rus in Sochi, where Putin spends a lot of time in residence, received the largest state funding during the pandemic year.
From the Cabinet, they also received state contracts for the stay of those who were ordered to self-isolate and subsidies worth more than two billion rubles.
Since March of last year, these boarding houses and sanatoriums have been working under special services regime - an ordinary person cannot book a room there.
Originally they were supposed to be closed until the end of the summer, however, they still do not work, the BBC in Russian learns.
Vatutniki canceled the possibility of online booking until March 2022, and no one answers the phone.
They said from the reception that the hotel is only open for special services and will probably stay that way until the end of May.
From the Desna complex, they confirmed that it is not possible to rent the three best buildings or the Voskresensko hotel club (these buildings are reserved according to the contracts with the pilots), and that they will not be opened in the near future.
Only the main building, which is not so comfortable, is open for reservations.
Both guesthouses are located approximately 20 kilometers from Vnukovo-2 - the central terminal of the Special Flying Squad "Russia".
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Another place for self-isolation is the Domodedovo sanatorium Podmoskovlje, where those flying from Moscow stay.
In August, they opened one of the two buildings, while the elite one remained closed until the end of the year, they announced from Podmoskovlje.
The pilots have been quarantined in that building since the end of April, and according to the new contract, they will remain so until February 2022.
According to the data from the public procurement website, the special flight detachment "Russia" and the auto-transport company "Russia", the Central Clinical Hospital and the President's Cabinet itself concluded more than 25 long-term agreements, open dates, on the reservation of rooms, ordinary and luxury suites in hotels Kremlin.
In total, these contracts are worth close to 900 million rubles.
More than half of the contractual obligations have already been fulfilled.
Flight preparations in Moscow
The biggest official tenant of the Kremlin resorts throughout the year was the special flying squad "Russia".
In addition to the president and prime minister, he is responsible for providing air transportation for eight other high-ranking state officials.
The main passengers of the Detachment are Putin and Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin - their flights they have status of special importance.
Most of the contracts with hotels were concluded with the aim of sanitary and epidemiological well-being of residents.
Until the beginning of the pandemic, there were no such contracts on the public procurement website.
However, in such cases, the law allows unique service providers to be chosen, so now all similar contracts from the sector most affected by the crisis are concluded without auctions.
Given that only the Federal Security Service deals with the president's protection, no private hotel equipped as an observatory has received an order from the Kremlin to host the delegation.
After passing the medical tests, the airline Rusija before the flight, it isolates the crew members, but also those who participate in the logistical preparation of the flight.
According to a BBC source, in one of the airlines, the people in charge of the flight itself are mainly pilots, flight attendants and managers.
The reserve crew is also undergoing quarantine, but it is not clear who belongs to that group.
Even though they were in Moscow, dozens of pilots, flight attendants and other aviation specialists, based in Vnukovo, had to spend several days and even weeks in quarantine before the flights.
They were accommodated in single rooms and had three meals.
Even during the pandemic, the planes of the Special Flying Squad of Russia flew mainly on the territory of the country.
They can be tracked using the Flightradar24 online service. It registers the signals of the transponder - a device that transmits the coordinates of the plane to dispatch services via radio.
The list of aircraft owned by SLO Russia is available on the online registry Russianplanes.net, which monitors the state of the aircraft-park of different aircraft-company.
However, SLO Russia planes often turn off the transmitersduring the work, and sometimes throughout leta, and therefore it is impossible to track some flights.
Many of the flights, found by the BBC, coincided with quarantines in sanatoriums and hotels.
For example, on October 15, Il-96-300PU with registration number RA-96021 flew from Moscow to Sochi.
Earlier, this plane was noted in the photo-reports on Putin's foreign visits.
On that very day, a Russian SLO crew checked out from Vatutinka.
The flight from Moksva to Sochi was carried out on November 6 by a Tu-204 with registration number RA-64524.
This plane is also in the photo-reports of Putin's trip from 2014.
The same day from Vatutinkto itself another crew checked out.
The minimum period of self-isolation can be explained by the fact that the pilots have already spent two weeks in another place of flight, probably due to a positive test for the corona virus, and are now preparing for the next one.
Admittedly, some crew members were in one room for more than one or even two months - these people may have performed administrative functions.
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Quarantine in Sochi
In the contracts with the aviators, it is not mentioned anywhere for whose health they are self-isolating.
Mishustin was ill with the virus at the end of May, and the media did not report that additional quarantine measures were being introduced for contacts with him, as well as with anyone else except Putin.
The increased sanitary security of all Russian flights can be explained by the fact that they are transporting high-ranking officials to a meeting with Putin.
This is indirectly confirmed by the fact that observatories in Sochi received the most money from the Cabinet, twice as much as those in Moscow.
During the pandemic, Putin spent a lot of time working at his residence in Sochi.
In addition to his residence, there were three other places for self-isolation - Dagomis, Banja Rus and Sochi.
A BBC source, who is familiar with the quarantine conditions, says that at important events in Sochi, attended by the president, only the crew members numbered several dozen people.
"The crew of [Putin's] plane, the crew of the helicopter, the crew of Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov," enumerates the BBC interlocutor.
Members of all these crews have self-isolated in hotels.
The total state aid to hotels and resorts in Sochi, related to the pandemic, reached the figure of about 1,7 million rubles, of which about 200 million were allocated only for contracts with pilots.
In the Dagomis and Rus resorts, how is it? wrote the edition of the independent media Project, employees of the presidential administration, personal photographers and videographers, part of the show's crew also spent the quarantine Moscow.Kremlin.Putin and 30 employees in the nuclear industry.
Dagomis was closed to visitors last March.
In mid-March of this year, the resort stated on its website that it remains under lock and key for an indefinite period of time due to the continuous increase in the number of corona virus patients in the Krasnodar Territory.
"We will be closed until the end of May due to the pandemic. Although we do not have an official confirmation for June, we hope to start work.
No one is staying with us at the moment," the resort responded to a BBC journalist's attempt to book a room.
And when asked if the resort is used as a place for quarantine, the press service of Dagomis says that it is confidential information and advises to contact the President's Cabinet further.
The website of the Rus resort states that it is still closed due to the unstable pandemic situation.
The reservation and accommodation services did not respond to the phone numbers on the website.
The reservation service of the Sochi resort stated that they have been working since July last year, but that the places for April, early May and early June are sold out.
Crimea was another destination of the Russian Air Force.
During the pandemic year, representatives of the Detachment stayed several times in the sanatorium of Nižnjaja Oreanda, not far from Yalta.
The dates of their arrival preceded Putin's visit to Kerch in July and the opening of the highway In Tavrida in August.
The resort provided the pilots with one-bed luxury apartments, three meals and a transfer.
How war veterans, journalists and other guests of Putin ended up in quarantine
Vladimir Putin held a military parade on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the victory over fascism in the Second World War on Red Square on June 24.
A total of 203 guests, as well as 80 veterans who were on the podium next to the president, spent two weeks in the Klyazma wellness complex near Moscow, according to the contract (for 19,5 million rubles) with the Cabinet. allegations Blumberg.
This sanatorium was supposed to pay 6,2 million rubles for a two-week quarantine and the Cabinet's auto transport company.
The contract has been terminated.
However, drivers could be isolated in Klyazma on the basis of other expenses - this boarding house received subsidies from the Cabinet for the fight against the pandemic in the amount of 57 million rubles.
Previously, he received thin contracts that did not exceed the figure of half a million rubles.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov ahead of the Parade he confirmed that the veterans are in excellent conditions in quarantine, but he explained this by concern for their health.
He did not say where exactly they were located, he only stated that it was a resort.
The President's Cabinet has allocated about two million rubles for rooms in the Volynsko Congress Park for seven veterans to whom Putin presented Labor Hero medals on July 12.
In the end there are only four people received awards from the president himself, including two Muscovites - artistic director of the Little Theater Yuri Solomin and doctor Leonid Rošalj.
Judging by the contract with the Cabinet, they had to stay in isolation before meeting the president.
Rošalj, Solomin and metallurgist Aleksandar Motorin, who received the award together with them, did not want to share their quarantine experience with the BBC.
That the individuals were really in quarantine he confirmed Peskov.
In addition to the veterans, other participants of the event with Putin also underwent quarantine in Moscow hotels.
For example, the participants of the National Unity Day celebration, from October-November 2020, were isolated in the Prezident Hotel in Velika Jakimanka Street.
Then the guests were taken for observation from November 28 to December 17 for reasons already known - sanitary-epidemiological welfare of state security facilities.
Exactly on December 17, Vladimir Putin held a press conference in Novi Ogarevo, which some journalists attended in person, while the other part followed the conference online from Moscow.
The BBC is earlier reported that Pavel Zarubin and other journalists trusted by Putin have already spent two weeks in quarantine so that they could travel to Novo Ogarevo.
Po endingu conference, identical details about the quarantine for journalists who are considered close to the president were also published by the state news agencies TASS and RIA Novosti.
They reported that on that occasion they were assigned an entire floor of a Moscow hotel. According to the data news agencies RIA, about 20 journalists are accommodated in single rooms.
They were forbidden to walk in the corridors (they could go to the toilet only with a mask and with the permission of a member of the Federal Security Service), to talk live and exchange things.
Alcohol and cigarettes were also prohibited.
Packages outside the quarantine zone could only be exchanged with permission and through the FSB, after disinfection.
They were given three meals a day in plastic disposable containers.
In front of the door of each room stood a chair, on which the maids left food, water and plastic utensils.
Everyone who was in contact with the journalists wore protective spacesuits, and that surface was also cleaned with UV rays.
Data from state news agencies match when it comes to the way in which the health of those isolated was controlled: in two weeks, they did a PCR test four times and measured antibodies twice.
In the end, a third of those isolated were not received by the president.
However, when it comes to who paid for the quarantine services, the data diverges.
TASS claims that their newsrooms paid for the journalists' quarantine.
A source who is familiar with the work of journalists during the pandemic told the BBC that newsrooms pay from their own pockets for accommodation and observation in private hotels, but if it is a question of state facilities, then the accommodation is free.
He adds that newsrooms were not charged for accommodation when journalists close to the president were in quarantine.
Neither TASS nor RIA Novosti stated where exactly the quarantine for journalists was.
BBC sources state that they were accommodated in the Arbat Hotel, a branch of the Prezident Hotel. Judging by the Cabinet contract and the date of departure, December 17, the place of quarantine could have been itself HOtel Prezident.
In that period, the Cabinet, in accordance with the contracts, assigned people to the Prezident hotel, the Planerno wellness complex, one to two weeks before the important dates 20-22. December, when Putin held several public meetings in different places in Moscow.
The Kremlin quarantine continued in 2021.
When the heads of Armenia and Azerbaijan came to a meeting with Putin on January 11 (according to the law, they are also considered objects of state security), another two-week quarantine ended at the President Hotel.
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Quarantine or work for doctors?
The Government allocated part of the funds for the suppression of the pandemic to the Cabinet of the President to spend on the organization of medical assistance for those persons for whom it is responsible, i.e. employees in the Kremlin and in higher state bodies, but also pensioners, families and the like.
The main Kremlin hospital, the Central Clinical Hospital (CKB), received more than a billion rubles in subsidies on that occasion.
She spent part of it on renting hotel accommodation for the sanitary-epidemiological welfare of protected persons during protocol events, as well as official trips to Sochi and Valdai.
During the fall of 40, almost 2020 doctors and pilots stayed at the Presidential Hotel Arbat instead of at home, and the hospital did not pay for the doctors' tests and meals.
Doctors stayed in Arbat three times - from September 30 to October 16, from October 20 to November 7 and from November 7 to 14.
During that period, Putin had no important events, but they could prepare for the reviews and consultations of the president and other persons.
In Sochi, where Vladimir Putin periodically lives, Kremlin doctors used to go on official trips once a year, but in 2020 they became more frequent.
In April and May, the doctors stayed at the resort of Sochi, which is located next to Putin's residence, and from the end of June to the beginning of August and mid-October at the Rus sanatorium, for which about five million rubles were spent.
In the winter, the hospital sends its employees to Krasna Poljana, where Putin likes to ski, but the President's Office does not have hotels there, and the doctors are then accommodated in Gaspromo to the mountain hotel Poljana 1389.
For 2020, it was planned to allocate 4,5 million rubles for these purposes, almost twice as much as for 2019.
In the end, the contract was concluded for about 900 thousand rubles.
In addition, doctors had to be quarantined or work in Dagomis, the largest observatory in Sochi (1,16 million rubles): they stayed there from April 17 to May 1, from May 5 to 20, from 28 July to August 8.
Four of them worked there in October and from November 16 to December 22.
For the first time, the CKB sent doctors on a business trip to Valdai from May 25 to June 10, then from June 13 to 22 and from July 7 to 16, where they stayed in a resort of the same name, which is located next to another Putin's favorite residences (contract for 1,3 million rubles).
The resort's website states that it had been open since August 15, but that during the second wave of the pandemic, on November 6, 2020, it was closed again.
In addition to pilots, doctors and other guests of the president, there were also drivers in quarantine.
According to the contracts with the Federal State Enterprises worth 8,1 million rubles, since the beginning of April they have isolated car drivers of the Kremlin Transport Combine Russia in Arbat.
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Where does the Kremlin finance protection against the pandemic?
On an annual level, resorts and hotel complexes of the President's Cabinet receive subsidies for the execution of state tasks - serving the president, state officials and officials from the Kremlin, as well as the associated contingent.
However, the pandemic brought, in addition to all the problems of the tourist and hotel business, large financial inflows for the accommodation of guests to the Kremlin spas.
Where is it funded from?
On March 31, 2020, the Duma passed a law that allows the Government to spend funds on the fight against the pandemic at its own discretion without changes in the federal budget.
After that, during 2020, the Government allocated more than 5,1 billion rubles to the Cabinet of the President from the reserve fund for measures to prevent the spread of the corona virus.
Three acts concerning the Cabinet were signed by Prime Minister Mihail Mishustin - dated April 6 and 29, 2020 and November 23, 2020.
With their help, the total amount of allocated funds was almost 4,2 billion rubles.
Another act, dated June 15, 2020, is intended to support federal institutions engaged in medical activities (resorts and boarding houses).
Based on this act, the Cabinet received an additional 984,5 million rubles.
In addition, there is an unpublished act of the Government dated September 9, 2020 N 2285-rs.
It is not known what it refers to, nor what amount was set aside.
However, on the basis of this document, the President's Cabinet allocated more than 1,2 billion rubles of subsidies for pandemic protection measures to the Dagomis and Rus sanatoriums, as well as to the Valday resort, which are located next to Putin's residences.
This amount may be higher, given that not all Cabinet agreements have been published.
As of December 2020, such documents are no longer published at all.
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So, based on all five acts, the Cabinet distributed subsidies among several dozen of its institutions.
The largest sums were given to the Central Clinical Hospital (1,85 billion rubles), the Special Flying Detachment of Russia (230,5 million rubles), the Transport Combine of Russia and 25 sanatoriums and boarding houses (2,6 billion rubles) - eight of which are sanatoriums.
The Moscow wellness complex Arkhangelsko even received a subsidy of 9,1 million rubles, which rents out cottages for 144 thousand rubles per month, apartments (87 thousand per month) and the main villa for 1,35 million rubles per month.
When asked about the possibility of renting, the BBC journalist was told that everything is full. CKB sent doctors on official trips to Crimea.
The Cabinet, when asked by the BBC about the details of the organization, financing and selection of quarantine places for people meeting with the president, said that they are not the organizer of the quarantine.
They also stated that all the restrictions and measures introduced in the Cabinet and its companies were in accordance with sanitary and epidemiological safety and were in accordance with the recommendations of the Federal Service for the Supervision of Consumer Rights and People's Welfare.
"I wouldn't have anything to add to the Cabinet's answers," President's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the BBC.
When asked what the quarantine measures to protect the president from the corona virus are connected with, and whether there is such a practice in other countries, Peskov also did not answer.
Immediately after the publication of the article, Peskov said that all departments have additional costs due to the coronavirus.
"In addition, persons who have connections with the leadership of the state and who guarantee its work, of course, are connected with the quarantine measures. This is an absolutely normal situation," Peskov said.
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Quarantine for governors in the Kremlin: An iron and three beds
The cabinet only pays for self-isolation related to official flights and quarantine for people who are in contact with the president.
However, this system has another side of the coin: if the president goes to another region with a visit, then the local representatives have to pay for the quarantine themselves.
How such a system works can be seen on the example of the president's visit to the Nizhny Novgorod region at the end of November, in the middle of the second wave of the pandemic.
Ahead of Putin's arrival in Sarov, the Cabinet of the Regional Government made sure to provide places for observation to detect and prevent the further spread of the coronavirus during the events dedicated to Putin's visit to Nizhny Novgorod.
On that occasion, about one million rubles were spent from the regional budget.
Twenty employees of the regional administration were in isolation at a local war veterans' resort.
Staying there was not expensive - for 15 days and 3 meals a day, they allocated 150.000 rubles.
The most original purchase was the acquisition of three wooden beds.
Together with them, mattresses, blankets, six sets of bed linen, one iron and four safes were bought.
All this was delivered to the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin - the residence of the regional government.
It's right there, according to the local portal Reporter NN, Governor Gleb Nikitin and two of his associates were in self-isolation.
At that time, the Governor's Cafe was awarded a separate contract for food for the employees who were on observation.
At the request of the administration, a plastic suitcase was made for them in which documents were transferred, as well as a banner measuring 2,5 by 5,5 meters for securing and organizing the workplaces of members of the regional government who were on observation.
Collaborators on the text: Anastasija Napalkova and Sergej Kozlovski
Infographics: Olesja Volkova
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