New cars continue to be built for Vladimir Putin's special train, and the cost of servicing the train can reach 6.8 billion rubles, the Dossier Center found out together with CNN, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Westdeutscher Rundfunk and Norddeutscher Rundfunk.
Investigators studied an array of almost 25.5 thousand documents «Zircon Service»received from a source with access to the company's servers. The Dossier Center confirmed their authenticity using metadata and found the people indicated in the documents — they worked or are working in Zircon Service. Some of the information mentioned in the array was published by the company on its website.
The Dossier Center learned that in recent years, Zircon Service has built a sports car for the president.
“In 2018-2019, under the most difficult conditions, the enterprise implemented such a project as a sports and fitness car in an unrealistically short time. On behalf of the Chief Passenger, we have already carried out the quick replacement and rearrangement of simulators on the sports and recreation car twice in a short time!” — noted the general director Lulaev, follows from the documents that the investigators have.
The order for the construction was personally given by the head of Russian Railways, Oleg Belozerov, in March 2017, and the management of the FSO coordinated the project, in 2018 Putin began to use the car. Russian Railways paid Zircon Service 413.4 million rubles for it. According to Dossier, the wellness car has a beautician's office, a gym and a hammam.
In the cosmetology room, among other things, a device for radiolifting and ultrasound therapy and medical equipment are installed — a ventilator, an aspirator for sanitation of the upper respiratory tract, a defibrillator, infusomatand patient monitor.
In the minutes of one of the meetings with the participation of the FSO, it is said that “hardware for protection against the leakage of acoustic information” was built into the office. The screenshot from the car project also indicates that the car has a massage couch and a toilet bowl with a control unit.
In addition, the Moscow Research Institute of Radio Communications (MNIIRS) developed its own buffering transmission system for the car — transmission of a satellite signal so that the president could watch TV without interruption. For example, a Mirror Media TV for 1.2 million rubles is installed in the carriage.
In total, 22 cars, including technical ones, are operated as part of Putin's special train, but not all of them are used simultaneously, Dossier emphasizes. «Zircon Service» is going to build several more cars for the president, the company has signed the relevant contracts with a structural unit of the Directorate of High-Speed Communications of Russian Railways (SPDOSS).
The plans include a “car-hall with a multimedia center” with an estimated cost of 405.5 million rubles, another sports and recreation car similar to the existing one, two luxury cars – one of them will have four compartments , in the other — a bar (their approximate cost is 557.8 million rubles).
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