WARNING DISTRESSING CONTENT. Vladimir Putin has headed off to a his secret mountain retreat in Siberia where he is said to have spent the week bathing “in the blood of young deer”
Vladimir Putin has headed off for a secret break this week to ‘bathe in the blood of young deer’, it is reported.
The 72-year-old dictator is said to be fanatical about using ancient remedies to prolong his life and give him strength and it appears as though he headed off to his bolthole mountain palace for one of his favourite treatments.
His ‘Flying Kremlin’ Ilyushin 96-300 – equivalent to Air Force One – disappeared from radar screens over the remote Altai region in Siberia, after a flight from Moscow on Monday, New Year’s Eve under the calendar used by the Russian Orthodox Church.
Two days later the aircraft reappeared in roughly the same location, this time flying back to Moscow. Telegram channel ‘More Than Fact’ suggested Putin may have spent time at his sprawling Altai Courtyard retreat in neighbouring region Altai Republic.
This Siberian palace is reported to have a vast underground hi-tech bunker with its own power station from which he could control Russian in the event of nuclear war. It was reported last year that sufficient quantities of food had been stashed here to feed up to 300 people “for several years”.
The eerie complex includes a maral deer farm where antlers are sawn off terrified Siberian stags so Putin and his inner circle can take blood baths, according to previous investigative reports. The ancient tradition is seen as a testosterone-driven elixir to improve male potency, but also as bringing multiple health benefits and slowing the ageing process.
Putin was seen in videos released by the Kremlin during the period he was supposedly away, but they may have been pre-recorded, or in Russian parlance “canned”, to be used during the ruler’s secret vacations. The Telegram channel reported: “[Russian] Air Force One was absent from the capital for two days [from January 13 to 15].
“It disappeared from radar screens in the Altai region. Putin’s Altai Courtyard recreation centre is located there – where he takes baths in the blood of young maral [deer] to improve his health, prolong his life, and give him strength.” The usual season for fresh blood bathing is in late spring or early summer.
The channel did not say if his glamorous partner – Olympic gymnast Alina Kayaeva, three decades younger than him – was with him on the suspected Siberian odyssey. Orthodox New Year’s Day – known in Russia as Old New Year according to the Julian calendar which was used in tsarist times – is marked on January 14.
The couple share two sons, Ivan and Vladimir junior, aged nine and five, according to reports. Putin has never disclosed his relationship with Kabaeva, nor his two sons, one born in Switzerland, the other in Moscow. One theory is that he would use this bunker to protect his secret family if Armageddon is unleashed. Kabaeva, 41, was once spotted by local hunters using her private helicopter at this Siberian hideaway as a prop for stretching exercises.
If true, this week’s break in Siberia came ahead of key decisions on the war faced by Putin as Donald Trump seeks an early meeting to halt the conflict in Ukraine. Putin was back at the helm by Thursday meeting the president of the Central African Republic, Faustin-Archange Touadera, in Moscow.
Putin’s Siberian getaway, some 135 miles south of the Altai Republic regional capital Gorno-Altaisk and 2,375 miles east of Moscow, was in the headlines last year when a mysterious fire destroyed a building on the compound. The republic shares borders with China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan.
