Does size matter?

The first thing that you need to know about ‘Putin’s Palace’ is that it puts the likes of Bezos, Gates, Zuckerberg and even the Royal Family of Monaco to shame when it comes to a place to put your feet up after a long day at work.

The ‘house’ alone is 17,700m² and the buildings (there are more than one) sit in 74 hectares of grounds. The master bedroom alone comes in at 260m².

Can my friends stay over?

There are reputedly 11 bedrooms, not including the guesthouse, all sumptuously appointed so yes, your friends could probably spend a day or a week or a month without bothering you in the slightest.

Can we play cards in the kitchen?

Although the kitchen is big enough to hold separate preparation areas for meat, fish, poultry and vegetables, not to mention the bakery and ‘egg-preparation area’, you are more than likely to be doing some friendly gambling in one of the other (the many, many other) rooms.

But having a card game is not the only thing to do. As mentioned, there are 74 hectares of land to wander and explore, there is a dedicated theatre room (not a home cinema – an actual theatre like with a stage and stuff), an Olympic-sized indoor pool, a spa, an electric-car racing track, a library, a music room, an outdoor amphitheatre and even a lift down to a beach on the Black Sea. There’s even a hookah room and strip club.

But the real kicker is the fully outfitted casino. While all our online and land-based gambling readers have just had their ears perk up, we really need to explain why this is so … wrong.

It’s not Vegas, baby.

Having a poker table is cool. Having an entire casino with tables for cards and roulette, slot machines and arcade games is awesome!

But Putin is an avid anti-gambler. He has outlawed all gambling and casinos in Russia except in four remote outlying economic zones. For someone who is publicly so anti-gambling, having your own casino in your mega-mansion smacks of Bond villainy of the highest level.

Once again, that is IF the palace really does belong to Putin!

So how do I get there?

You could drive down the purpose-built (at government expense) three-lane highway or fly in by helicopter and land at one of three dedicated landing pads. But you will have to be invited. Security is tight with a no-fly zone, impregnable fences, private security, ‘border-post’ style checkpoints and a permit system.

Does it get any bigger?

Look, this mega monstrosity is certainly opulence and lavishness on a grand scale. But is it the most opulent and lavish? Well we do know that money does not buy class or taste, the sheer attention to the marble and fittings and gold leaf would appear to put ‘Putin’s Palace’ right up at the top of the biggest testament to wealth list.

But there are even more ostentatious and shocking examples of how wealth and power are put on display.

From King Leopold II of Belgium claiming the entire Belgian congo as his personal playground (and then committing the most despicable abuses in the pursuit of wealth) to the rulers of Europa and China and their opulent palaces (Versailles, the Lost City).

But no one did it quite like the former dictator of Romania – Nicolae Ceausescu. The House of the Republic was a ‘peoples’ building erected by Ceausescu that pretty much turned into his private residence. The finished building has 1,100 rooms, is the heaviest building in the world at 4.1 million tonnes and it took 700 architects and between 20,000 and 100,000 people working on-site to complete.

The building is so big (85m high with 365,000m² of floor space) that, on the ousting of Ceausescu as dictator, the building – now known as the Palace of the Parliament –  became the seat of the entire Romanian government and still has unused areas!

The Top Gear hosts actually staged a race in supercars through the access tunnels below the building.