One of the interlocutors said that during his work he had never heard the name of Rotenberg, who called himself the beneficiary of the project.

The building, which opposition leader Alexei Navalny called the "palace" of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was completely affected by mold, including rooms and basements. Two workers who were employed at the facility told the BBC Russian Service about this.

“Yes, the most common mold. Somewhere it was green, somewhere it was already black. But there was actually a lot of it. She struck almost the entire house. Most of all - walls and ceilings ", - said the worker who arrived at the" palace "in the fall of 2018 for dismantling work. According to him, the scale of the dismantling work is "amazing": "Roughly speaking, the whole house was stripped to concrete." Navalny also stated in the investigation that the building was completely rebuilt due to mold.

The mold was discovered by accident when a piece of plaster nearly fell on a cleaning lady on the basement in the pool area, a former employee of the contractor told the BBC according to colleagues. “We called a committee and decided that the house was generally unusable,” he said. Another worker said the mold was found during a "facelift." “Apparently, they opened some part in order to repair it, and saw that behind the false wall everything was completely affected by the fungus,” he said.

In the investigation, Navalny argued that the "palace" was designed with errors - the ventilation allegedly did not work in it, the ceiling was leaking and there was high humidity. The BBC's interlocutors named different versions of the appearance of the fungus. One of the workers stated that the mold was probably due to a lack of ventilation. He suggested that "something was messed up during the construction." Two more workers feel the same way, the BBC notes.

“If there is a sea, there is moisture. If there is moisture, but there is no good ventilation, air conditioning, if the windows are not opened [it could have happened], but I do not know how it really is, ”Italian architect Lanfranco Cirillo told the BBC. He added that he had not been to the facility since 2014.

Putin previously stated that nothing of the information indicated in the investigation belongs to him or his relatives. Later, presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that the "palace" on the Black Sea "directly or indirectly" belongs to "one or more" entrepreneurs. " Then billionaire Arkady Rotenberg called himself the beneficiary of the "palace". He said he plans to open an apartment hotel there. Rotenberg noted that the "palace" was built with errors. “There are a lot of difficulties that have been inherited. A lot of things were done wrong from the beginning. I had to redo it now, ”he said.

The working documentation for the project said that a boarding house would be located in the building, one of the workers told the BBC Russian Service. “But, of course, there was no talk that it was an apartment hotel or a hotel — that would be funny. Everyone who worked there knew perfectly well where they were going, ”he said. Another employee noted that during his work he had never heard the name of Rotenberg.