Putins Kremlin helipad cost $6.4 mln

Construction of a helicopter pad for President Vladimir Putin’s Mi-8 in the Kremlin cost almost 200 million rubles (about $6.4 mln), the Kremlin chief property manager, Vladimir Kozhin, said.

About 200 million rubles were spent to finance all construction stages, including land survey works, modeling and landscaping, Kozhin told reporters on Friday.

The pad will be used primarily by the Russian president, on occasion receiving helicopters flying high-ranking foreign guests from the Vnukovo airport.

The use of the helipad, located in the Kremlin's Tainitsky Garden close to exterior walls, will not harm the host of historical monuments that make part of the Kremlin’s architectural ensemble, Kozhin said.

Putin announced last year that he would use a helicopter to get to work and work more from his residence outside Moscow after Muscovites complained that his motorcade was causing traffic jams in the capital already plagued by heavy traffic.