Enlarge image
President Putin, Chancellor Scholz on Tuesday in the Kremlin at Renato Polagna's table: "The length has nothing to do with the pandemic"
Photo: Mikhail Klimentyev / picture alliance/dpa/Sputnik
Six meters separate Vladimir Putin from his interlocutors these days: The pictures of the Russian President sitting at a long white table in Moscow and talking to his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron or Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz about the explosive situation in Ukraine went around the world .
The manufacturer of the shiny white, 2.60 meter wide monster resting on three pillar-like platforms has now spoken out.
"This table is one that stimulates creativity," said Renato Pologna of the Italian daily newspaper "Corriere della sera" after photo montages with his table at the center made the rounds on social networks.
The conference table is made of wood, painted white and decorated with handmade gold leaf ornaments, reported the northern Italian entrepreneur from Cantù near Como.
The top made of one piece, sophisticated craftsmanship.
Pologna did not want to confirm that the length of the table was due to the distance rules in the corona pandemic.
'It may have come in handy for that purpose, but the length has nothing to do with the pandemic.
I made the table 25 years ago!«
The piece of furniture is only a tiny part of what he made between 1995 and 1997 for one of the palaces in the Kremlin near the Lenin Mausoleum.
The offices and residence of the Russian President are currently located there.
He furnished 7,000 square meters on two floors with furniture, floors and lighting, paneled the walls, put in the ceilings and much more.
Also the Catherine Hall in the Great Kremlin Palace, where a G8 meeting took place in 1997.
The name of the hall comes from the Order of Saint Catherine, which Tsar Peter the Great donated in 1711 in honor of his wife Catherine I.
This is where the wives of the tsars used to receive their visitors.
Today it is used for diplomatic receptions and conferences.
The entrepreneur stated that he had produced the furniture himself, but had subcontracted the rest of the work.
Today the table would cost 100,000 euros
He could only roughly estimate the scope of the order.
"I don't remember the exact numbers, maybe a few billion lire," he is quoted as saying in the report.
According to today's conversion rate, one billion lire would be more than 500 million euros.
What would a copy of the conference table made famous by Putin cost today?
"Oh, maybe 100,000 euros," says the entrepreneur.
He never met the then President Boris Yeltsin.
“But the security measures were impressive.” He came in and out with a pass, the furniture was scanned, photos were forbidden.
The setter of the sheikhs
According to its own statements, Pologna sells its furniture worldwide and to an apparently illustrious clientele.
"I set up a lot in Arab countries, for sheikhs and royal families," he says.
Former Soviet republics were also there.
"I once had orders from Muammar al-Gaddafi." In addition to the Libyan ruler, he claims to have worked for the family of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
But there is also a whole range of "non-political customers", private individuals who want to have private residences set up, "4,000 to 5,000 square meters in Monte Carlo, on the Côte d'Azur, in London".
For reasons of discretion, however, Pologna did not want to name names.
ala