Dresden. It is around 10 a.m. when the heavy, black Audi limousines pull up in Dresden’s Jägerpark on Friday. “I recognized him very well,” says Jörg Hofmann, referring to Kremlin critic Alexej Navalny.
Hofmann has lived at Radeberger Straße 101 for 30 years – not in any apartment, but in one with a history that apparently also interests Putin’s harshest critics. “When I looked at the apartment in March 1990, he was still there with his wife and child,” remembers Jörg Hofmann.
The housing association brokered the new place for him because the current tenant wanted to move out soon. “He wasn’t there yet,” the 51-year-old apologizes for not recognizing the owner of the house at the time: KGB major Vladimir Putin, who lived there with his family.
Jörg Hofmann in his apartment on Radeberger Strasse. He moved there 30 years ago, as a replacement for Vladimir Putin, says the 51-year-old. © Christian Juppe
This could also explain the surprise visit in front of the house in the Jägerpark. Two armored Audi limousines pull up, says the man from Dresden. The cars had Berlin license plates and the men were heavily armed. “One had a submachine gun, the other normal pistols,” says Hofmann. And so it can also be seen on photos Hofmann took from his balcony.
Personal protection for a man who, according to international investigators, was attacked with the nerve agent Novichok on August 20 in Tomsk, Russia. Suspected: the Russian secret service. Navalny himself considers the Russian president to be the client – the man whose former apartment and former secret service work he visited in Dresden on Friday. The men got out “and walked around the house for over an hour,” says Jörg Hofmann. A camera team was also there.
The 51-year-old did not notice everything that the surprise visitors did in front of and behind the prefabricated building on the edge of the hunting district. “They then ran to Angelikastrasse, where Putin worked.” The KGB then resided in house number 4. Putin worked there from 1985 until shortly after the fall of the Wall.
“They left, came running again, they talked and then stopped again in front of my balcony,” says Jörg Hofmann of the visit on Friday morning. “Then Navalny spoke to me.” In English he asked how he was and whether they could do an interview. Hofmann refused. He doesn’t want cameras in his apartment.
Alexej Navalny, opposition leader from Russia, is considered to be Putin’s sharpest critic. © Pavel Golovkin / AP / dpa
“There were already others there, some from Putin at the time, I didn’t let them in either.” But Hofmann was still interested in the visit. “I filmed and took a lot of photos.” The material shows several people walking back and forth, seeming interested to look at everything.
Hofmann can’t say anything about the flying visit of the mysterious group of visitors. On the Facebook page of Alexej Navalny, on which new entries can be found again and again during his current recovery phase after the poison attack, there was nothing to read about this until evening.
When SZ asked a close colleague of Nawalny’s, he neither wants to confirm nor deny the visit to Dresden. Navalny could move freely in Germany. It is possible that Navalny is currently following in Putin’s footsteps and would like to come to terms with his secret service past, which is also controversial in Germany. His press officer can also be seen in photos.
The cameraman has set up in front of the front door to ring the doorbell and then pan upwards when Hofmann can be seen. “But then I didn’t react anymore,” says the 51-year-old. Hofmann has already answered a lot of questions about his previous tenant, in whose apartment he has been at home for three decades. “At that time I had to wait a month after the inspection, then trucks came with containers and wooden boxes and Putin moved out.”
Vladimir Putin lived in this house many years ago. © Christian Juppe
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A camera team accompanies Navalny (black jacket, center) on his visit. © Screenshot SZ
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With a tablet in hand and bodyguards around him, Navalny (center) walks around the block. © Screenshot SZ
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He still remembers exactly how the then just 20-year-old found the apartment. “There were a lot of decals, there was aluminum foil wallpaper on the wall, everything was painted brown.” Even the electrics, sockets and light switches were painted over. “But otherwise everything was fine,” Hofmann replied today when asked whether there were electronic devices that could not have been found in any other apartment. “The apartment was empty in March 1990. Only the GDR wallpaper, the rubbing strips, everything was painted myself … ”
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He doesn’t seem to like to remember this sight. The apartment is now much more his than that of the former Russian major, who now resides in the Kremlin. 66 square meters, three rooms, kitchen, bathroom on the fourth floor. Only when visitors like this appear in front of his house on Friday morning will he be reminded of him.
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