Vladimir Putin enters St. Andrew's Hall in the Grand Kremlin Palace to take the oath of office on May 7, 2012: The Russian president reportedly has 43 planes and 15 helicopters at his personal disposal.

AP Photo/RIA-Novosti, Alexei Druzhinin

n public, Russian President Vladimir Putin talks up his humble beginnings and promotes himself as an ascetic, devoted public servant. "I have toiled like a galley slave, giving it my all," Putin told reporters in 2008, near the end of his first two terms in office. But Kremlin watchers and political opponents have long suspected that Putin actually lives like a czar, or one of "the monarchs of the Persian Gulf," as two critics suggest in a new pamphlet, The Life of a Galley Slave. Reformist former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov and Leonid Martynyuk, a Solidarity movement activist, make their case by cataloging Putin's immense riches, drawing from public records and other open sources. Putin spokesman  Dmitry Peskov says there is nothing secret about Putin's official state residences and fleet of black Mercedes and opulent jets. "It is all state property and Putin, as the elected president, uses it in accordance with the law," Peskov says. But the sheer size and regality of Putin's ostensibly state-owned holdings is pretty mind-boggling, especially in a country with so much poverty. Here, a look at Vladimir Putin's reputed fortune, by the numbers:

$110,000
Putin's annual presidential salary in 2011

$179,612
His bank balance in March, as reported on official disclosure forms

$40 billion
His actual net worth, as estimated by a British journalist in 2007

20
State-owned palaces and country estates Putin uses around Russia

9
State-owned mansions constructed in recent years under Putin's orders. (The other 11 residences were built in the pre-Putin era.)

8
Official state residences of Britain's royal family

2
Official state residences of the U.S. president

$42 million
Taxpayer money spent renovating just one of Putin's official residences

43
Planes in Putin's fleet

$300 million
Estimate price of Putin's main presidential jet

$75,000 
Cost of that jet's toilet, complete with a golden flush

15
Helicopters in Putin's fleet

$1 billion
Reported cost to build Aviapark, which houses Putin's planes and helicopters

4
Yachts Putin uses

$50 million
Annual upkeep cost of Sirius, Putin's five-story yacht

1,200
Russian pensioners who could live off that sum

Sources: AFP, Christian Science Monitor, Guardian, Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, Novaya Gazeta, Telegraph