You're reading: Yanukovych spa and other presidential businesses that never were

 Editor's Note: This is part of a series of investigative reports based on documents recovered from deposed President Viktor Yanukovych's Mezhyhirya estate after the Ukrainian leader abandoned the presidency on Feb. 21-22 and fled to Russia, where he is living in exile. The documents and stories are published by YanukovychLeaks.org website.

Would you like to stay in the Kyiv hotel of Viktor Yanukovych, built in a scenic park on the hills of the Dnipro River?

 And after a hard day’s work in
the prestigious Yanukovych business center in Pechersk, you can use the
services of a unique Yanukovych spa right next to your hotel.

And, by the way, the best place
to eat around there is a Yanukovych restaurant.

Such business
proposals could have been reality if the former president, overthrown by the
EuroMaidan Revolution on Feb. 22, held on to his job for a few more years.

Documents from Yanukovych’s
abandoned billion-dollar Mezhyhirya estate show that construction of a spa
center with a restaurant, a hotel and an office center in Pechersk was one of
the goals for Yanukovych and his close circle in the next few years.

The plans would have come at
the cost of the rest of Ukrainians, just like many deals during Yanukovych’s
four-year terms: the land plots identified for the ex-president’s planned
recreation business are located in the green city zones on the hills of the
Dnipro River, very close to Askold’s Tomb city park.

The office center was supposed
to be built right in front of a regular school. Had it happened, the students
would have lost both the view and even the sunlight in their windows.

The project was coordinated by
the Business Development Company, specially created in 2010. The inventory of
these companies was coordinated by Pavlo Litovchenko, a former director of
Tantalit – the most famous company connected with Yanukovych.

The fate of the land plots that
belong to companies controlled by Tantalit is still unclear. One of them is
awaiting the decision of the Kyiv City Council, while the rest stand empty as
law enforcers continue to comb through the Mezhyhirya documents.



A 3D image of a business center in the prestigious Pechersk district that a company affiliated with ex-President Viktor Yanukovych planned to build.

A business center in a
schoolyard

In 2013, the parents and
students of school #5 in Pechersk had a problem. A company called Starkada,
which had rented a neighboring land plot right in 2007, started to install concrete and metal poles to mark the limits
of its territory in preparation to the construction of a nine-storied office
center with an underground parking lot.

The parents gathered for a
protest rally. “Last year it all started in April. But thanks to the community,
the parents of the children, and the teachers, we managed to fully stop this
construction. Since then, since April, when parents really threw themselves
under the wheels of vehicles (used for bringing in construction materials), the
construction has not taken place,” says Olena Khokhlova, deputy director of the
school.

Stakada got the land plot of
0.27 hectares in 2007. At that time, the company was not controlled by
Yanukovych. The land was a really good piece of realty, adjoining a Botanical
garden on one side, and elite multi-level cottages on another.

The owners commissioned an
architectural project for the building, but had not started construction for
several years.

Then, in 2012, it was spotted
by the future owners, which were not turned off by the fact that it was located
right next to a school. The new owners, Hlib Vakunov and investment company
Kyiv-Ost bought Starkada along with the right to rent this land, and wanted to
start construction.

Vakunov has a long history of
relations with various presidential businesses. In one case, in 2010-2011 he
worked for AVK development company, which was used as a general contractor for
many of the Mezhyhirya buildings. Vakunov controlled the quality of
construction and decoration in several Mechyhirya houses, and received a salary
of $2,700 per month for that. He was also the proxy owner of another company
that was panning to build the presidential spa center.

He does not want to say who
offered him those jobs. “This is a commercial secret of that person, and I am
not planning to reveal it,” he says. “These sort of questions would be normal
coming from tax inspectors, or if there is a court hearing. Why does the public
and you need who offered it to me? 

Vakunov says that construction
in Pechersk is not happening because his company is waiting for the rent
agreement to be extended. “The Kyiv city council has not yet extended the rent
agreement, this is why we’re not building. If the Kyiv council convenes, we
will again, according to the legal procedure, apply for the extension,” he
says. 

Currently, the Kyiv city
council carried a draft
resolution
 (dated May 2013) to extend the rent agreement, which will be
decided by a new council after the May election.

Spa and hotel on the hills of
the Dnipro

Having a helipad on the hills of the
Dnipro River (even complete with officers, exhibition halls and data center)
was clearly not enough for Yanukovych’s close circle.

After getting a hold of a land
plot to build a helicopter pad, a company linked to Tantalit eyed the territory
nearby. Eventually, they got a hold of two other land plots on both sides of
the helipad, with total area of three hectares.

The first target of energetic
managers was the land of Delicates Ltd, which at the time was the management company
of Kozachokchain of
restaurants.

The land plot of 0.3 hectares
on Parkova Road was rented by Delicates for 15 years back in 2003, but the
restaurant was late in coming. At the beginning of 2012, company owners
received an offer from Amadeus Co. to buy out this agreement, by changing the
corporate structure of Delicates. The buyers were not interested in the rest of
the company, so Kozachok restaurants were moved to the balance sheets of other
firms.

According to a source familiar
with the deal, as a result of this agreement Delicates changed hands in autumn
2012, but Amadeus no longer featured. The source spoke on the condition of
anonymity because he is bound by confidentiality agreements.

The new owners of Delicates
were Vakunov, the man who wanted to build an office center, and Cyprus-based
CBCG Trade Limited. Vakunov refused to comment on this company’s activity.

Even more secretive is
Oleksandr Okhota, director of Park Way, a company which in October of 2013
signed a 25-year lease agreement for another land plot
close to the helipad.

Both companies, Delicates and
Park Way, have the same end beneficiary. It’s an offshore company registered on
Marshall Islands, called Asset Management Group. And although in Ukraine all
these companies may formally look unrelated, all 3 hectares worth of land plots
on the hills of the Dnipro ended up in the same hands.

Park Way intended to build a
hotel on its land plot of 0.55 hectares. At the moment, this land houses an abandoned
base of a specialized department for anti-landslide works which no longer does
any work there. But the documents found on the floor of this building show that
it was related to Amadeus, and that the company handled documents for
construction on that land.

This is an investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), which is based in Washington, D.C., a Kyiv Post partner.