EU-Ukraine relations
Yulia Tymoshenko
Gas disputes
Chornobyl
Georgiy Gongadze
Ukrainian vs. Russian language
Ukrainska Pravda exposes presidential estate scandal
Nov. 26, 2010, 1:22 a.m. | Ukraine — by Mark Rachkevych
SEE ALSO
-
Journalist goes to European court to demand information on president's mansion
-
-
-
Journalists celebrate with trek to Yanukovych’s luxury estate
-
-
Press: President refuses to meet journalists rallying near his residence
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Like his predecessors, Yushchenko still uses cozy presidential residence
-
-
-
While leading lavish lifestyles, politicians declare almost pauper-like incomes, assets
-
City Life with Alexandra Matoshko: Shame on politicians for flaunting ill-gotten riches
-
-
-
-
A series of investigative articles chronicled how President Viktor Yanukovych took control over a 138-hectare estate and how he hid his tracks in the process.
President Viktor Yanukovych lives in a house surrounded by a multi-million dollar estate with its own bowling alley, enormous clubhouse, soon-to-be-built tennis court, a near-by hunting ground and shooting gallery.
Yanukovych’s story – and he’s sticking to it – is that he only owns a house on the estate and a tiny patch of land around it.
Click here to view the trail of proxy companies and front men used to conceal how Mezhyhirya was taken over.
How Mezhyhirya changed hands from state to private control in 2006-2007
The president says he doesn’t know who owns the surrounding territory of 138 hectares, equal to 24 Shevchenko Parks – where massive construction and development is taking place. Nothing improper here, says the administration.
But an investigation by the popular news website, Ukrainska Pravda, and one of its investigative journalists, Serhiy Leshchenko, has revealed how Yanukovych went from occupying a modest state-owned house to becoming the entire estate’s de facto lord of the manor. The website says the presidential administration didn’t answer its inquiries.
In a country where pensioners struggle to get by on a meager $100 per month, the story of how the president took control over the Mezhyhirya estate may – in the opinion of Ukrainska Pravda and others – go down in the annals of Ukraine’s history as a case study of grand-scale corruption.
Leshchenko’s articles revealed complicity at the highest levels of government, including former President Viktor Yushchenko and ex-premier Yulia Tymoshenko, in relinquishing government-ownership over the estate’s property and for allowing the leasing of land there without competitive bids or auction.
Ukrainska Pravda also linked the owners of companies implicated in the Mezhyhirya estate to Yanukovych, his political entourage, including his elder son, Oleksandr, and identified one Donetsk-based bank through which all the Mezhyhirya companies did their business.
It then traced how a multi-layer web of dummy companies, trust managers and front men stretching from to Lichtenstein and England were used to disguise the real masters of Mezhyhirya.
Here is the abridged version in English of the Ukrainska Pravda story:
Yanukovych on June 4 described his relationship to the 138-hectare Mezhyhirya estate where he’s lived since 2002, this way: “Just keep in mind, I only have a hectare and a half. Beyond that it’s forbidden to walk [on the territory]…There’s [another] owner there,” he explained to journalists.
But two months after the press conference, Yanukovych revealed his insatiable appetite for splendor when boasting to Germany’s political and business elite in Berlin on Aug. 30: “It’s not a little secret to anyone…I built this one house, a clubhouse if you will…Honka built it, it’s a Finnish company…”
He then praised the Germans for their pedantry and told them that he prefers “German quality.”
“We, all the club (house’s) members, had the same wish – that the ‘house’ look good both on the outside and inside. The hardwood, the squared beams with which the house was being assembled kept ‘moving’ all the time. … So we invited bids, not a huge call for bids, and Germans won the tender. And no matter how this house settled or raised, the [wood] beams beautifully held together, nothing has collapsed. … I spoke with the (German) workers. I’ll tell you, they are the worker’s intelligentsia,” he complimented the German crowd.
He had just admitted to owning a gigantic mansion belonging to a private company leasing 129 hectares on the compound.
No impeachment proceedings were launched, no investigative commissions were formed and no charges were brought. Construction continued unperturbed at Mezhyhirya.
Mezhyhirya: From state ownership to private
Yanukovych’s neighbors are Tantalit (129 hectares), a limited liability company, and Renaissance of Ukraine foundation (7.6 hectares).
Both legal entities are building their versions of recreation centers. The president has 1.7 hectares.
All three are indirectly linked via a network of dummy companies and front men reflecting an alternative identity to who really is behind Mezhyhirya.
Yanukovych first moved into a state-owned home in Mezhyhirya when he packed his bags in 2002 and left Donetsk to serve as prime minister under former President Leonid Kuchma.
According to Ukrainska Pravda, it appears that the president rented the home through Renaissance of Ukraine Foundation, which had already inked a lease on April 1, 2003, along with three hectares of adjoining land.
In March 2007, when he was prime minister a second time, Yanukovych entertained journalists in this same residential building.
The gargantuan clubhouse seen from the Dnipro River to which President Viktor Yanukovych referred on his Aug. 30 visit to Berlin. (Ukrainska Pravda)
He played the guitar and spoke about his prison terms. Just days after the house party, the house was leveled and a giant “administrative” building was built in its place by Tantalit, at least 1,000 square meters in size.
Renaissance of Ukraine Foundation was registered in 2003 in a residential building apartment in Obukhiv city, a district center in Kyiv Oblast.
This foundation would for the next eight years provide cover for Yanukovych.
Renaissance of Ukraine re-organized its land lease agreement in 2004 when it leased 3.9 hectares directly from the Vyshgorod District Adminstration, where Mezhyhirya is located.
Then it almost doubled the land leased in 2007 when it leased an additional 3.7 hectares.
The foundation gave this ironic purpose for leasing the state-owned house in which Yanukovych lived: “The property which is being leased will be used by the lessee to implement measures to promote national and international programs aimed at improving socio-economic conditions.’’
Both times the foundation arranged leases without undergoing a bidding process and leased land at below-market prices – Hr 3.30 per month for 100 square meters.
The foundation is linked to Vasyl Hulyk, the current deputy head of the State Affairs Department and former director of a company that provides landscaping, maintenance and utility services on Mezhyhirya.
On paper, it was founded by Donbas resident Oleksandr Yurchenko, the founder of Zoryaniy film center where Yanukovych’s 2004 election headquarters was located.
Zoryaniy’s director was Andriy Kravets who on the day of Yanukovych’s presidential inauguration was appointed head of the presidential affairs department and the builder of an office building in Brovary, where many Mezhyhirya-linked companies have an address.
According to Ukrainska Pravda, Renaissance of Ukraine is actually controlled by Yanukovych’s son, Oleksandr, who handles all matters related to real estate and land on Mezhyhirya that the foundation leases.
Yurchenko, the Donbas resident who was the original founder of Renaissance of Ukraine, also co-founded Dom Lesnika. This company supplied $3.36 million worth of building materials to Mezhyhirya in 2009 and the first half of 2010.
Another co-founder of Dom Lesnika is Ivan Tokhtamysh, who is the director of a hunting and fishing club registered in Mezhyhirya and founded by Yuriy Boiko, fuel and energy minister, Serhiy Tulub, Cherkassy Oblast governor and Volodymyr Demishkan, another close Yanukovych friend who heads the state roadway company.
But to show to what lengths people went to cover up all the links, Renaissance of Ukraine had its founder changed to two Donetsk city female residents in 2009: Yulia Blyzniuk and Lolita Shapkova. However, the lion’s share of property was eventually taken over by Tantalit, a company with ties to Yanukovych.
While serving as prime minister for the second time in 2006, Yanukovych arranged for the Presidential Administration’s State Affairs Department, which was then subordinate to former President Viktor Yushchenko, to transfer ownership of Mezhyhirya property to the Cabinet of Ministers controlled by Yanukovych.
On June 13, 2007, Yanukovych issued a government order whereby management of Mezhyhirya property was given to the Environmental Ministry headed then by Yanukovych confidant Vasyl Dzharty.
Then the Cabinet issued an order transferring the property from the Environmental Ministry to Nadra Ukraina, a for-profit state-run company, headed by Eduard Stavytsky, a subordinate of Dzharty.
In turn, on Sept. 25, 2007, Nadra Ukraina decided to swap property with a mysterious Donetsk company called Medinvesttrade.
Nadra Ukraina gave Medinvesttrade Mezhyhirya property, including the building in which Yanukovych resided, in return for two palaces in the center of Kyiv.
Apparently Yushchenko had no qualms swapping property with Yanukovych.
In a conversation with Ukrainska Pravda, Stavytsky confirmed that Nadra Ukraina had transferred the two centrally located palaces to the State Affairs Department a day after Mezhyhirya property was received.
Days later, Donetsk-based Tantalit bought the Mezhyhirya property for Hr 89 million from Medinvesttrade, which declared bankruptcy in June.
Tantalit had taken control over several residential buildings, cellars, sheds, a sewage station, greenhouses, and a security check point.
With Medivesttrade bankrupt, it would seem the first chain in dispossessing Mezhyhirya property from government control was cut off. But land still had to be leased from the government, according to legislation.
On Oct. 2, 2008, Tantalit signed a 49-year lease with the Vyshgorod District Administration. The lease stipulated a below-market rate of Hr 4 per month for 100 square meters.
According to the lease terms, the contract could be considered null and void only if both sides agreed to it. Also, the lease has a clause that allows the lessee to purchase land.
The 2008 lease was formally approved by Vira Ulianchenko, a close Yushchenko ally who served as Kyiv Oblast governor.
Ulianchenko also let the lease of 17.5 hectares go through on Yanukovych’s favorite hunting club in Sukholuchchya, Vyshgorod District where Dom Lesnika, whose founder also established Renaissance of Ukraine Foundation, is building a hotel and restaurant complex.
Dom Lesnika is also a chief supplier of imported building materials to Mezhyhirya.
It surprised few that Ulianchenko’s husband was appointed Education Minister Dmyto Tabachnyk’s deputy soon after Yanukovych’s inauguration.
Consequently, Yanukovych didn’t forget about Vyshgorod District’s head, Anatoliy Olshanskiy, who closed his eyes to the land leases.
He was recently appointed the head of the Boryspil district of Kyiv Oblast, whose international airport, surrounding forests and close proximity to Kyiv via an expressway allows for many pay-to-play opportunities.
Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko only took an interest in Mezhyhirya after talks collapsed with Yanukovych when trying to form a “broad coalition” with him in 2008.
The land-lease contracts were dated on those days when Tymoshenko held discussions with Yanukovych. When she did act, her efforts were stalled by the nation’s corrupt judicial system.
Tymoshenko had initiated a judicial cancellation of the land-lease contracts.
However, first the investigative commission under the leadership of Party of Regions deputy Mykola Dzhyha expunged relevant contracts with the Vyshgorod District Administration in 2008 and then later the prosecutor general hid them under the guise of “carrying out inspections.”
A judge halted the legal investigation until the inspection was completed, which apparently is still ongoing.
In another parallel yet artificially inspired process, the Supreme Economic Court ruled that Tantalit LLC, which leases 129 hectares on the estate, is the legal owner of property on Mezhyhirya. Of the three judges who rendered the January ruling was the daughter of Party of Regions deputy Mykola Kruhlov, Olena Mamontova.
Nobody paid attention to the glaring conflict of interests. And within months, in March, Kruhlov himself was appointed the governor of Mykolayiv Oblast.
Proxy investors behind Tantalit, 129 hectares
According to building plans, Tantalit is building a health and recreation center in Mezhyhirya which includes a yacht club with a covered slip on the Kyiv Sea shore; a golf club, an equestrian club, an administrative building and club house, as well as other developments.
Dom Lesnika, whose founder also established Renaissance of Ukraine Foundation that is developing 7.6 hectares on Mezhyhirya, drafted the building plans on both Mezhyhirya and the Sukholuchya hunting club where Yanukovych likes to hunt wild boar.
A legal entity and an individual are Tantalit’s founders.
A Donbas native registered in a Kyiv dormitory is one of the co-founders with 0.03 percent capital share.
According to Ukrainska Pravda, his name is Pavlo Lytovchenko, a proxy for Yanukovych in other companies.
He had been seen many times in Yanukovych’s reception room inside the Party of Regions headquarters on Lypsky Street when the Ukrainian president was still a member of parliament and in opposition.
Lytovchenko is also on record as one of the founders of Dom Lesnika. In addition, he acted as the founder of Donetsk-based Edelweiss, which belongs to Capital Building Corporation whose real owners include Oleksandr Yanukovych and whose director is Oleksandr Kolesnikaov, also from Donetsk.
Oleksandr Yanukovych also controls Dellit, the security firm which polices both the Mezhyhirya estate and Sukholuchya hunting club and also provides services to AVK Development, which is the general contractor of all development work on Mezhyhirya.
AVK Development’s founder, Vitaliy Sakhatskyi, has since went to work for Yanukovych at the State Affairs Department – he was also vice president of Renaissance of Ukraine Foundation.
The second founder of Tantalit also leads us to Dom Lesnika. On paper, it is Euro East Beteiligungs GmbH, a Viennese-registered firm run by one person, Johann Wanovits, an Austrian stock broker.
The institution where he works, Euro Invest Bank AG, owns 65 percent of Euro East Beteiligungs GmbH. The remaining 35 percent is owned by Blythe (Europe) Ltd.
Blythe is registered at the same London address as Astute Partners Ltd, the proxy company building the hotel and restaurant complex at Yanukovych’s favorite hunting club.
Furthermore, Blythe’s director is Reinhard Proksch, an Austrian lawyer residing in Lichtenstein. He also is the director of Astute Partners, which through Dom Lesnika took control of more than 17 hectares of hunting ground in Sukholuchya.
Land development on Mezhyhirya
The general contractor on Mezhyhirya involving the development of 135 hectares, security and the suppliers of building materials for construction are also linked to Yanukovych.
Dellit security firm controlled by Yanukovych’s elder son, Oleksandr, polices the territory along with a 17.6-hectare hunting club in the same area.
Ukrainska Pravda examined customs documents from 2009 and the first half of 2010 of two importers of building materials with the same mailing address in Brovary of Kyiv Oblast.
The address is a building built by current State Affairs Department Head Andriy Kravets. These importers also are serviced by UkrBiznesBank, a Donetsk bank that is close to Yanukovych and centers heavily in dealings surrounding Mezhyhirya.
The online-newspaper spoke with construction workers and an engineer who worked on Mezhyhirya.
They said Yanukovych often on weekends inspects construction sites in an off-road vehicle.
He was often accompanied by Vasyl Hulyk, the head of KyivUniversalServis, which provides utility maintenance services on Mezhyhirya, and with links to the importers. Hulyk is now deputy head of the State Affairs Department.
The importers, Dom Lesnika and SPS-Group are both registered in the same Brovary address built by current state affairs head Kravets.
Three people work for the two companies. They imported building materials worth $9.5 million over an 18-month period. The other company, SPS-Group, made deliveries worth millions of dollars to Mezhyhirya.
SPS-Group’ real owner is a company founded by UkrKyivResurs, which also has office space at the Brovary address and which is also a shareholder in Delphin-2001, the company through which Yanukovych’s Crimean palace is registered.
Many of the companies mentioned do business with UkrBiznesBank: Dom Lesnika, SPS-Group, KyivUniversalServis, AVK TechnoPromServis, UkrKyivResurs, Tantalit and AVK Development all have accounts here.
According to Ukrainska Pravda, Yanukovych’s elder son Oleksandr became the real owner of UkrBiznesBank after buying Eduard Prutnik’s share in the bank.
Prutnik was the unofficial director of Renaissance of Ukraine foundation, according to Pravda.
This could explain why Serhiy Arbuzov was named first deputy head of Ukraine’s central bank by Yanukovych. He was a top executive at UkrBiznesBank.
Given all the work that went into acquiring the property from the state – and then concealing the acquisition – it appears the president plans to stay a long time at Mezhyhirya. It is doubtful that journalists will be invited there anytime soon.
Read the three main Ukrainska Pravda articles about Mezhyhirya in Ukrainian:
http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2010/04/17/4941683
http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2010/04/19/4946080/
http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2010/10/27/5519970/
Kyiv Post writer Mark Rachkevych can be reached at rachkevych@kyivpost.com.
Yanukovych’s story – and he’s sticking to it – is that he only owns a house on the estate and a tiny patch of land around it.
Click here to view the trail of proxy companies and front men used to conceal how Mezhyhirya was taken over.
How Mezhyhirya changed hands from state to private control in 2006-2007
The president says he doesn’t know who owns the surrounding territory of 138 hectares, equal to 24 Shevchenko Parks – where massive construction and development is taking place. Nothing improper here, says the administration.
But an investigation by the popular news website, Ukrainska Pravda, and one of its investigative journalists, Serhiy Leshchenko, has revealed how Yanukovych went from occupying a modest state-owned house to becoming the entire estate’s de facto lord of the manor. The website says the presidential administration didn’t answer its inquiries.
In a country where pensioners struggle to get by on a meager $100 per month, the story of how the president took control over the Mezhyhirya estate may – in the opinion of Ukrainska Pravda and others – go down in the annals of Ukraine’s history as a case study of grand-scale corruption.
Leshchenko’s articles revealed complicity at the highest levels of government, including former President Viktor Yushchenko and ex-premier Yulia Tymoshenko, in relinquishing government-ownership over the estate’s property and for allowing the leasing of land there without competitive bids or auction.
Ukrainska Pravda also linked the owners of companies implicated in the Mezhyhirya estate to Yanukovych, his political entourage, including his elder son, Oleksandr, and identified one Donetsk-based bank through which all the Mezhyhirya companies did their business.
It then traced how a multi-layer web of dummy companies, trust managers and front men stretching from to Lichtenstein and England were used to disguise the real masters of Mezhyhirya.
Here is the abridged version in English of the Ukrainska Pravda story:
Yanukovych on June 4 described his relationship to the 138-hectare Mezhyhirya estate where he’s lived since 2002, this way: “Just keep in mind, I only have a hectare and a half. Beyond that it’s forbidden to walk [on the territory]…There’s [another] owner there,” he explained to journalists.
But two months after the press conference, Yanukovych revealed his insatiable appetite for splendor when boasting to Germany’s political and business elite in Berlin on Aug. 30: “It’s not a little secret to anyone…I built this one house, a clubhouse if you will…Honka built it, it’s a Finnish company…”
He then praised the Germans for their pedantry and told them that he prefers “German quality.”
“We, all the club (house’s) members, had the same wish – that the ‘house’ look good both on the outside and inside. The hardwood, the squared beams with which the house was being assembled kept ‘moving’ all the time. … So we invited bids, not a huge call for bids, and Germans won the tender. And no matter how this house settled or raised, the [wood] beams beautifully held together, nothing has collapsed. … I spoke with the (German) workers. I’ll tell you, they are the worker’s intelligentsia,” he complimented the German crowd.
He had just admitted to owning a gigantic mansion belonging to a private company leasing 129 hectares on the compound.
No impeachment proceedings were launched, no investigative commissions were formed and no charges were brought. Construction continued unperturbed at Mezhyhirya.
Mezhyhirya: From state ownership to private
Yanukovych’s neighbors are Tantalit (129 hectares), a limited liability company, and Renaissance of Ukraine foundation (7.6 hectares).
Both legal entities are building their versions of recreation centers. The president has 1.7 hectares.
All three are indirectly linked via a network of dummy companies and front men reflecting an alternative identity to who really is behind Mezhyhirya.
Yanukovych first moved into a state-owned home in Mezhyhirya when he packed his bags in 2002 and left Donetsk to serve as prime minister under former President Leonid Kuchma.
According to Ukrainska Pravda, it appears that the president rented the home through Renaissance of Ukraine Foundation, which had already inked a lease on April 1, 2003, along with three hectares of adjoining land.
In March 2007, when he was prime minister a second time, Yanukovych entertained journalists in this same residential building.
The gargantuan clubhouse seen from the Dnipro River to which President Viktor Yanukovych referred on his Aug. 30 visit to Berlin. (Ukrainska Pravda)
He played the guitar and spoke about his prison terms. Just days after the house party, the house was leveled and a giant “administrative” building was built in its place by Tantalit, at least 1,000 square meters in size.
Renaissance of Ukraine Foundation was registered in 2003 in a residential building apartment in Obukhiv city, a district center in Kyiv Oblast.
This foundation would for the next eight years provide cover for Yanukovych.
Renaissance of Ukraine re-organized its land lease agreement in 2004 when it leased 3.9 hectares directly from the Vyshgorod District Adminstration, where Mezhyhirya is located.
Then it almost doubled the land leased in 2007 when it leased an additional 3.7 hectares.
The foundation gave this ironic purpose for leasing the state-owned house in which Yanukovych lived: “The property which is being leased will be used by the lessee to implement measures to promote national and international programs aimed at improving socio-economic conditions.’’
Both times the foundation arranged leases without undergoing a bidding process and leased land at below-market prices – Hr 3.30 per month for 100 square meters.
The foundation is linked to Vasyl Hulyk, the current deputy head of the State Affairs Department and former director of a company that provides landscaping, maintenance and utility services on Mezhyhirya.
On paper, it was founded by Donbas resident Oleksandr Yurchenko, the founder of Zoryaniy film center where Yanukovych’s 2004 election headquarters was located.
Zoryaniy’s director was Andriy Kravets who on the day of Yanukovych’s presidential inauguration was appointed head of the presidential affairs department and the builder of an office building in Brovary, where many Mezhyhirya-linked companies have an address.
According to Ukrainska Pravda, Renaissance of Ukraine is actually controlled by Yanukovych’s son, Oleksandr, who handles all matters related to real estate and land on Mezhyhirya that the foundation leases.
Yurchenko, the Donbas resident who was the original founder of Renaissance of Ukraine, also co-founded Dom Lesnika. This company supplied $3.36 million worth of building materials to Mezhyhirya in 2009 and the first half of 2010.
Another co-founder of Dom Lesnika is Ivan Tokhtamysh, who is the director of a hunting and fishing club registered in Mezhyhirya and founded by Yuriy Boiko, fuel and energy minister, Serhiy Tulub, Cherkassy Oblast governor and Volodymyr Demishkan, another close Yanukovych friend who heads the state roadway company.
But to show to what lengths people went to cover up all the links, Renaissance of Ukraine had its founder changed to two Donetsk city female residents in 2009: Yulia Blyzniuk and Lolita Shapkova. However, the lion’s share of property was eventually taken over by Tantalit, a company with ties to Yanukovych.
While serving as prime minister for the second time in 2006, Yanukovych arranged for the Presidential Administration’s State Affairs Department, which was then subordinate to former President Viktor Yushchenko, to transfer ownership of Mezhyhirya property to the Cabinet of Ministers controlled by Yanukovych.
On June 13, 2007, Yanukovych issued a government order whereby management of Mezhyhirya property was given to the Environmental Ministry headed then by Yanukovych confidant Vasyl Dzharty.
Then the Cabinet issued an order transferring the property from the Environmental Ministry to Nadra Ukraina, a for-profit state-run company, headed by Eduard Stavytsky, a subordinate of Dzharty.
In turn, on Sept. 25, 2007, Nadra Ukraina decided to swap property with a mysterious Donetsk company called Medinvesttrade.
Nadra Ukraina gave Medinvesttrade Mezhyhirya property, including the building in which Yanukovych resided, in return for two palaces in the center of Kyiv.
Apparently Yushchenko had no qualms swapping property with Yanukovych.
In a conversation with Ukrainska Pravda, Stavytsky confirmed that Nadra Ukraina had transferred the two centrally located palaces to the State Affairs Department a day after Mezhyhirya property was received.
Days later, Donetsk-based Tantalit bought the Mezhyhirya property for Hr 89 million from Medinvesttrade, which declared bankruptcy in June.
Tantalit had taken control over several residential buildings, cellars, sheds, a sewage station, greenhouses, and a security check point.
With Medivesttrade bankrupt, it would seem the first chain in dispossessing Mezhyhirya property from government control was cut off. But land still had to be leased from the government, according to legislation.
On Oct. 2, 2008, Tantalit signed a 49-year lease with the Vyshgorod District Administration. The lease stipulated a below-market rate of Hr 4 per month for 100 square meters.
According to the lease terms, the contract could be considered null and void only if both sides agreed to it. Also, the lease has a clause that allows the lessee to purchase land.
The 2008 lease was formally approved by Vira Ulianchenko, a close Yushchenko ally who served as Kyiv Oblast governor.
Ulianchenko also let the lease of 17.5 hectares go through on Yanukovych’s favorite hunting club in Sukholuchchya, Vyshgorod District where Dom Lesnika, whose founder also established Renaissance of Ukraine Foundation, is building a hotel and restaurant complex.
Dom Lesnika is also a chief supplier of imported building materials to Mezhyhirya.
It surprised few that Ulianchenko’s husband was appointed Education Minister Dmyto Tabachnyk’s deputy soon after Yanukovych’s inauguration.
Consequently, Yanukovych didn’t forget about Vyshgorod District’s head, Anatoliy Olshanskiy, who closed his eyes to the land leases.
He was recently appointed the head of the Boryspil district of Kyiv Oblast, whose international airport, surrounding forests and close proximity to Kyiv via an expressway allows for many pay-to-play opportunities.
Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko only took an interest in Mezhyhirya after talks collapsed with Yanukovych when trying to form a “broad coalition” with him in 2008.
The land-lease contracts were dated on those days when Tymoshenko held discussions with Yanukovych. When she did act, her efforts were stalled by the nation’s corrupt judicial system.
Tymoshenko had initiated a judicial cancellation of the land-lease contracts.
However, first the investigative commission under the leadership of Party of Regions deputy Mykola Dzhyha expunged relevant contracts with the Vyshgorod District Administration in 2008 and then later the prosecutor general hid them under the guise of “carrying out inspections.”
A judge halted the legal investigation until the inspection was completed, which apparently is still ongoing.
In another parallel yet artificially inspired process, the Supreme Economic Court ruled that Tantalit LLC, which leases 129 hectares on the estate, is the legal owner of property on Mezhyhirya. Of the three judges who rendered the January ruling was the daughter of Party of Regions deputy Mykola Kruhlov, Olena Mamontova.
Nobody paid attention to the glaring conflict of interests. And within months, in March, Kruhlov himself was appointed the governor of Mykolayiv Oblast.
Proxy investors behind Tantalit, 129 hectares
According to building plans, Tantalit is building a health and recreation center in Mezhyhirya which includes a yacht club with a covered slip on the Kyiv Sea shore; a golf club, an equestrian club, an administrative building and club house, as well as other developments.
Dom Lesnika, whose founder also established Renaissance of Ukraine Foundation that is developing 7.6 hectares on Mezhyhirya, drafted the building plans on both Mezhyhirya and the Sukholuchya hunting club where Yanukovych likes to hunt wild boar.
A legal entity and an individual are Tantalit’s founders.
A Donbas native registered in a Kyiv dormitory is one of the co-founders with 0.03 percent capital share.
According to Ukrainska Pravda, his name is Pavlo Lytovchenko, a proxy for Yanukovych in other companies.
He had been seen many times in Yanukovych’s reception room inside the Party of Regions headquarters on Lypsky Street when the Ukrainian president was still a member of parliament and in opposition.
Lytovchenko is also on record as one of the founders of Dom Lesnika. In addition, he acted as the founder of Donetsk-based Edelweiss, which belongs to Capital Building Corporation whose real owners include Oleksandr Yanukovych and whose director is Oleksandr Kolesnikaov, also from Donetsk.
Oleksandr Yanukovych also controls Dellit, the security firm which polices both the Mezhyhirya estate and Sukholuchya hunting club and also provides services to AVK Development, which is the general contractor of all development work on Mezhyhirya.
AVK Development’s founder, Vitaliy Sakhatskyi, has since went to work for Yanukovych at the State Affairs Department – he was also vice president of Renaissance of Ukraine Foundation.
The second founder of Tantalit also leads us to Dom Lesnika. On paper, it is Euro East Beteiligungs GmbH, a Viennese-registered firm run by one person, Johann Wanovits, an Austrian stock broker.
The institution where he works, Euro Invest Bank AG, owns 65 percent of Euro East Beteiligungs GmbH. The remaining 35 percent is owned by Blythe (Europe) Ltd.
Blythe is registered at the same London address as Astute Partners Ltd, the proxy company building the hotel and restaurant complex at Yanukovych’s favorite hunting club.
Furthermore, Blythe’s director is Reinhard Proksch, an Austrian lawyer residing in Lichtenstein. He also is the director of Astute Partners, which through Dom Lesnika took control of more than 17 hectares of hunting ground in Sukholuchya.
Land development on Mezhyhirya
The general contractor on Mezhyhirya involving the development of 135 hectares, security and the suppliers of building materials for construction are also linked to Yanukovych.
Dellit security firm controlled by Yanukovych’s elder son, Oleksandr, polices the territory along with a 17.6-hectare hunting club in the same area.
Ukrainska Pravda examined customs documents from 2009 and the first half of 2010 of two importers of building materials with the same mailing address in Brovary of Kyiv Oblast.
The address is a building built by current State Affairs Department Head Andriy Kravets. These importers also are serviced by UkrBiznesBank, a Donetsk bank that is close to Yanukovych and centers heavily in dealings surrounding Mezhyhirya.
The online-newspaper spoke with construction workers and an engineer who worked on Mezhyhirya.
They said Yanukovych often on weekends inspects construction sites in an off-road vehicle.
He was often accompanied by Vasyl Hulyk, the head of KyivUniversalServis, which provides utility maintenance services on Mezhyhirya, and with links to the importers. Hulyk is now deputy head of the State Affairs Department.
The importers, Dom Lesnika and SPS-Group are both registered in the same Brovary address built by current state affairs head Kravets.
Three people work for the two companies. They imported building materials worth $9.5 million over an 18-month period. The other company, SPS-Group, made deliveries worth millions of dollars to Mezhyhirya.
SPS-Group’ real owner is a company founded by UkrKyivResurs, which also has office space at the Brovary address and which is also a shareholder in Delphin-2001, the company through which Yanukovych’s Crimean palace is registered.
Many of the companies mentioned do business with UkrBiznesBank: Dom Lesnika, SPS-Group, KyivUniversalServis, AVK TechnoPromServis, UkrKyivResurs, Tantalit and AVK Development all have accounts here.
According to Ukrainska Pravda, Yanukovych’s elder son Oleksandr became the real owner of UkrBiznesBank after buying Eduard Prutnik’s share in the bank.
Prutnik was the unofficial director of Renaissance of Ukraine foundation, according to Pravda.
This could explain why Serhiy Arbuzov was named first deputy head of Ukraine’s central bank by Yanukovych. He was a top executive at UkrBiznesBank.
Given all the work that went into acquiring the property from the state – and then concealing the acquisition – it appears the president plans to stay a long time at Mezhyhirya. It is doubtful that journalists will be invited there anytime soon.
Read the three main Ukrainska Pravda articles about Mezhyhirya in Ukrainian:
http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2010/04/17/4941683
http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2010/04/19/4946080/
http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2010/10/27/5519970/
Kyiv Post writer Mark Rachkevych can be reached at rachkevych@kyivpost.com.
READ MORE IN SECTION
-
-
Yanukovych: Cooperation with EBRD favors Ukraine's strategic course for European integration
-
-
Jewish News One joins big league with 10 million YouTube views
-
-
EU ambassador can't say if Association Agreement with Ukraine could be signed today
-
-
EU ambassador: Tymoshenko would choose medical treatment abroad, if she had such choice
-
Tymoshenko's health state not life or health threatening, says clinic chief
Advertising link
- •Сusabio – is a leading biotechnology company
- •Yacht Charter Turkey – Luxury Yacht Charter in Turkey
- •Trips to China – One of best China Tour Operator
- •Leatherelement.com – Wholesale Handbags
- •Latest music hits – listing
- •Bitbonfire – book reviews
- •Allen & Company – Allen & Company
- • DinoDirect.com – listing
- •MyCustomWriting.com – Custom writing service
- •Directory listing – listing
- •Сhina wholesale – the world's leading B2B online trading marketplace for China wholesale products
- •Sports news – by expert handicappers at BangTheBook!
- •China Products – global market
.jpg){kind=link}
Web links to Kyiv Post material are allowed provided that they contain a URL hyperlink to the www.kyivpost.com material and a maximum 500-character extract of the story. Otherwise, all materials contained on this site are protected by copyright law and may not be reproduced without the prior written permission of Public Media at news@kyivpost.com
All information of the Interfax-Ukraine news agency placed on this web site is designed for internal use only. Its reproduction or distribution in any form is prohibited without a written permission of Interfax-Ukraine.
This is how the President and his gang operates,my God if this story was written about any major Political leader in the west or in Europe the individual would be nailed to the cross but not in Ukraine...this is just the tip of the iceberg.These bandits are bleeding Ukraine dry and hiding billions upon billions abroad in off shore accounts and making the poor pay to balance the budget and payoff the IMF loans-unbelievable
A great investigative piece of journalism that should be nominated for an award...you have done a great service to your country Serhi
You seem to forget it is how the former President and former Prime Minister ALSO opperate.
Where is Yush living now?
Why does Tymoshneko claim to own nothing in Ukraine (but forget to mention the massive home she has in London).
How did Arseny Yatseniuk make his first money?
It goes on and on and on.
What Yanu has done here is blatant and shameless.
As all his actions are! A person with this kind of record, in addition to his limited intellectual capacity and his prison terms for assault and robbery, could not even be considered as presidential candidate in democratic countries; such a shame and disgrace!
First of all, this is a summary of an Ukrainska Pravda investigation in to Mezhyhyria. UP conducted similar investigations into Tymoshenko and Yushchenko real estate. So too has Kyiv Post. Yanukovych's Mezhyhiria is hands down the most over the top. His greed knows no boundaries!
Let the real orange revolution begin! All these corrupt 'politicians' such as Yanuk...Yush...Tymo....and the bevy of their fawning underlings should be arrested and not allowed to see the light of day for the next quarter century.
Ukraine needs a thorough cleansing.
What is the problem! I am not using government money to pay for my mansions and decadent lifestyle! My "Tax Police" just give me kickbacks from the bribes that they demand from the Ukrainian people! Besides! Ukraine must go bankrupt so that my KGB comrade Putin can conflate Kyiv with Moscow!
A quite disturbing article. You make many very serious allegations and implicate many people so I would hope you have sufficient proof of your claims to protect you against legal litigation. Perhaps you will devote time and energy on similar articles with Tymoshenko and Yushenko as the subjects? I have no allegiance, political or otherwise to any and see them all as equal to each other.
Strange demand. Firstly Yanuk is the current President. Yush is almost out of politics and Tym fairly powerless at the moment. Why should anyone devote time and energy against them. What's the point. Also it wasn't KP's efforts but Ukraine Pravda. When Tym and Yush were in power they ran plenty of articles showing corruption there.
!!``
It is indeed disturbing - it makes one want to puke at how Yanukonvikt and his mafiosi gangsters and his sons are robbing and pillaging Ukraine.
If you go to the links that were provided, the one to Ukrainian Pravda, you will see documents that support the investigation. And due to the enormous efforts to hide this corruption, it took a lot of investigation.
What is even worse - none of this could have been done without Yushchenko approving one of the intermediate land transfers.
Yushchenko was one of the people who kept saying that "corruption is killing Ukraine."
Yet Yushchenko, who could have been a great president, participated in corruption with the mafia gangsters from Donbass - via his approval of one of the intermediate land transfers.
The rancid, rank sewer of corruption in Ukraine is so overwhelming that only now are people finally figuring out what to do.
They hoped for better government and elimination of corruption in 2004, during the Orange Revolution. Unfortunately, Yushchenko and Tymoshenko fell down on the job.
Sorry elmer. Do not blame Yushchenko if the milk spoils in the fridge. Yanukovych was Prime minister and if the Ministries are playing "shell games" then the President had enough on his plate to not notice a transaction. I do not believe that Yushchenko "knowingly" participated in this transaction.
Les, as I understand the Ukrainian Pravda articles and documentation, it took Yushchenko's signature at one point to enable Yanukonvikt to proceed with this fraudulent scheme.
There is a flow-chart link up above ("How Mezhihirya changed hands...") showing Yushchenko's participation.
Yushchenko also supported Akhmetov in the transfer of Black Sea leases from Vanco Energy to Vanco Prykerchenska, and also supported Firtash and RosUkrEnergo.
His brother got $53 million from Firtash through a Dubai money transfer to "Petrogas", plus Yushchenko's wife and family got jet rides from Firtash to Belgium.
Tymoshenko and her bunch were really not much better.
At his point, it has been an obscenity for at least l8 years.
If Yanukonvikt and his gangsters had any decency, he would give Mezhihirya back.
As Valeriy Portnikov said, entirely correctly, it is totally inappropriate for Yanukonvikt to be living in a $200 million mansion estate while Ukraine is such a poor country.
If you follow the Foreign Notes blod, and the newspaper Segodnya to which it links, Yanukonvikt also wants to redo "Synohyria," another already lavish mansion in the Carpathian mountains.
Pictures available:
http://foreignnotes.blogspot.com/2010/11/rich-get-richeryou-know-about-poor.html
http://lb.ua/news/2010/11/25/75458_YAnukovich_zateyal_grandiozniy_remo.html
It is obscene.
How do you know what yush's brother got? Have you seen his bank account? Why do you repeat rumours as if you know they're true? At least say according to rumour or if you have a better source then give it.
And where, in the UP account does it say that Yush personally signed a document? Not that he didn't turn a blind eye to Yanuk's corruption but then he couoldn't fight both Tym and Yanuk at the same time and Tym was no better even if she's painted herself orange.
Yushchenko appropriated the Orange Revolution paraphenalia/insignia for himself and his family - it was a scandal. Proceeds from the sale of Orange Revolution paraphenalia went to him and his son.
As far as his brother - I have seen a copy of the wire transfer.
There were several articles in Ukrainian Pravda - none of this would have been possible without Yushchenko's approval.
Yushchenko did re-privatize Kryvorizhstal - and he did talk about how corruption is killing the country.
But he and Tymoshenko should have joined forces to implement what the people wanted and what they elected him for. They both fell down on the job. Instead of doing their job, Turchynov and Tymoshenko started screaming about Yushchenko's corruption. Poroshenko resigned to avoid even the appearance of corruption.
Is Tym any better? She says a lot of the right things - but her problem, and it is a huge problem, is her huge, gigantic ego and self-glorification.
And so you get - Yanukonvikt and a gangster government, with family connections and conflicts of interest all over the place, "judges" who are just chimps in robes,
and a bunch of mafioso's who find mouthpieces to constantly justify the sewer that is Ukraine and ask - "so what's the problem?"
"Couldn't, wouldn't, shouldn't" - there are plenty of excuses in Ukraine, and tons of hot air adding to global warming.
But Ukraine still has rampant, rancid, pernicious, pervasive, rank, putrid, cancerous corruption - as shown by the excellent article above.
And Yanuk and his mafioso gangsters won't stop until people finally understand and realize that corruption is indeed killing them, and killing the country - and until the people finally learn how to vote the gangsters out of office.
Otherwise, all you'll get is more of Kuchma on big screens talking about how he "loved the Beatles."
i wonder if he will run a 2nd term in office after this.I know POR supporters are dumb but how thick must one be not to see what goes on
If I run tomorrow I will win because I control the courts and the CEC and we count the votes!
This is only one of many incidents surrounding the criminal activities of the Yanukonvict family in order to aquire properties throughout Ukraine.His sons are in the act in a big way and have accummulated immense wealth over the years.They are born thieves! Like father like son?
This is exactly why the people need to own guns! Government and politicians fear an armed populace. These idiots fear no one because no one can do anything about it.
"Those who hammer their guns into plowshares will plow for those who do not."
Thomas Jefferson
"What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms."
Thomas Jefferson
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
Richard Henry Lee
"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."
Thomas Jefferson
"The best we can help for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed."
Alexander Hamilton
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Ben Franklin
"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword, because the whole of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops."
Noah Webster
"Arms in the hands of the citizens may be used at individual discretion for the defense of the country, the overthrow of tyranny or private self-defense."
John Adams
"Experience hath shown, that even under the best forms [of government] those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny."
Thomas Jefferson
"To disarm the people (is) the best and most effectual way to enslave them..."
George Mason
"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government..."
Alexander Hamilton
"As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms."
Tench Coxe
Sounds like a recipe for becoming like Chechnya
This just goes to show how Yanukovych and his criminals treat Ukrainians like mushrooms. They keep them in the dark, and feed them manure. They then tell them they should be happy because they have plenty to eat and the country is prospering. All the time these criminals are gorging themselves and acting like royalty. Ignorant, uneducated, corrupt royalty, is something Ukraine does not need.
Thank you Kyiv Post for exposing president Yanukovych's crooked schemes to its English readership. The original 'Ukrainska Pravda' articles on which your piece is based are well researched and there is little reason to doubt their validity.
Mezhyhirya is not the only grandiose scam in which the president is involved. He is also acquiring his own 'private Kingdom of Monaco' at Mis Aiya, south-east of Balaclava in Crimea. [source http://lb.ua/news/2010/11/05/72804_YAnukovich_buduie_sobi_v_Krimu_priv.html ]
Prior government officials are in jail for not cooperating with Yanukovich?
And where do we send flowers to the widows of the journalists involved in this article?
Exactly what I thought.
Yanukovich should be impeached: for treason - the black sea fleet deal, the denial of Holodomor as genocide - for bribing of MPs and judges, for rigging elections, and now also for the corruptive take-over of Mezhyhirya. If he is not impeached, all future elections will be manipulated to secure win for Party of Regions, censorship will be tightened, harassment and persecution of political opponents will increase, large part of the population will be kept in poverty, while the finacial supporters of Yanukovich will be even richer. Impeachement now!