You're reading: A horse lover who dreams of green tourism pastures

LVIV – Stroking a small horse, Ostap Lun introduces her: “We call her Doctor Grudka.”

The medical title is no accident – she is a therapy horse specially trained to work with children with special needs. She has 60 little patients with cerebral palsy, autism and Down syndrome who come to the stables in Lviv to ride.

The four-legged doctor works four days a week for six hours at a local stadium, assisted by three human specialists. An hour lesson costs Hr 60.

“The children get onto a horse and forget that they are unwell, they unconsciously switch on some muscles that had not worked before, and relax others that were cramped,” he says.

But the most visible effect is psychological. Horse therapy is a very uplifting and powerful tool. “I have felt the effect myself,” he says.

Lun started his hippotherapy project two years ago, after starting to ride a horse helped him improve his mood and physique. A month after starting to ride, he was on a horse every day, feeling much happier, had lost 14 kilos of weight, and bought his first horse – a gorgeous young stallion called Tristan.

Then he had an idea for therapy, and bought Grudka to train.

To support his equestrian friends, Lun runs a day job as a consumer goods sales representative, and a small business in Lviv. It takes Hr 1,500 to buy a month’s worth of food for a horse.

Then, there is the veterinarian services and upkeep. In October, for example, his expenses ran up to Hr 12,000, while the riding lessons and therapy brought in Hr 8,000.

But Lun says there is no regret about the money math.

“I am lucky. At age 35 I know what I want,” he says, and moves on to talk about his dream.

When he rode a horse a couple of years ago for the first time since his teens, he realized he had to own one. Two years and two horses down the road, he knows he has to build a green tourism center – and is working on it.

He found a suitable spare communal land plot of seven hectares just 20 kilometers outside Lviv and – along with several friends and relatives – has applied to the local council to get the allotment under the law which sets 2 hectares of land for each Ukrainian.

He prepared a set of documents, drafts and three-dimensional models of what his eco-center is going to look like, and has waited for a year to have the land allocated. He says it will probably take at least another year to get it.

In the meantime, he is living the green lifestyle already. An owner of two flats in the city center, he found a collapsing house in the village and moved there in place of a family who left Ukraine to look for a better life abroad.

There is no running water there – in fact, there is barely any water in the well if rains don’t come for a while. He says he showers “whenever and wherever” he can – “and that’s the only real problem.”

The house is heated by an old wood-burning stove, but much of the food is now cooked on a small travel gas stove – a real luxury that they have had for several months now, his girlfriend says.

Nina Skorobogatko has just driven back home in her hatchback. Wearing a shimmering silvery mini-dress, high heeled boots and make-up, she looks oddly out of place in her rural dilapidated home.

In the city, she runs a small business training beauty specialists. Here, she is cooking a water rat, or nutria, that Lun had caught the other day.

Nina’s nutria is cooked in a creamy sauce, and it tastes quite like a rabbit. While we’re eating, Lun says natural food is what the visitors of his dream center will get to eat.

“The food and drinks there will be all natural, coming from the village, starting with milk and finishing with rabbits,” he said.
He pulls out a fat folder full of drawings and models to proudly show what it will be like.

“Don’t spill wine on it – particularly the topography – that cost me Hr 5,000,” he warns, then laughs. “Don’t worry – I am a man of civilization – I have computer backups.”

That sounds funny in a house that seems like it comes from two centuries ago.

On his plan are 10 houses for visitors, and an eatery, built by traditional methods that involve plenty of wood and clay. They will have all modern conveniences, just like a hotel room – and that’s the only concession to the modern times Lun is prepared to make.

It has neat horse walk routes mapped out, and two maneges to continue with horse therapy and other activities. Long horse trips will be available over several days, as well as horse riding for anyone willing.

Lun has seen a similar business model working in Poland, Italy and France, and says what is sold as green tourism here “is a terrible fake”.
One day, he hopes to change that.

Kyiv Post editor Katya Gorchinskaya can be reached at [email protected].

Читайте об этом на www.kyivpost.ua