Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper since 1995

Actor's House in Kyiv The National Union of the Theatre Workers of Ukraine has said Kyiv City State Administration's order to them to leave the building of the Actor's House in Kyiv due to termination of the rent agreement is a corporate raid by the capital's authorities on a cultural object, and appealed to Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych with a request that he intervene personally.

"We are clearly observing a corporate raid in the very center of the city," said Les Taniuk, the chairman of theatre workers union, at a press conference on Wednesday.

Taniuk said that the union had never refused to make the Actor's House available for municipal creative teams' performances. He also described the capital's authorities' claims concerning oversized rent payments for creative teams as "city officials' tales."

Director of the Actor's House Viktoria Moskalenko said that since 2000 the establishment has spent about Hr 500,000 on modernization work. At the same time, the Actor's House paid rent to the main cultural heritage protection department of Kyiv City State Administration, the owner of the building, of Hr 523,000 in 2009, and the city provided no support for the upkeep of the building.

Moskalenko also noted that Kyiv City State Administration officials had said that they couldn't prolong the rent agreement because the capital is unable to allocate assets from the city budget for the modernization of a building that is occupied by an organization that has no relation to the city.