Yarn 21 | The Secret Palace
Ukraine. Winter 2010.
[sound wind, car driving, radio, wipers]
It’s a grey, snowy morning. A man is driving from the small village of Novi Petrivtsi to work, 15 kilometers south in Kiev. The road has been recently resurfaced and widened all the way to the capital.
Ukraine was known for having some of the worst roads in Europe. But when the country won the bid to cohost the Euro 2012 soccer tournament, the government guaranteed that they would update the country’s road network to cater for the influx of traffic. Major roads linking all the stadia with the airport and their cohost country Poland were slated for a long overdue upgrade.
For some unknown reason the road from the village of Novi Petrivtsi to Kiev was upgraded too. Even though it doesn’t link any stadiums and it’s not on the way to Poland or any airport.
Our commuter doesn’t mind. He’s glad of the smooth drive, especially in the harsh weather.
As he passes the Mezhyhirya estate on his left, he notices a massive new wall being constructed, the wall carries on for miles. There are rumours back in the village about something being built within the grounds of the estate but no one knows what.
Suddenly, a large animal crosses in front of the car.
[tires screech]
The man swerves and stops to avoid it. The animal carries on along the road in front of him for a few meters then disappears over the snow embankment on the other side of the road.
The animal was furry. It stood upright and it was… hopping.
[Skippy TV theme music fades in]
The driver is certain… he’d narrowly avoided a collision with… a Kangaroo.
A kangaroo… in the Ukraine. No one’s going to believe him.
He figures it must have something to do with what’s going on behind the wall beside the road.
Four years later, on the 23rd of February 2014, the secrets hidden behind the wall would finally be uncovered. The scale and audacity of what was found shocked the whole country and became a poignant symbol of just how corrupt Ukraine had become.
This is the story of the former president of Ukraine — Victor Yanukovych.
His mafia style cartel, nick named ‘the family’, his extravagant lifestyle and the construction of his monument to greed — The Mezhyhirya palace and estate. Now known as the world’s only Museum of Corruption.
— — -
It’s October 2019 and I’m visiting Mezhyhirya with my sister Debbie.
This is Debbie…
[clip]
And this is our guide Vlad…
[clip]
You’ll hear her shocked reactions to what she sees throughout.
The vast estate covers over 340 acres. That’s just shy of the area of Monaco. The glamourous and opulent principality has a lot in common with Mezhyirya.
Except Monaco is home to 38,000 people. Mezhyhirya was most recently home to just one family.
The Mezhyhirya estate dates back to the 14th century when it was established as an Eastern orthodox monastery. In 1917 the Bolsheviks destroyed the monastery after the Russian revolution and it was later rebuilt as a summer retreat for the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
When Ukraine gained its independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991, Mezhyirya was retained by the new State.
Then in 2002, the Prime Minister, Victor Yanukovych decided to make it his official residence and rented it from the state.
We pass through the estate’s huge iron and gold gates and walk along the pristine red brick driveway. Armed Ukrainian soldiers patrol the entrance.
A dense fog hangs in the air today, making it hard to see more than 50 meters ahead. The mist muffles the sound of our footsteps. It’s eerily silent until I hear a low hum coming towards us. A golf buggy emerges from the fog. Its packed with tourists.
(clip)
We stop at a second set of gates where another soldier stands guard. We can just make out the outline of a large house beyond the gate, enveloped in fog. This was Victor Yanukovych’s ‘official’ residence. This is the house where visiting dignitaries were entertained. It’s where state dinners and summits were held and where press conferences were broadcast but this wasn’t really where Yanukovych lived. This impressive former soviet building is just a front, to hide what lies beyond it.
The estate contains a man-made lake, gardens, an outdoor tennis court, an indoor tennis court, a bowling alley, a golf course, several guest mansions, two restaurants — One of which floats on the lake, built in the style of a Spanish galleon.
It contains a yacht club and marina, a helicopter pad, an equestrian centre, a garage showcasing 70 cars.
It contains several climate controlled green houses, hunting grounds with wild boar and elk, a hunting lodge, a physical health complex and… a zoo — complete with exotic birds, lizards, ostriches and Kangaroos. Although one of the Kangaroos died of pneumonia and another escaped.
The centre piece of the estate is Yanukovych’s personal residence. A five story mansion made of stone and wood. Its design takes inspiration from a tradition Russian Dacha — or country house cabin but its scale and arrogance has a lot more in common with a dictator’s palace.
Estimates for how much all this cost to build range wildly from 75 million euros to 100 million euros, while some say it could be billions.
Yanukovych, the Prime minister and then President of the Ukraine was a public servant, with an official salary of only 2,000 euros a month.
So who paid for all of this?
The Ukrainian taxpayers.
We enter the complex not from the main palace entrance but through a side door of the neighboring health and fitness building. We are enthusiastically ushered inside by a man wearing goggles and military helmet. A red and black flag is tied around his neck and drapes over his shoulders like a cape. (I’d later learn this is a Ukrainian right wing nationalist flag)
This is Petro Oliynik (OLI-nick), the current resident and self-appointed guardian of the palace.
In 2014 Petro and his band of protestors seized the building at the end of the Maidan Revolution. For over a year the Maidan, the main square in Ukraine’s capital Kiev, was occupied by protesters of Yanukovych, his regime and of the systemic corruption in Ukrainian society.
The Protesters endured a freezing winter, violent crackdowns from state authorities and arson attacks on their camps and surrounding buildings. When local Police officers eventually refused their orders to continue the violent suppression tactics and members of the Army started to join the protesters to help train and organize the movement, Yanukovych resorted to recruiting his own army of mercenaries to fight the protesters.
But the protesters held on.
On 21st Of February 2014 a Ukrainian TV station released CCTV footage of the President boarding a helicopter fleeing the Mezhyirya estate.
With the ‘former’ President gone and his estate unguarded, a large group of protesters descended on Mezhyirya and broke through the gates.
Petro and his followers were afraid people would loot whatever remained inside Yanukovych’s palace so they set up a cordon around the main building preventing anyone from entering. Their intension was to preserve the contents so Ukrainians could see what their tax money was spent on.
And that’s where Petro has stayed since 2014.
(clip)
The government took control of the rest of the estate. The Ukrainian Army stand guard at the gates and the government pays the grounds staff to keep the gardens and golf course in order. The estate is open to the public for an entry fee, they can visit the zoo, the car garage and rent golf buggies but the visitor brochure doesn’t even mention the main palace.
Petro cut a deal with the army guards outside, they won’t enter as long as he’s there. The interior of the Palace acts like a sovereign Embassy to the revolution. The government are not willing to force Petro out because of the negative press it might generate for them. They don’t want to draw any more attention to Mezhyira so they just ignore it for now. That leaves Petro under self-imposed house arrest.
After leading us inside Petro locks the door behind us.
Our guide, Vlad sent him a text message earlier and they arranged a time for us to visit, that’s the only way of booking a tour of the palace interior. Vlad tells us that some days if Petro isn’t in the mood, he won’t open the door so a tour is never guaranteed.
We’re instructed to slip on a pair of disposable blue overshoes before proceeding with the tour. With that, Petro leaves us. His smiling girlfriend stays but she doesn’t say a word, she just shadows our movements.
Vlad says that originally Petro would insist on giving all the tours himself but he would only do so in the Ukrainan language, now he’s happy for guides he likes to show tourists around speaking any language they like, except Russian.
We move through the health complex
From Gyms…
(clip)
To Saunas…
(clip)
To Salt rooms…
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Each time a new door is unlocked and we enter a room, our silent chaperone runs around and locks the door behind us.
clip
It’s a little unnerving.
We enter Yanukovych’s personal dressing room, hidden behind a fake locker door is a secret passage…
Clip
The passage leads down some steps and into an underground tunnel that links the leisure complex to the main residence.
The tunnel is lined on either side with paintings, although there are some obvious gaps along the wall, where artworks have been removed.
Clip
Yanukovych left in quite a rush, he took anything of value that he could carry with him but had to leave the rest.
He also made sure to dump all of his incriminating documents in the Dnieper, a river that runs through the estate but the documents were rescued from their botched drowning.
Investigative journalists set up a website called Yanukovych Leaks. They painstaking scanned in thousands of documents and made them available online. You can still see water stains on some of the recovered pages.
Originally the aim was to expose the corruption of the Yanukovych régime. But they are also using their sway to influence the current administration.
Yanukovych Leaks forced the Government Agency for Returning and Managing Stolen Assets (the ARMA) to delay awarding new contracts for the management of Mezhyhirya. They released an open letter accusing the agency of a lack of transparency around the competition.
So Mezhyhirya still finds itself in limbo.
One thing strikes me as we walk through this long tunnel. Who keeps all these buildings and their numerus rooms and hallways clean? There must be an army of cleaners.
Vlad stops us at the end of the passage and opens a door. The inside looks like the engine room of a ship. There are pumps and pipes everywhere, the sound is deafening….
Clip
It’s a climate controlled, self-cleaning house. No dust.
There are 5 of these pump rooms, sucking in air and filtering it back out for all the main connected buildings.
Clip — “I need one of those rooms in my apartment.”
As we investigate the main palace’s floors, we start to get a sense of Yanukovych’s eccentric tastes. The house has a stuffed lion, a stuffed bear, a solid gold bread roll and an indoor barbecue room that features a skinned crocodile as a table centrepiece. Hallways are guarded by standing suits of medieval armor and most rooms are lit by chandelier…
Clip
One thing that features in literally every room of the house is a TV…
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Even after years of visiting this house, our guide Vlad can still get riled when he shows us some of the artifacts his former president splashed out on… using the Ukrainan peoples’ money…
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We walk up a double sided grand staircase and look down on the main double height living room. The sound of birds cheeping is everywhere….
There are golden bird cages all around the landing…
Clip
But Yanukovych might have also had a more paranoid reason for keeping so many birds…
Clip
So where did Yanukovych go and where is he now?
Most people presumed somewhere in Russia under the protection of his friend Vladimir Putin…
clip
Recently a Ukrainian magazine discovered that Yanukovych’s exact location is in the town of Bak-ov-ka, Russia. Inside a state-owned retreat that belongs to a division of the Russian Interior Ministry.
According to Russia’s own Federal Agency for State Registration, the land in Bakovka is designated as a “guesthouse for foreign specialists.”
The compound is surrounded by a high wall, it includes a three-story 2,000-square-meter brick building, as well as a two-story 750-square-meter detached structure. There’s also a 25-meter swimming pool and a sauna complex.
It’s not the standard of luxury he’s used to but it doesn’t sound that much of a downgrade either.
What about all the money he and his cronies have stolen from the Ukrainian people?
Well, The European Union has issued sanctions against Viktor Yanukovych and his confidants.
The Council of the European Union froze the accounts of Ukraine’s former president, his sons and 15 other people from his inner circle.
The EU blames Yanukovych and his allies for human rights violations in Ukraine and has accused him of illegal enrichment. Experts say the majority of their secretly amassed fortune is located in the West. That is why Western state authorities are working to find the money and restore it to its rightful owners in Ukraine.
But only a fraction of the suspected Yanukovych millions have been found thus far.
Most of what has been found, was frozen in accounts in Switzerland — around 128 million euros.
But these funds can only be seized and returned to Ukraine once its illegal origins have been proven in Ukrainian courts. So far, not a single case of alleged illegal enrichment has resulted in charges.
Ukrainian judges, who were appointed under Yanukovych, rejected several applications by the public prosecutor’s office for access to bank documents abroad or for account freezes, sometimes with outlandish justifications. In one case, an investigator was denied access to bank documents in Switzerland because his application was apparently accompanied by illegible copies of documents.
So whatever money has been discovered is stuck in limbo, much like the Mezhyhirya estate.
When we ask Vlad what he thinks should be done with Mezhyhirya, its clear to him…
(clip)
And what about Yanukovych? What does Vlad think should be done to punish his former president…
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Until that happens or more likely, until the government decide what to do with Mezhyhirya, it’s current resident, Petro Oliynik will remain inside, just like one of Yanukovych’s birds, tweeting in its golden cage.
(clip — birds tweeting)
This has been a story for yarn podcast dot com
Written and narrated by John Roche
