Former MP of the 7th convocation of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Vasyl Khmelnytsky (read more about it in the article Vasyl Khmelnytsky: the planted oligarch) Once again, he became the hero of a journalistic investigation into the ownership of an estate masquerading as a pumping station on Zhukov Island in the Holosiivskyi district of Kyiv.
KV learned about this from a report on the Gazeta.ua portal.
According to the cadastral map, the property containing the mansion is municipal property. It covers 8 hectares. Its intended use is "for water management companies." It was leased in 2007.
"A three-meter fence, a huge house with white columns, a private yacht dock, and tennis courts—that's what the Dnipro-1 pumping station looks like on Zhukov Island, in Kyiv's Holosiivskyi district. If you approach from the Dnipro River, you can clearly see the station's appearance: a huge palace in the center, a swimming pool, and a sports ground nearby. A little to the side is a garden house. The yacht dock and the servants' quarters are right by the water," the statement reads.
Zhukov Island was previously a nature reserve. Residents of the neighboring village of Chapayevka say that during Soviet times, the fenced-in area served as a water pumping station, used to supply farms and fields in the neighboring villages of Hotel and Khodosiyevka. The owner, they say, is millionaire Vasyl Khmelnytsky, a former member of parliament of the 7th convocation of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.
"There really was a water pump there all the time. Khmelnitsky rebuilt the estate sometime in the last ten years. He effectively disguised it as a reconstructed station. In this way, the owners circumvented the law prohibiting construction on riverbanks," explains Oleksandr Sokolenko, an ecologist at the National Ecological Center.
Khmelnytsky is an entrepreneur and politician. He is the co-owner of the Kyiv Investment Group holding company. He was elected several times as a member of parliament for the Green Party, then for Batkivshchyna. Most recently, he served with the Party of Regions. He is ranked 41st in Focus magazine's ranking of the richest Ukrainians.
The scheme for how a house was built on communal land was once revealed by journalist and now MP Tatyana Chornovil. "It's not hard to guess why the oligarch's estate is disguised as a pumping station. The fact is that water protection laws prohibit construction on the shore of the bay, so the camouflage of a pumping station is quite appropriate."
This isn't Vasyl Khmelnytsky's only estate. He also owns a house in Odesa. Recently, Odesa Oblast Governor Mikheil Saakashvili, accompanied by the head of the Odesa police and a bulldozer, arrived at the "Green Beach" boarding house and demolished a wall blocking part of the communal beach.
Artem Yankovetsky, KyivVlast
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