Mezhyhirya Residence Tour

Meet your guide at the reception of your hotel and take a half-hour ride to the Novi Petrivtsi village. There are few places in Ukraine, which can give you more precise feeling of the current political situation in Ukraine and the most recent history of our country than the former residence of the Viktor Yanukovych in Mezhyhirya. This tour opens many interesting aspects of the private life of the previous Ukrainian president and helps to understand the character of his rule and the way power and luxury effects human mind.

The very first thing you see right after you pass the 6 meters tall fence is…one more fence surrounding the “VIP territory”. When you get there, you find a lake that never freezes with exotic fish, nicely cut trees, and an open tennis court.

Wandering around the property, you may find a big farm with pheasants, ostriches, peacocks, and many other exotic birds and animals. Not far from it, there is a building of laboratory where all the food consumed by the previous president and his guests was tested.

Moving further down towards the Dnieper River, we learn that the property also had its own harbor, firefighters station and special training center for the elite dogs (optional visit) where among others you may see Chinese mastiffs, the most expensive breed of dogs you can find.

Another place you may find interesting to visit is a bath complex (optional visit), consisting of a Finnish sauna, Russian “black” bath and Japanese samurai bath for meditation.

If you happened to be interested in old soviet cars, you definitely should visit former Yanukovych garage that was turned into a museum of retro cars (optional visit). In this museum, you will see soviet elite cars used by the first people of the USSR, simple budget cars and several military vehicles used by the Red Army during the WWII.

After going just little bit further, you find two huge buildings – a health center and huge wooden house that used to be the main residence of president Yanukovych and his mistress (optional visit).

While the health center looks rather modest from the outside, the equipment inside of the building can be compared to the most expensive spa salons. For example, you can find cryogenic sauna, oxygen camera and an artificial salt cave.

After visiting the health center, you pass by the underground tunnel directly to the main mansion known as “Honka”. This name was given after the special finish wood the upper part of the building was built from. Before exploring the house, you will discover a unique air filtering system, which is so unique that even chandeliers that have not been cleaned for 2 year do not have any dust on them. The first thing you see inside the house is a wooden mosaic flour made of 17 different types of wood and an elevator decorated with wooden and stone mosaics.

To see all the insanely expensive items inside the mansion you will need to spend around 40 minutes there, wandering from one room to another. Here is just a short list of them – chandeliers covered with gold, a Swiss music box bought for half a million dollars, a flower pot decorated with snake skin, a piano made by the company “Steinway & Sons” etc.

After you finish your acquaintance with the “museum of corruption”, your driver will take you back to Kiev and drop you off at your hotel.