A couple of days ago my acquaintance, a rather famous traveler and blogger Sergei, who was visiting Kiev for a couple of days, left. One of those days, we dedicated a trip to Mezhigorie, the village of Novye Petrovtsy. We wanted to see with our own eyes what Viktor Yanukovych’s residence looked like. It could have been quite an interesting story. Oddly enough, when we arrived at Mezhigorie, Vitya was not at home. But that’s no trouble at all. Now when you approach the residence, you won’t get shot at as you might have before, now you just buy a 50 hryvnia entrance ticket (that’s about $2) and walk through to the site. Of course, Vita was lucky with the site, there are mountains and the sea, almost like Krasnaya Polyana in Sochi, only in Ukraine.
Viktor Yanukovych’s residence – how we spent the day
For those who don’t have much time, you can rent a golf cart or a bike and ride around the whole area in about an hour, listening to a mini story about how things worked here when Vitya was alive. (I meant when he was home a lot). But we didn’t take advantage of these services and walked.
The scale of the site is really impressive, Vitya managed to develop 138 hectares of land… Imagine, it’s almost 70 soccer fields, which are used in the FIFA World Cup 🙂 What is true, the whole area is well-groomed, there are gorgeous alleys, parks and fountains. According to an employee of the residence, Vitya did not have much time to take care of his lawn himself, but he really wanted to, which is why there were about 600 employees working here.
The color of the grass is impressive, and there is automatic watering everywhere on the property. We were also told that Vitya was very fond of homemade food, so he had a well-equipped kitchen. Most likely, Vitya had a very weak stomach, because on the territory of Mezhyhirya there was the most advanced laboratory (there are only two such laboratories in the world), in which they checked every dish from the kitchen, so that Vitya would not accidentally get sick during some meeting with high-ranking officials.
If Vitya had taken a shuttle bus to Mezhigorie, he would have had to walk five minutes from the gate to his house, and the road would have been pleasant. You can admire the beautifully trimmed bushes and walk on the beautifully laid tiles. Now that Vitya no longer comes here, he has graciously borrowed his estate for the people. Mezhigorie has a great opportunity to take a walk in the fresh air and admire a really beautiful and well-groomed park. Of course it is a pity that this park is not free as in other countries, but still there is such an option.
After 10 minutes of slow walking, we begin to see the residence of Viktor Yanukovych. At first glance, the house does not look big or even modest, a typical log cabin. But this impression is very deceptive. Before we get closer to Honka (Honka is the name of the house, the name of the Finnish guys who built this miracle), we notice an incomprehensible structure, we come closer and realize that this is a barbecue! Yes!!! Guys, this structure that looks more like a Gothic church or altar for sacrifices turns out to be a barbecue 🙂
This brazier is the coolest brazier I’ve ever seen in my life. There are elements of Persia, Gothic and forged. Anyway, the barbecue here must have been delicious. We go up the stairs from the brazier and come to Vitya’s observation deck, where we have a view of the garden, the vegetable garden, and then the Kiev Sea. You can see that on weekends the residence of Viktor Yanukovych gathers a fairly large audience of visitors. And it’s all kinds of different. There are foreign tourists, parents with children, and sometimes drunken people who loudly announce that they were in the ATO.
Honka – Mezhigorie
Well, finally we come to the Honk House itself. The house is made of eco-friendly log house, its area is, according to the locals, 2400 squares! But the most interesting thing for me was that Vitya was very responsible about his health, and made forest air circulation in the house. Yes, the air into the house was piped into the filtration system from the forest.
As we walk down the stairs, we realize that when you don’t have time for a vacation in Greece, you can just bring Greece to your home. Viti must have had a lot of friends, there are plenty of benches around the area, which is a big plus for older visitors.
We go around the house and voila Gothic stone bottom, I don’t know what to say, it’s huge.
There is a waterfall lake and beautiful trees, the only thing missing now are dogs, horses and English tea.
And here’s the tour guide, though, in this particular case, there was a tour of the grounds.
Excursion to Honka
There is a whole mysterious system to get inside the building. You need to call a certain great man on the phone, which is listed on the door of the house, and if the phone is not turned off, then you are lucky and you can for 200 hryvnia per person get into the residence of Viktor Yanukovych himself. We thought we were lucky and got through, and we did! But when we arrived at the place indicated by the current Honky resident, not only was he not there, but his phone was also turned off.
Other staff members said that the new resident, Honka Kipper, turns his phone off when the tour is going on and you have to wait for him to turn it back on; the tour usually lasts an hour and a half, wait. We went on climbing. As we saw, the Mezhyhirya area has become a very popular place for wedding photo shoots. During our walk we met at least three weddings. I wonder how many queries will google the query “wedding photo session Mezhigorie”? What I don’t understand is why this guy is flashing on top of the sun?
In general, I would say that the residence of Viktor Yanukovych in Mezhigorie is a very picturesque place, there are sculptures, lakes, fountains, parks and even a zoo.
For those who like to take pictures of greenery, beds, birds and flowers this is the best.
There are fish and ducks in the pond.
There really are a lot of ducks. You can feed them. You can’t buy your own feed, but for 20 hryvnias, you can buy specially selected eco-feed for Vitya’s specially bred ducks.
You can feed the ducks, but it’s hard to eat your own food. On the territory there are points that sell coffee and cookies, it did not occur to anyone to make a full-fledged cafe.
The lakes and fountains are impressive!
The main attraction – you can take pictures with pigeons Roma and Julia for a modest fee.
Car Museum in Mezhigorie
Vitya and his son were big car enthusiasts. In their collection was a lot of interesting cars, where they are now do not know. Now there are classic Zim, Chaika, and Zaporozhets cars in the Yanukovich Museum. Of course, a lot of them are stuck with fancy alloy wheels and all sorts of cheap tuning, but there are some that, thank God, did not get his hands on.
Here’s a Chevy Impala she got lucky.
But Zima and Seagull were unlucky, they had alloy rims on them. Do you remember the song by the band Leningrad?
And the Zaporozhets are also in their original state
We really wanted to go on a tour of Viktor Yanukovych’s house. After waiting for three hours, we never waited for the cherished text message informing us that Honka-Keeper was back online and ready for another excursion. Cold and hunger forced us to leave this wonderful place for walking.
