Masters of Bukovel
Who is the real owner of the biggest downhill skiing resort in Ukraine
Nataliya Onysko, Sasha Hubytska, March 24
The Bukovel resort in Ivano-Frankivsk oblast hosts over one million tourists every year. New hotels, rental services, and restaurants appear not only on the territory of the tourist complex, but in nearby villages as well.
Bukovel is associated with Oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskiy, who is called the master of the resort. However, in recent years, rumors have been actively spread around that he had to share part of the resort with “the family.” Zaxid.net decided to figure out who the tourist complex and the biggest hotels around it belonged to.
It is important to note that our journalists have been working on this investigation for a few weeks and its publication has coincidentally coincided with recent scandals, which Ihor Kolomoyskiy has been at the epicenter of.
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…We are ordering coffee and ice cream and are resting in a pub in the center of Bukovel after skiing. The place is almost empty, only two more tables besides ours are occupied. In the center, on a small stage, musicians are warming up. The waiter brings the bill. Two scoops of ice cream – 98 hryvnias. That means one kilogram costs 980 hryvnias.
This pub, just like the majority of buildings at tourist complex Bukovel was built by Skorzonera, Ltd., which is controlled by Ihor Kolomoyskiy’s Privat Group.
The company was created in 2000 especially for the construction of the downhill skiing resort. The founders were Oleksandr Shevchenko (now MP from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc), Anatoliy Popadyuk (head of the Private JSC Naftohazbud; previously head of National JSC Naftogaz of Ukraine) and Oksana Maksymiv.
Skorzonera owns over 500 hectares of land in the village Polyanytsya where Bukovel is located. In 2010, a big scandal blew up because of the purchase of the land by Skorzonera, Ltd. and private small enterprise Horhan; according to investigators from the general prosecutor, they greatly underpaid for this land. There were searches of the offices of both companies and land owners, and the head of the chief department of State Land Committee in Ivano-Frankivsk oblast, Yuriy Dobrovolskiy, was arrested.
In the court registry, there is only one document concerning this case – Yuriy Dobrovolskiy’s attorney was trying to cancel the order on the opening of a criminal case against him, but this complaint was not approved.
The court decision says, “According to the search act of the State Land Committee of Ukraine on July 9, 2010, due to the receipt of land by Skorzonera and Horhan for a significantly lower value, the local community of Polyanytsya Village Council did not receive funds in an total amount of UAH 66,070,000.
By the way, the only founder and director of Horhan until November 2008 was that same Yuriy Dobrovolskiy, who was appointed head of the Ivano-Frankivsk State Land Committee at the end of 2008. Right after that appointment, Dobrovolskiy most likely sold the company since the new owner of Horhan turned out to be Skorzonera.
This scandal with the land was covered by local and Ukrainian media for a short period of time in 2010. Journalists suggested that the reason for “this scandal” was a desire to receive part of Bukovel.
“Kolomoyskiy was resisting for a long time – he did not want to share. Yanukovych’s family threatened him with the closure of his bank and breaking up of his airline. Then, they met for negotiations and managed to share it. Right after that, the president’s son took over the hotel. Local representatives of the ‘Party of Regions’ got fresh wings,” journalists quoted local residents as saying even three years after the scandal.
However, as we can see, our investigation proves that Kolomoyskiy did manage to get away with little blood loss.
LossmakingSkorzonera
The ownership structure of Skorzonera, which by the way is a lossmaking enterprise, is very complicated. As of today, the owners are listed as Dnipropetrovsk-based Derling, Ltd. (91.4%), Lutsk-based Maveks, Ltd. (6.5%) and Halychyna-Sugar, Ltd., which is registered in the village Zadnistryanske, Ivano-Frankivsk oblast (2.1%).
Maveks, Ltd. was founded by five offshore companies that are registered in Cyprus: Caserta Trading Limited, Gomart Consulting Limited, Crutimax Development Limited, Halliwell Commercial Limited and Lomar Enterprises Limited. However, the real owners are hidden even further away in Belize and the British Virgin Islands, where as we know the names of owners are not publicized. Though, the majority of Cyprus companies are already known to be controlled by Privat Group.
The ownership of Derling, Ltd. is also concealed. The founder of it is the company Sillingston Group, Inc. from St. Vincent and the Grenadines islands, which journalists have also connected to Privat.
Halychyna-Sugar, which specializes in legal activities, belongs to Ivano-Frankivsk native Tetyana Novikova. However, this company was previously owned by Oleksandr Shevchenko, former general director of tourist complex Bukovel and current MP. One more co-owner of Halychyna-Sugar is Vitaliy Kovalchuk, former director of the Ivano-Frankivsk airport, which since 2010, on a concession basis, has been managed by that same Skorzonera.
Kovalchuk is also the director and owner of Parktur, Ltd., which manages all of the major hotels of the resort located directly on the territory of tourist complex Bukovel: Shelter, Tavel, VIP-Residence, Bukovel and Edelweiss.
The “paper” owners of Parktur have changed from time to time. Until just recently, instead of Kovalchuk, the owner and director was Roman Rodzonyak. Today he represents Skorzonera during the construction of infrastructure objects in Ivano-Frankivsk.
One more twist at Bukovel – the hotel Radisson Blu Resort – is owned by Zirka Bukovel, Ltd., which is also controlled by Privat.
Radisson Blu Resort in Bukovel
The owner of Zirka Bukovel is Dnipropetrovsk company Insider, Ltd. and offshore Cyprus company Achillia Management Limited, which is registered to Cyprus citizen Simeon Panikos and JerseyIsland company Marigold Trust Company Limited. According to RBK, the beneficiaries of Marigold trust are partner of Ihor Kolomoyskiy and co-owner of Privat Group Hennadiy Boholyubov and members of his family. However, Insider, Ltd. is registered to offshore Cyprus company Fanttero Holdings Ltd., the latter of which recently appeared in a scheme for withdrawing foreign currency out of Privatbank.
Recently, in addition to the main hotels on the territory of the tourist complex, a new one, KrepDeShyn, was added, which is part of the network AlleCarte, which includes ZimaSnow in Polyanytsya and Pid Tempelem in Ivano-Frankivsk.
These hotels belong to the family of Ivano-Frankivsk notary Ihor Fris, an old friend of Oleksandr Shevchenko.
Ihor Fris and Oleksandr Shevchenko are old friends
Officially, the hotel belongs to the family of Ihor Fris – his daughter Regina Fris and mother Sofiya Fris. Judging from Facebook posts, the latter is actively involved in the restaurant business and manages the Tsymes family restaurant in the hotel Pid Tempelem.
Entertaining Bukovel
Besides the hotels on the territory of tourist complex Bukovel, there are many restaurants, fast food locations, a skiing school and companies that provide entertainment services.
The main entertainment operator in Bukovel is Ambikom, Ltd., which owns restaurants under the Carte-l brand: Lucky Bull, Veranda, Filvarok pub, Kukhel pub and the Buka entertainment center.
The largest share of Ambikom (47%) belongs to Viktor Shevchenko (brother of ex-general director of the tourist complex Oleksandr Shevchenko), Taras Dudnyak (29%), Volodymyr Chovhanyuk (16%), Ihor Voyanskiy (4%) and Taras and Serhiy Latyshevskiy (2% each).
Volodymyr Chovanyuk, by the way, also owns a number of cafes: Shelter, Tut-Food, Panorama-Bar and others.
The Lutsk restaurant network Grand Persona has Felichita pizzeria in Bukovel and restaurant Kurin in Polyanytsya. Kaiser restaurant on the territory of the tourist complex belongs to Chernivtsi residents Nataliya and Valentyn Vasylchuk.
Kaiser restaurant
Also in Bukovel there is the group of companies of private entrepreneurs and private individuals called Resort Management Group, which deals with attracting new ideas and providing investments to implement projects in the sphere of tourism services, recreation and entertainment. The director of this group, Andriy Pilleroa, owns 53% of private company Mandri-Hory (downhill skiing and snowboarding school). Another 18% belongs to Yulia Klyukova, a participant of the Winter Olympics in Nagano in 1998.
Last year in Bukovel an international children’s camp, Artek-Carpathians, started operating. Pilleroa is also a co-owner of it. In addition, as a private entrepreneur, he conducts activity at the spa center Oasis on the territory of tourist complex Bukovel.
“The Family” and Bukovel
Besides the officially lossmaking Skorzonera, the resort Bukovel and neighboring villages are actively developing. The most attractive is the village Polyanytsya on the territory of which Bukovel is located.
For example, in this village, at the end of 2013 they built one of the most expensive local hotels – 4-star Kyivan Rus. The hotel burned down already in October 2013. Local residents are sure that Kyivan Rus belonged to Oleksandr Yanukovych, a son of the ex-president.
Fire at the hotel Kyivan Rus
However, we found out that the hotel belonged to Valentyn Franchuk, former deputy head of National JSC Naftogaz of Ukraine, who was declared wanted in May 2014, and his brother Oleh Franchuk. Valentyn Franchuk was charged with the misappropriation and embezzlement of state property in very large sums.
According to information from OilNews, Franchuk managed to get into Naftogaz thanks to the “Family’s” quota by Serhiy Kurchenko, for whom he worked in recent years. In specialized circles, Franchuk is known for his long years of experience working in Privat Group. For a few years, he was a deputy head of the executive board of Ukrnafta. While working at Naftogaz, on behalf of the state, he was part of the supervisory board of state-owned companies that were controlled by Privat: Ukrnafta and Ukrtatnafta.
At the university, Franchuk studied in one class with Odesa governor Ihor Palytsa (who also worked at Ukrnafta) and Ukrtransnafta head Oleksandr Lazorko, another manager from Privat Group.
Oleh Franchuk, brother of the runaway official, not only did not try to run, but ran for MP in the Verkhovna Rada (unsuccessfully) during the last extraordinary election in 2014 in voting district 162 in Sumy.
Since October 5, 2014, Kyivan Rus has been closed for reconstruction, but at the moment no reconstruction work is noticeable. At the Polyanytsya Village Council, they told us that they are not aware of any plans regarding the reconstruction of the hotel.
Officially, the owner of the hotel is Paradis Servis, Ltd. This company, through Elma, Ltd. was owned by Tetyana and Nataliya Franchuk, until recently. Now, the owner of this entity is Czech company Zapadni Most S.R.O.
This Czech company owns Market 777, Ltd., which managed the hotel during the short period of its operation. Back in 2012, the owners of this company, through Paradis Plus 2008, Ltd., were Valentyn and Oleh Franchuk.
It looks like the Franchuks started to conceal their connection to the hotel in summer 2013. To do that, in July they purchased unknown Czech company Zapadni Most S.R.O. from Kyiv resident Hennadiy Zaychenko and Prague resident Oleksandr Bazarov. At that same time, according to the Czech registry of companies, the owner of Zapadni Most S.R.O. became Belize company Philux Management Ltd.
In the Czech register, it says that the owner of Zapadni Most S.R.O. changed in the middle of 2013
This Czech company became the owner of both Paradis and Market 777, which are directly owned and managed by Kyivan Rus.
There is more evidence that runaway Valentyn Franchuk and his brother maintain control over these companies: while running for parliament, Oleh Franchuk said that his workplace was Paradis Servis, Ltd and the director for many years of Franchuk, Iryna Troms, was his power of attorney agent. Another power of attorney agent for the candidate was Mykola Nevtrynis, an employee of Market 777.
By the way, because of the fire in the hotel, Paradis Servis did not return to Ukrhazbank a UAH 20.5 million loan. But the hotel was insured, which is why recently a court decided that this money should be returned to the bank by insurance company Ukrainian Insurance House.
The Franchuk brothers also control the Kyivan Rus hotel in Skhidnytsya, which is the most expensive hotel in that small, but popular mineral water resort in Lviv oblast.
Yanukovych’s guard
Vyacheslav Zanevskiy, who in 2010-2012 was a personal guard of ex-president Viktor Yanuykovych, was also planning to build a hotel in Bukovel. In October 2014, his company received permission from the Architectural-Construction Inspectorate to start construction work.
Amstel-Ski, Ltd. was registered at an address in Ivano-Frankivsk on January 22, 2014. The main type of activity of this company was stated as “hotels.” According to the single state registry, Zanevskiy is the sole owner and his contribution to the statutory fund was UAH 2.5 million.
However, it is unclear when this hotel will be built. Svitlana Savchuk, director of Amstel-Ski, said that because of the complicated situation in the country, construction has not started. However, in general, they are not cancelling these plans.
All of Ukraine is under construction
In Polyanytsya village, in 2014 alone, the Architectural Construction Inspectorate allowed the construction of 20 new tourism infrastructure objects, not including residential buildings.
Hotels and private mansions are owned by local residents and owners from all over Ukraine. Even Skorzonera operates with private individuals. For example, hotel Vhorakhotel is owned by Skorzonera and Lutsk businessman Vitaliy Brovin (in different shares).
The latter also owns the hotel Ra. Private company Karpaty and private company Ra Plus, which developed it, were founded by Halyna Romanyk and Oleksandr and Tetyana Arkushyn in Lutsk.
Mykhailo Hrosulyak, who is the owner of popular Ternopil restaurant Stariy Mlin, owns the Hrybova Khata hotel in Bukovel.
Hrybova Khata hotel has no less whimsical appearance than the Stariy Mlin restaurant
One more former Ternopil resident, who now lives in Ivano-Frankivsk, Taras Tustanivskiy, owns the Bukovel hotel Stara Pravda.
Roman Shuvalskiy, member of the Snyatyn Regional Council (Ivano-Frankivsk oblast) from the Front of Change party, owns the Zakhid cottage complex. He is also the co-owner of the Zakhid credit union, additional liability company Khotyn Cheese Plant, Zakhid-Farm, Ltd. (producer of pharmaceutical products), and Zakhid, Ltd. (trader of automobiles).
The wife of the head of the communal enterprise T.H. Shevchenko Central Park of Cultural and Recreation in Chernivtsi, Yeheniya Venhrynyuk, manages the hotel Yasenets.
Co-owner of Audi-Center Ltd. and Lviv resident Nataliy Harmata has the hotel Laplandiya. Odesa resident Iryna Herutska called her hotel Shale MarSo in honor of her daugthers.
Other noticeable hotels in the village Polyanytsya
Hotel / About the owner1 / Carpathian Magic / Ihor Vasylovych Havryshuk, private entrepreneur from Ivano-Frankivsk
2 / Chervona Ruta / Tetyana Vasylivna Maryshuk, 40-years-old, Ivano-Frankivsk. Private entrepreneur since the end of 2007, was a co-owner of Ukrnaftohazcomplekt, Ltd. and Aksis Plus, Ltd. Works as a teacher in the department of design and art theory of the V. Stefanyk Prykarpatskiy National University.
3 / Zakhid Cottage Complex / Roman Bohdanovych Shuvalskiy, 48-years-old, member of the Snyatyn Regional Council. Co-owner of the Zakhid credit union, additional liability company Khotyn Cheese Plant, Zakhid-Farm, Ltd. (producer of pharmaceutical products), and Zakhid, Ltd. (trader of automobiles).
4 / Monysto / OlehVasylovychMiroshnyk, cityofNadvirna. Registered as an entrepreneur at the end of 2013
5 / Laplandiya / Nataliya Olehivna Harmata, Lviv. Co-owner of Audi-Center-Lviv Ltd.. Also owns 100% of private company Perlyna Prykarpattya.
6 / Dovbushanka / Vitaliy Yusypovych Panchak, 24-years-old, Ivano-Frankivsk.
7 / Yasenets / Yevheniya Petrivna Venhrynyuk, 52-years-old, Chernivtsi.
Her husband, Yuriy Zakhariyovych Venhrynyuk, is head of the communal enterprise T.H. Shevchenko Central Park of Cultural and Recreation in Chernivtsi.
8 / Krucha / IhorRomanovych Shul, 53-years-old, village Pidovolovchysk (Ternopil oblast). He was the co-owner of Paradiz, Ltd., which was involved in trade, but has since terminated activities.
9 / Perlyna Karpat / Yuriy Ivanovych Klapkiv, Ivano-Frankivsk. No other businesses.
10 / Synya Hora / Roman Romanovych Kulyk, 58-years-old, Ternopil. Co-owner of Ostap-T, Ltd. and Limo-Plus, Ltd. (main activity is hunting)
11 / Bereh / Yerdzhanyk Arshamivna Vardanyan, Yaremche
12 / Marilen / MariyaIvanivnaHerychandVasylYuriyovychHerych, Zakarpattyaoblast
13 / Royal Village Resort / Part of Royal Hospitality Group, which manages hotels all over Ukraine. The owner of Royal Hospitality Group, Ltd. is Yaroslav Podolyak. In the 2012 parliamentery election, Oleksiy Ivchenko said in his biography that he was the head of the board of directors of Royal Hospitality Group.
14 / ZimaSnow / Accordingtoinformationonthewebsiteofthehotel, itsactivitiesareconductedbyatleastthreebusinesspeoplefromIvano-Frankivsk: RehinaIhorivnaFris, HryhoriyVasylovychMakulovychandAnnaMykhailivnaPodolyanko. Besides, there is a registered union of co-owners of individual resort house ZimaSnow, the founders of which were Olha Arsen and Sofiya Fris.
15 / Marmaros / VasylMykhailovychKavlak, villageofDrahomyr (Ivano-Frankivskoblast). Businessman, previously co-owner of Enerhoprombudmontazh-1, Ltd. Now co-owner of Plus and Minus, Ltd. (construction of residential and non-residential buildings).
16 / UrochyshcheVyshnyaandGrazhda / Valentyna Yosypivna Romanovych and Vasyl Vasylovych Romanovych, Ternopil
17 / Park Hotel Fomich / Fomich, Ltd., whichisownedbyVasylYatsenyukandSerhiyHlushchak
18 / Zatyshok nad Prutom / Vasyl Vasylovych Symak, Polyanytsya. Registered as a private entrepreneur in December 2013
19 / RA (hotel and restaurant) / PrivatecompanyKarpatyandprivatecompanyRAPlus.Halyna Stepanivna Romanyuk, 50-years-old from Lutsk, is a co-owner of both of these companies. The other co-owners of Karpaty are Oleksandr Yevhenovych Arkushyn and Dmytro Vasylovych Verbitskiy. 50% ofRAPlus is owned by Tetyana Vasylivna Arkushina. In the local restaurant, the bills are charged under the name Lesya Ivanivna Zvizdaryuk.
20 / TerKon-Tour / Anatoliy Teofilovych Saska, Ternopil. Owner of TerKon, Ltd. oblast social service center
21 / Pidhir’ya / Vasyl Ivanovych Smykalo
22 / Marina / Vasyl Ivanovych Kalynych
23 / Vhorakhotel / GrandPersonaLtd. – Bukovel, whichiscontrolledbySkorzoneraLtd. andVitaliyBrovin
24 / ShaleMarSo / IrynaValeriyivnaHerutska, 39years-old, Odesa
25 / Belvedere / VolodymyrBodyan, Chernivtsioblast
26 / Torba / Stepan Korniyovych Bohaychuk, Lyubov Mykhailivna, Chernivtsi
This publication was prepared with the support of Danish project SCOOP