Yesterday, we went to the ex-presidential residency. this is a huge compound outside of kiev. unofficially, it occupies 170 hectares of land. it includes a palace, well, house, heli-pad, golf course, park, floating restaurant, a zoo. the territory was occupied the day after the ex-president fled the country, on February 22nd 2014. the people who occupied it pretty much still run it, maintain it, guard it. they also give tours. it rained, so the walk through the park was rather wet. the park is beautiful, well maintained. the chill and serenity reminded me of wandering through Berlin in the fall. we to the president's bathhouse (sauna), which has a 3-D jacuzzi. then, after waiting for the main house tour, we finally get in. there is a large group of people on the tour, it gets a bit cluster-fuck-like at times, trying to fit through narrow doorways. the man leading the tour is the one who a year and a half ago stormed the residence. he is short, wears soft traditional slippers and is draped in the right sector flag (nationalist party). he talks about the events of occupying this place, what they found, how the defended it then and continue to defend, squatting there now. he hasnt left since the invasion; stayed because he felt like he needed to protect it from looters, and there have been many. he talks about looters coming in at night, secretly, and officials coming in during the day, more officially, all trying to loot, steal, and remove whatever valuable was initially unmoved. the man has the keys to all the rooms, he knows where the secret passageways are, he is the one who hid many valuables initially left behind by owners in their flights. he has made lists of everything that was left, he guards the space, waters the plants, and also gives out tours, while waiting for the government, or a private organization to decide what to do next. it would be a shame, he feels, to destroy this, the house continues to live--there are plants that need to be waters, furniture, and pillows that need to be dusted. and because it was never officially claimed by the government, the ownership of this place remains unclear.
the house is ridiculous. millions of Euros poured into a mansion, stupidly, for no reason other than there was money to be wasted. gold on gold, handcrafted wood on wood. we walk through marble rooms, snake-skin furniture, pearl shell floor vases. there is a dining room table that costs 100,000 Euro. one of the guys in the group asked me if i ever felt 100,000 Euro. no. we gently pet the dining room table together. there is a white grand piano autographed by john lennon. there are silk rugs, and hand-made chandeliers, crystal, silk, money everywhere. half of this stuff the ex-president has never seen or used, half of it he overpaid for, with his personnel pocketing the difference. the decor is not tasteful, rather, it is in the taste of money: wherever we can dumb more cash into, whatever costs more, is more flashy. the presidential palace in tajikistan, equally unnecessarily stupid, was at least open to the public, made as an official governmental structure. this is all private, just for one person. 1700 people worked there daily. more than half of it security. the lake on the bottom of the property was guarded, reportedly, by submarines. people were not allowed to use large surfaces of the water-space for fear of assassination. now all of this stands still, people who work there, who occupy and care for the space, do it out of their own will, charging money from visitors for both upkeep and their own food supplies. it is unclear what will happen to this place. technically, its owner remains alive and at large, somewhere in russia. he may claim it back, some private owner may claim to for himself. maybe the government will step in and claim the park for public use. what will happen with the house, the inside decor, remains unclear.
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