Grabber from the Lviv Regional Council Hanushchyn: plots, apartments and schemes of seizure

Grabber from the Lviv Regional Council Hanushchyn: plots, apartments and schemes of seizure

Nadiya Tomynets, 72, lives in the small mountain village of Borynya and still works as an infectious disease specialist at the local hospital. According to state registers, she is a very wealthy woman.  Over the past two years alone, the village doctor has become the owner of seven plots in the Carpathians with a total area of 8.3 hectares - including almost five hectares of land in the vicinity of the Tustan fortress, an ancient Russian landmark around which the tourism business is actively developing.

Ms Tomynets did not suddenly become wealthy, NGL.media writes. She used to own two apartments on Shevchenko Avenue in the centre of Lviv. At least one of these apartments has been rented by the Civic Position party since 2016.

In May 2021, Nadiya Tomynets presented these apartments to her daughter Solomiya, the wife of the former head of the Lviv Regional Council, Oleksandr Hanushchyn. This was not her first luxury gift - earlier, her mother gave Solomiya a house with several plots in Bryukhovychi, a prestigious suburb of Lviv.

Nestor Tomynets, 76, a former director of a music school in Boryn, is no less generous than his wife, who a few years ago gave Solomiya three apartments in the Lviv residential complex "Velyka Britanniya" near the centre of Lviv.

“I’ve been working all my life! I work as a doctor and work on the earth! And a 17-year-old man in Portugal was working! Do I really not have the right to purchase these plots? And if you are a journalist, then investigate where billions are stolen, where ten houses and ten cars are stolen, where weapons are stolen! – Nadezhda Tominets reacted emotionally to NGL.media’s request to explain the origin of this property. – Are you asking me, a rural doctor who has worked for 50 years and is still working? You have no conscience! I don’t want to talk to you anymore."

Sites and schemes

Judging by the documents, at least for land plots in the Carpathians, Nadiya Tomynets could really save money. She paid only UAH 227,000 for five plots with a total area of 4.8 hectares in the vicinity of Tustan, a popular tourist destination.

The previous owners of at least two of these plots were ATO participants. One of them, 43-year-old Lviv resident Serhiy Ditkivsky, frankly said that he had never seen the 1.2-hectare plot, which was provided to him free of charge by Skole City Council.

"There was a situation when I really needed money," he told NGL.media, "I was offered three thousand dollars. I gave them my documents. I can’t remember the name of the person, I’m not at home, I’ll have to look up the documents. But I have not seen the land plot with my own eyes."

Three more plots near the ancient Russian fortress of Tustan, which ended up being owned by Hanushchyn’s mother-in-law, were also allocated free of charge by the Skole City Council to non-local villagers. For example, a 69-year-old resident of Chernihiv, Oleksandr Zhohalko, received two hectares in Urych and a year later officially resold it to his mother-in-law, Hanushchyn, for UAH 49,000. Two more plots were given to residents of the villages of Chapli and Rainova, located 65 km from Urych.

Good friends

Theoretically, any citizen of Ukraine can receive free up to two hectares of land for agriculture anywhere in the country. To do this, you just need to submit a corresponding application to the local government body that owns the site you like. In practice, not a single village or city council will simply give you land. It’s another matter if you have good friends.

In general, in all of the above cases, when approving the allocation of land, the Skole City Council acted unusually quickly.

As the head of the Lviv Regional Council in 2015-2020, Oleksandr Hanushchyn is obviously well acquainted with the heads of many communities. However, he has developed a particularly trusting relationship with the mayor of Skole, Mykola Romanyshyn, a former close employee of his told NGL.media. These words are confirmed not only by their joint photos on social media - for example, in July 2019, Hanushchyn and his wife were guests of honour at the wedding of Romanyshyn’s daughter.

It is Romanishyn’s signature that stands on the decisions of the Skole City Council on the free allocation of land in Urych, which eventually ended up in the ownership of Hanushchyn’s mother-in-law.

It is interesting that the cost of all plots in the sales contracts is indicated in the range of 40-49 thousand UAH. each - and does not correlate in any way with the area of the plots. At the same time, in the same contracts, the estimated value of most plots is much higher - some of them are valued at UAH 116 thousand, UAH 357 thousand, and UAH 405 thousand.

The real value of land in this area is much higher. The plots currently up for sale are priced in the range of $450-$1,000 per acre, depending on the area and location. That is, according to the minimum estimate, the total cost of these five plots in Urich is about 8.5 million UAH.

Oleksandr Hanuschyn with his wife Solomiya (nee Tomynets), March 2023

One possible explanation for why none of the sellers noticed that they were selling the plots 5-10 times cheaper than even the appraised value could be the figure of 48-year-old Ivan Zahorodnyk, the official representative of their interests.

We were not able to talk to all the sellers, but we know from the documents that all of them, like Serhiy Ditkivsky, were not present when the land sale agreements were concluded. Ivan Zahorodnyk represented their interests at the notary on the basis of a power of attorney. He is a member of the Khyriv City Council, and his brother Andriy Zahorodnyk was once an assistant to Oleksandr Hanushchyn as a member of the Lviv Regional Council in 2010-2015.

Ivan Zahorodnyk did not want to explain his role in buying up land for Hanushchyn’s mother-in-law, telling NGL.media that "we need to let the lawyer speak".

Oleksandr Hanushchyn himself did not want to explain this either, although he confirmed that he knew Ivan Zahorodnyk. "Buying and selling land in a way permitted by law is not punishable in Ukraine. If my mother did this, then honour and praise to her for finding the strength to buy the land," he said.

Marriage contract

Oleksandr Hanushchyn, 45, has spent almost all of his adult life in politics and public service. Starting out as an assistant to an MP at the age of 25, he was elected to the Lviv Regional Council for the first time three years later, and became its chairman at 37. He has never been involved in business and declared a modest lifestyle, but as a politician he skilfully used all the opportunities for self-promotion.

What is Hanushchyn doing now?

Oleksandr Hanushchyn was the head of the Lviv Regional Council in 2015-2020 and could have remained the head of the Lviv Regional Council, having been re-elected in 2020 as a member of the European Solidarity party, but lost the support of the party leadership. As a result, he remained an ordinary member of the regional council and began to publicly criticise the party’s activities at the local level.

After the Russian invasion in 2022, Oleksandr Hanushchyn became one of the few members of the regional council who enlisted in the territorial defence and is now a major in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. At the same time, he remains one of the most active members of the regional council.

According to the documents, Oleksandr Hanushchyn owns only his parents’ old house with a small plot of land in Rakhiv, Zakarpattia, which he inherited in March 2021.

His wife, on the other hand, owns numerous properties received as gifts from her parents. In a conversation with NGL.media, Hanushchyn rejected speculation that he was involved in the acquisition of this property. "I have a prenuptial agreement with my wife. The number one clause of this contract is that my wife and her parents, whom I love very much, are absolutely financially independent people and do not need any help from me."

It is impossible today to estimate the real financial income of the ex-chairman of the Lviv Regional Council from open sources - his latest declarations are hidden due to his status as a military man. The latter is described in the media by his declaration for 2020. According to him, four years ago his annual income was UAH 635.3 thousand - this was the salary of the chairman of the Lviv Regional Council. In the same year, his wife Salome Ganushchyna declared only 21.3 thousand UAH of income for the year.

For many years, the Hanushchyn family has lived in a 367.7 m2 house in the village of Bryukhovychi near Lviv. This house, along with the land plot, officially belongs to Solomiya Hanushchyn and her children. When journalists became interested in this house, Oleksandr Hanushchyn claimed that it was a "gift from his parents". However, he never explained whose parents it was and whether they could afford such a gift. As of 2012, realtors interviewed by journalists estimated the house at UAH 2 million.

Gifted family

Gifts are the only explanation Hanushchyn can give for her numerous properties. For example, in addition to the house in Bryukhovychi, Solomiya Hanushchyn also owns three apartments in the Lviv residential complex Velyka Britannia. Officially, these apartments were given to her by her father, Nestor Tomynets. However, he did not even come to Lviv to register the gift with a notary - Oleksandr Hanushchyn signed the deeds on his behalf under a power of attorney.

Nestor Tomynets, 76, was once the director of a music school in the village of Borynia. Later, according to his wife, he "spent 17 years working in Portugal". She refused to say what he did there and how much he earned. Neither could Oleksandr Hanushchyn, who only told NGL.media that his father-in-law "was a good musician and did something else in Portugal". Now Nestor Tomynets lives separately from his wife in the neighbouring village of Zarichchia in a hut with a living area of 17.5 m2 .

Oleksandr Hanushchyn told NGL.media that his father-in-law bought apartments in the UK residential complex on his advice to invest his earnings in Portugal, and at the construction stage in 2012. Despite the fact that this residential complex was commissioned only in 2019, one could only envy Hanushchyn’s foresight if his words did not turn out to be an outright lie.

Thanks to a detailed extract from the real estate register, NGL.media found out that Nestor Tomynets did not invest his money in these apartments, but received them as a gift on 31 December 2020 from 67-year-old Lviv resident Daria Tchaikovska. Unfortunately, the journalists were unable to speak to her; it is only known that she worked at the Electron plant before retiring.

Today, the cost of apartments in the residential complex starts from UAH 50 thousand per m2. However, Nestor Tomynets also valued the three apartments he gave to his daughter with a total area of 135 m2 at UAH 552 thousand. One parking space in this building, which Solomiya Hanushchyn has recently purchased on her own, cost her UAH 150 thousand.

Another much larger apartment of 120 m2 in another Lviv residential complex, 5th Avenue, belongs to her mother, Nadiya Tomynets. She inherited it quite recently - at the end of last year, after the death of her 90-year-old mother, Sofia Yartym, who had lived all her life in the small village of Ropavske near Boryn. Two years before her death, she allegedly invested UAH 1.9 million in this residential complex. Today, the market value of this apartment has increased to UAH 4.9 million.

However, it is unlikely that the 72-year-old village doctor will be able to take full advantage of this inheritance, even though Oleksandr Hanushchyn calls her "mum".